The Lost Tribes of Israel
As Israel enters its 61st year, Israelis may look back with pride. Yet, the realists among them must also look forward with foreboding.
Israel is a modern democracy with the highest standard of living in the Middle East. In the high-tech industries of the future, she is in the first rank. From a nation of fewer than a million in 1948, Israel's population has grown to 7 million. In seven wars—the 1948 War of Independence, the Sinai invasion of 1956, the Six-Day War of 1967, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and the Lebanon wars of 1982 and 2006—Israel has prevailed, though some of these wars were, as Wellington said of Waterloo, "a damn near-run thing."
Israel has revived Hebrew, created a new currency, immersed her children in the history, ancient and modern, of her people, and established a homeland for Jews from all over the world, millions of whom have migrated there to settle. Israel is now home to the largest concentration of Jews anywhere on earth.
Here, however, we come to the heart of the existential crisis.
Israel became home to the largest Jewish population on earth in part because American Jews in the 1990s fell in number from 5.5 million to 5.2 million, a loss of 300,000, or 6 percent of the U.S. Jewish population.
According to Charles Krauthammer, by 2050, the U.S. Jewish population will have shrunk another 50 percent to 2.5 million. American Jews are slowly vanishing. How and why is this happening?
It is the collective decision of American Jews themselves, who have led the battles for birth control and a woman's right to choose.
As Jews were roughly 2 percent of the U.S. population from Roe v. Wade to today, perhaps 2 percent of the 50 million legal abortions since Roe were likely performed on Jewish girls or women, resulting in 1 million lost members of the Jewish community in 35 years.
And if demography is destiny, Israel's future, too, appears grim.
As former Ambassador Zalman Shoval writes, Israel's population of 7 million is 80 percent Jewish. But the Palestinian population of Israel has risen to 20 percent and is growing much faster.
One Israel blogger, using Shoval's totals, writes that among the Israeli population between 1 and 4 years old, roughly 30 percent is Arab. The future of Israel is thus increasingly Arab and less Jewish.
According to the United Nations, by 2050, Israel will have 10 million people.
By then, the Arab population, at present birth rates, is likely to be close to 30 percent of the Israeli population. On the West Bank and Gaza, today's 4 million Arabs are to explode to 10 million, far outstripping the growth in Israel. Jordan's population of 5 million, 60 percent Palestinian, will also double to 10 million.
Thus, not even counting Palestinians in Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the Gulf states, Israel's 7 million to 8 million Jews in 2050 will be living with 13 million Palestinians in Israel, Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. If Israel is to survive as a Jewish state, a separate and independent Palestinian state would seem an imperative.
Yet, as Israelis continue to build outposts and expand and add settlements, the possibility of a Palestinian state recedes. Indeed, many Israelis, seeing what an end to the occupation produced in Gaza, refuse to consider any pullout at all from the West Bank.
Such a policy of holding on and digging in is sometimes the best one—but only if time is on one's side. Is time on Israel's side?
According to the world population statistics from the National Policy Institute, the worldwide Arabic population in 1950 was only 94 million, less than 4 percent of the world population. But by 2050, it will be 700 million, 7 percent of a world population of almost 10 billion.
According to U.N. population experts, Lebanon's population will grow to 5 million in 2050, but Syria's will almost double from today's 20 million to 34 million. The population of Saudi Arabia will rise from 24 million to 45 million. Egypt will grow by more than 50 million to 121 million Egyptians by 2050. The Islamic Republic of Iran, 71 million today, is expected to reach 100 million at mid-century.
And, demography aside, the Islamic faith of Israel's neighbors is becoming militant. Hamas now controls Gaza. Hezbollah now controls Southern Lebanon and is becoming the power in Beirut. While Egypt is headed by a pro-American autocrat, the principal rival for power is the widely popular Muslim Brotherhood.
Those who do not like the Saudi monarchy should consider what is likely to rise in its place, should the House of Saud fall. The same is true of the Jordanian and Moroccan monarchies, and the sheikdoms, emirates and sultanates of the Persian Gulf.
In any struggle of generations, the critical question is often: Whose side is time on? As President Bush celebrates Israel's 60th birthday, and is celebrated in turn as Israel's best friend ever, it is a fair question to ask.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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Fertility is falling in the Moslem world as well. Iran is already below long term replacement level. So in the long run, demographics may not be as damaging to Israel as Pat Buchanan supposes. In the short and medium term they have nuclear weapons - theirs and maybe ours as well. No doubt they would probably get some ruinous fallout from using nuclear weapons against their enemies, but I suppose that's why Seymour Hersh titled his book on the Israeli nuclear bomb "The Samson Option".
In the end, "Israel" will fail for the same reason(s) Cuba is a failure. Their "sugar daddy" will collapse, leaving them to fend for themselves in an hostile environment. The [scary] difference is the failure that was "Israel" will possess nuclear weapons, surrounded by enemies.
One word: blowback.
America's support and propping-up of "Israel" will eventually blow up in it's face, and it will be powerless to stop the destruction. The more "Israel" is subsidized, the worse the problem will be in the future.
Remember: socialist government planning is disastrous in the long run, and there aren't many governments more socialist than the USA and "Israel", especially how they are combined at the hip.
Kirt Higdon's comments are perceptive and correct.Additionally,the Jewish birthrate will probably rise as the Orthodox inevitably overtake more secular putative Jews.Finally...please...nothing in recent history indicates muslims can defeat Israel in any conflict.I hold no brief for Israel and we must be vigilant of the "Israel lobby" as any lobby but gosh you have to respect the way they ruthlessly smack around their muslim enemies.If you have a problem with what I just said,go read the Koran on the "Jewish question".
I've never understood why Jews think that the way to maximize their security is to concentrate themselves in the middle of hundreds of millions of anti-Jewish muslims and arabs. Currently, a few well-placed nukes would reproduce the Holocaust in the space of a few minutes. Any rational Israeli Jews would best migrate to the US, and disperse themselves widely across the continent.
Well,Jack,they believe that Israel is their home.That doesn't make sense to you and that's a legitimate opinion on your part.Someday according to what I'm told about my home-America-I'll be surrounded by many millions of hostile anti-American interlopers in the not so distant future...talking about a place called Aztlan and saying I need to go back to Europe.But you know,Jack,I think I 'm going to stay and fight because I have this irrational idea that it is honorable thing to be buried in one's homeland.
#3 @ Leo
nothing in recent history indicates muslims can defeat Israel in any conflict.
Leo, I do believe that Israel's most recent venture into Lebanon to "take out Hezbollah once and for all" turned out to be pathetically embarassing for this supposedly first rate military power. Believe me, this is the first of many more failures. Just as it is for us in the US.
Apparently the highest birth rate in the Arab world is the Gaza Strip.
I couldn't find it in a quick Gooling, but a study a couple of years ago suggested that these figures are suspect--Arabs have been emigrating, and their birth rates declining somewhat.
All these demographic projections assume that population trends will continue in a linear manner. This seems unlikely.
Further, is a regional war likely in the next 25 years. If it happens, borders may change and populations may shift or be forced to do so, as were the Yemenis in Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians of Kuwait and then iraq.
That said, PB is not wrong, necessarily, but there's more that needs to be taken into account.
I heard that in Israel you can get a 5 year prison sentence for trying to convert Jews to Christianity. I know for a fact that they have race laws like the priest class of Jewry Cohen is not allowed to marry a jew of whos family is of non jewish descent.
Actually Israel started the 67 war by blowing up an Egyption airstrip and getting the Soviet Union to promise the Arab military support that never came.
You are conveniently messing this issue up in a great way, Mr. Buchanan. It has never been a number of people that determines and assumes the final count. It is the quality, the unity and courage and READINESS of Israelis and Jews all over the world that has and WILL by far outstripped and outdone the Bedouin like style of of Arabs, their thinking and their functional behaviour and therefore the number of Arabs will hardly have any impact whatsoever on the power and might in the Region. Au contraire!
#7 Dragan
This may seem hard to believe, but the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are all on welfare.
Here is John Derbyshire's column on the Palestinians in general where he mentions the flow of UN welfare to the occupied territories:
http://www.olimu.com/webjournalism/2002/Texts/Palestinians.htm
I forgot to include the updated link to the UN refugee works agency website:
http://www.un.org/unrwa/overview/index.html
The link Derbyshire provides in the article is outdated.
I'm glad Pat posted this about Israel.
Its a small country (couple million) in the Middle East that always gets overlooked.
Kirt Higdon at #1 seems more reasonable than Buchanan. Buchanan apparently assumes that demographic trends will stay the same for the indefinite future and that the results of such trends are easy to predict. That is the same type of fatalistic reasoning that fed the overpopulation myth.
The Middle East is already short of both food and water. Where are all those mouths that Pat expects to be born there going to get enough to eat and drink? Sooner or later, Malthus starts looking prophetic.
Leo, wouldn't you argue the difference is that America was established by natives (the old sense of the word, not the PC one) in 1776 and Israel imposed by outsiders just 60 years ago? Plus I'd think the Palestinians might have a much better claim to their former lands than the Mexicans do to what really they have little claim too? The SW's natives ( the PC sense of the word here) are still there: the Hopi, Pueblos who ran the Spanish out until non-native (both senses of the word now) flowed up from Mexico in the modern period. Aztlan was never there to begin with.
If the US and the world "gets off oil" the Middle East will not be able to feed itself, so unless we feed it (we should not), the predictions of a demographic explosion might fail to happen.
Its as simple as this folks, find our own oil, get off their oil, and watch Islam implode back to poverty. We made the middle east in petro dollars, and we can break it by holding back those dollars.
Israel has a real economy, unlike many of the other countries in that region which merely pump black water beneath their feet.
Israel's demographics actually look a lot healthier (for them) than do those of the USA or much of Europe.
The Chicken Run has begun, and this might change Israel from a functioning country into another clown facist show with nukes. There is much to laud Israel for, yet its supporters baked the poison into the cake decades ago and everday Israel loses out to those poisons. Too bad, but if the whole world is your "Postville" then balance will be restored, eventually.
Charles,you could make that argument,I agree.From the perspective of the Palestinians the claim of the Jews is akin to the claim of the Etruscans (that is their purported ancestors) to Rome.I just believe that the great majority of Jews are going to fight to the bitter end-if it came down to that.I think Jack was being rational.I just happen to believe that some of best decisions you can make can be irrational.And successful for reasons we'll not fathom in this life.Perhaps if the Afrikaners had been a bit more irrational(or remained a bit more irrational) they would be a nation today instead of people on the run.If being "reasonable" means giving up your land,I'd rather be unreasonable.
Daniel,you make an excellent observation.No one can deny that the confrontation was a disappointment to expectations.But in the end it was a political defeat,not really a military defeat.Israel's strategic blunder was its arrogant failure to ally with Lebanese anti-Shia factions.This blunder particularily alienated potential Christian and Druze allies. Instead Israel engaged in a sloppy bombing campaign that angered everybody.
D Simmons,in all due respect,the Chicken Run(I believe this is a Rhodesian reference?) has been on and off for decades in Israel.There were Chicken Runs in the 50s,60s,70s,80s,90s and of course today. It actually results in a hardening of the country's politics as secular and marginally Zionist Jews flee the country.I'm not sure what a "clown fascist show with nukes" is.I live in a clown "democracy" with nukes governed by an executive with powers any king would envy and wherein any democratic choice is only possible if the Nine Unelected Solons believe it is in the interest of the elite.Fascism?Where can we get some.Might be populist.
"I heard that in Israel you can get a 5 year prison sentence for trying to convert Jews to Christianity. I know for a fact that they have race laws like the priest class of Jewry Cohen is not allowed to marry a jew of whos family is of non jewish descent. "
Your hearing voices in your head or listening to liars.
Non-voluntary non-paid converting of people is perfectly legal. Only paying people to convert or evangelizing minors is illegal. And this is true for Bahai, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Samaritans.
Kohanim don't have any special rules in the Third Israeli Commonwealth. However, from the perspective of Jewish law, a Kohen can only marry certain types of women for the children to be priests.
"Actually Israel started the 67 war by blowing up an Egyption airstrip and getting the Soviet Union to promise the Arab military support that never came."
Wow, is that backwards. The United Arab Republic began the war by shelling Israel and blockading it. They did so with Soviet pressure as the Soviets had lied and said that Israel mobilized for war in early May. Fortunately the Soviet-Arab side were stupid enough to commit actsw of war, and call for a war of genocide, before being fully mobilized and haveing a unified command structure.
Pat's demographic argument is partially true. This is one reason why few Israelis were against giving up Gaza. However the UNRWA figures for the West Bank and Jersualem are off by a fact of 50%. They keep double counting Arabs that live in Jerusalem (Israeli Arabs and PAlestinians) and those WEst Bank Arabs who work in Israel. Of course given that the UNRWA is essentially run by the Arabs, this is a given.
PS. The Original population arguement is a wash, unless you think that Slavic Muslims, Albanians, Cherkas (Circassians) and Arabs who migrated to "Palestine" in greater numbers than JEws from 1890-1945 are natives.
PPS. As a settler nation, why should we Americans, especially so-called consevatives commenting here, use Third Worldist arguements?