The Politics of Palestinian Demography
2009; Middle East Forum; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2767-049X
Autores Tópico(s)Health and Conflict Studies
ResumoPublished in the Spring 2009 Middle East Quarterly, pp. 51-59. With every generation, it seems, new demographic panic strikes Israel. Opening the Israeli Knesset (parliament) on October 8, 2007, after the Jewish New Year, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of a demographic battle, drowned in blood and tears, if Israel did not make territorial concessions.1 As new administration in Washington seeks to revive the peace process, the demographic question has again moved front and center. Citing Israel's eroding demographic position, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen urged Secretary of Statedesignate Hillary Clinton to try tough love to force Israeli concessions.2 Proponents of the argument that demography mandates concessions might be sincere, but they get the science wrong. Not only does demography not show an imminent Jewish minority in Israel, but even cursory look at Palestinian numbers shows just how false and politically motivated recent Palestinian surveys are. On February 9, 2008, Luay Shabaneh, the new president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), published the results of December 2007 Palestinian Authority population census.3 According to the new data, since 1997, the Arab population has increased to 1,460,000 in the Gaza Strip and 2,300,000 in the West Bank (including 208,000 in East Jerusalem) to total of 3,760,000 people - an increase of 30 percent in one decade. East Jerusalem is under Israel's administration, but the Palestinian Authority nevertheless counts its Arab population as part of the territory it administers. Thus, the East Jerusalem Arabs are double-counted: once as part of the Arab population of Israel, and again as part of the population of the Palestinian Authority. The 30 percent population increase again caused renewed demographic panic in Israel. According to BBC news report, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said that failure to negotiate two-state solution with the Palestinians would bring the end of the State of Israel.4 But unlike what had happened during previous demographic panics, Israeli experts began to raise serious questions about the accuracy of the census. Such questions had been long time in coming: Most of the middle- and long-term demographic forecasts for Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip - formulated by demographers over the last 110 years - have turned out to be unsound, often dramatically so. This is due to the fact that long-term military, political, economic, and social changes in the region particularly, and in the world in general, cannot be accurately predicted; what is presented with patina of scientific legitimacy is often simply someone's best guess. Added to this problem is more troublesome one: Population statistics and birth rates play such an important role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - from the way that foreign aid is allocated to Israel's decision to hold or relinquish territory - that those attempting to manipulate the perceptions of both the public and policymakers are irresistibly drawn to the field. Those who questioned the new Palestinian census were correct: The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics' demographic data arrived at its data not through objective scientific inquiry but rather by overstating the size of the Arab population residing in the territories administered by the Palestinian Authority. The History of Demographic Forecasts In March 1898 letter, the famous Jewish historian, Simon Dubnow, criticized Zionist ideas, writing, During seventeen years of tense work to encourage substantial emigration, after the expense of vast means and with the help of millions donated by Rothschild, we managed to place on the land of Palestine only about 3,600 settlers, which makes up approximately 2 1 1 people per year. Let us allow that the Western Zionist committees will work with significantly larger capitals and energy and will move to Palestine not two hundred, but one thousand settlers annually . …
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