WILL A RETREAT FROM GEOGRAPHY SECURE ISRAEL's DEMOGRAPHY?
by Yoram Ettinger
Ma'ariv - March 8, 2006
OBSERVATION
The willingness of Israel's Center and Right to consider a retreat from Geography (Gaza, Judea & Samaria), in order to secure Demography (Jewish majority), has been based on the fatalistic assumption that the Jewish population is destined to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
FAILURE OF PAST DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS
Demographic fatalism was employed by opponents of Jewish leaders, such as Theodore Herzl, David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol. For instance, in 1900 Herzl was urged by a leading Jewish historian-demographer, Shimon Doubnov, to refrain from the Zionist voyage, since by the year 2000 "Jews will be a minority of 500,000 west of the Jordan River side by side with millions of Arabs." However, by 2000 the Jewish population west of the Jordan River reached some 5 million! In 1948 Prime Minister Ben Gurion was lobbied by the leading Israeli statistician-demographer, Prof. Roberto Bacchi, to postpone declaration of independence, because by 1967 Jews would supposedly become a minority within the 1947 Lines.
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