![]() Samaria alone?
The real story -- and significance -- behind the new settler report
Seth MandelJanuary 2, 2009
Sick of observant Judaism? Tired of Western culture? Want to kill two hawks with one stone? The answer to your prayers can be found in a new 250-page Statistical Yearbook produced by Ariel University Center of Samaria. You've probably read the headlines -- "Settler population growing three times faster than rest of Israel, study says" (Haaretz); "Settler population doubled in 12 years" (Jerusalem Post); "Report: Settler growth rate three times that of national average" (Ynet News) -- yet still missed the story. Israel sits on the fault lines -- and front lines -- of radical Islam's war against the West. And the nature of this war is changing. A friend of mine recently remarked that during the actual "war" part of the U.S. war in Iraq, Iraqi tanks were blown up by American tanks without ever having seen the American tanks. But what happens when our enemies stop using tanks, and start using student visas, multiculturalism, and the ACLU? We're finding that out the hard way. In America Alone, author Mark Steyn discusses the more-serious-than-you-thought advantage Islamists have in the current conflict: demographics. Steyn -- who isn't American, so can't be accused of shallow jingoism -- points out that to retain a stable population, you need a total fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman. That means that at 2.1 live births per woman, your nation's population neither falls nor climbs. America's fertility rate? Exactly 2.1. Europe's is 1.38, Japan's is 1.32, Russia's is 1.14. Steyn also notes that demographers call a 1.3 fertility rate the point of "lowest-low," meaning a fertility rate from which no society or nation has ever recovered. That's precisely the fertility rate of Greece. Italy's is 1.2, Spain's is 1.1. How are our friends in Western Europe doing? According to the U.N., in the next four decades, Germany's population will be 10.3 percent lower; Poland's will be down 20.5 percent; the Russian Federation's will be down 24.3 percent; and Bulgaria's will be down a whopping 35.2 percent. Steyn points out that in 2007, Brussels, the capital city of the European Union, had a ruling caucus of 18 politicians, including the mayor. Ten of them -- a majority -- were Muslim. And it's not just the democracies. According to the left-leaning Toronto Star, by 2015 the majority of the Russian army will be Muslim. "If you thought Russia was fun when it was Communist," Steyn writes, "wait till it's semi-Islamist." Why is this so important? Because cultures aren't set in place by boundaries; they are established and defended by people. Western culture won't survive unless there are Westerners. Judaism won't survive -- in Israel or elsewhere -- unless there are Jews. The population of a country will shape its values, set its rules, fight its battles. As Steyn writes: "when history comes a-calling, it starts with the most basic question of all: Knock-knock. Who's there?" According to the Ariel study, between 1995 and 2007 the Jewish population in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) grew 107 percent, to 270,000. The birth rate, according to the report, of Jews in the West Bank is 35.7 per 1,000. The rest of Israel has a birth rate of 21.1 per 1,000. By comparison, according to the CIA World Factbook, the U.S. has a birth rate of 14.18 per 1,000; the EU's birth rate is 10.25 per 1,000. The birth rate in the Gaza Strip is 37.75; Syria's is 26.57; Egypt's is 22.12. The four lowest birth rates in the world are Italy (8.36), Germany (8.18), Japan (7.87), and Hong Kong (7.37). The four highest birth rates in the world? Niger (49.62), Mali (49.38), Uganda (48.15), and Afghanistan (45.82). Take a good look at those numbers. Niger and Mali are each 90-percent Muslim; Afghanistan is 99-percent Muslim. Our allies are anemic; the other side is robust. And the Jews in the West Bank may be the strongest cultural bulwark we -- and the West -- have. Indeed, one of Steyn's concerns is that a society doesn't have to completely fade out for it to fall. What happens when a nation that isn't reproducing at replacement rates ages? This is the looming disaster for China. Its one-child social engineering plan is going to leave its elderly caring for themselves, and dying alone. My 8th grade class had seven boys; my high school class had about 25. How do you think we would have fared in a massive game of dodgeball against our peers at regional public schools? As it happens, the Jewish population of the West Bank is also younger than in the rest of Israel, with a median age of 20.6 vs. 28.7. And the percent of the population in the work force -- 62.3 -- is the highest of any region (America's is 61.4 percent). Plus, 30 percent of the West Bank Jewish population is Haredi. So they're the hardest working and most religiously dedicated Westerners on the planet. Are there problems among them? Sure, their crime rate is higher than that of the rest of Israel, to name one. But between Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, the daily Kassams, rampant anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere, anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism stoked by the N.Y. Times, the BBC, Haaretz, and other bastions of grotesque self-hating misery, and a host of other challenges, maybe we should keep on our side the segment of the Jewish world that values faith, family, country, and culture so strongly. After all, if you thought Europe and half of North America were fun when they were democratic socialist, wait till they're semi-Islamist. Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.
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