林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

Israel’s Looming Demographic Crisis

ALON TAL, The New York Times, JULY 25, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/opinion/israels-looming-demographic-crisis.html

 accessed Aug 2, 2016

Mounting pressure for Israelis to emmigrate. Israel is the most populated country in the West. By 2059, its population density will exceed that of Japan or the Netherlands. Not to mention the rising possibility of a Muslim nuclear bomb detonated in the country. That is why Siberia beckons. Israeli emmigration will lessen the threat of Chinese emmigration to Siberia. It is said that Netanyahu, Putin, and Xi are talking with each other. And the Rothschild family is behind the whole thing.

This may yet add to another element in Bejing's Belt Road Initiative in years to come.

Chong-Pin Lin 2016.8.2

         TEL AVIV — On Israel’s Independence Day this year, newspaper headlines noted that the country’s population had grown by a factor of 10 during the country’s 68 years. Once a sparsely settled land of about 800,000 people, Israel today is home to 8.5 million.

Regrettably, the news media’s celebration was misguided. Given that Israel has the highest birthrate in the developed world, those who care about its future should realize that demographic growth is no longer a blessing but a threat to the quality of life in the Jewish state.

For a quarter-century, I have worked hard to protect Israel’s environment: organizing demonstrations, writing legislation, even suing polluters. Eventually, it dawned on me that while local environmentalists might enjoy isolated victories, our efforts may be futile in the long run — because we’re addressing only symptoms, not causes.

Israel’s environmental problems are largely a function of a rapid increase in population. The country will never be able to control greenhouse gases, maintain even minimal levels in our rivers and streams or protect our fragile habitats if this demographic growth continues at such an astonishing rate. With urban development taking over about five square miles of open space every five years, Israel’s wildlife is in steep decline. Species from gazelles and hedgehogs to bats and hyenas are endangered.

People also pay a steep price for surging population density. Israel’s schools, highways and courts are among the most crowded in the Western world. The relentless congestion heightens collective and individual anxiety. Housing shortages and soaring prices are a national affliction, all fueled by ever-growing demand.

Poverty, too, will never be reduced until the country checks the relentless expansion of its population. More than a quarter of Israeli children live below the poverty line; a majority of those live in families with five or more children. Israeli children growing up in families with two siblings or fewer, regardless of ethnic identity or religious affiliation, generally enjoy better opportunities.

Unfortunately, things are set to get worse. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics projects that by 2059 the population will have doubled to 15 million, and possibly more than 20 million, which would make Israel’s population density far in excess of today’s most crowded countries, like Japan or the Netherlands. Because social and environmental damage often has a tipping-point, certain thresholds will be crossed and existing problems will become unbearable.

In a country that argues over everything else, overpopulation, it seems, is one issue we never want to address. There are two reasons for this taboo: First, the loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust made pro-natal policies axiomatic in the young state of Israel. Second, Palestinian authorities have, historically, promoted a high birthrate among the Arab population as a way of undermining the Jewish state by demographic means. Thus, both Arabs and Jews considered having large families a patriotic duty.

Neither reason is valid today: The global total of Jews, which had fallen to 11 million in 1945, has rebounded to pre-World War II levels. There are currently about 17 million people in the world who identify as Jewish. This number is destined to grow much higher, thanks mainly to Israel’s population trend.

At the same time, a demographic transition has occurred among Arab Israelis. As Arab women came to enjoy more equal status and independence over the past decade, fertility plummeted from an average of six children per family to about four today. This fall seems likely to continue. Since 2002, the Arab birthrate has stabilized at about 40,000 per year. The number of Jewish babies, however, steadily rises.

The demographic “war” is over: The number of Arab Israelis will not overtake the number of Jews. It is time, instead, to talk about living together sustainably.

For Israel’s first four decades, the major engine of population growth was immigration. But the large Jewish communities in the diaspora that once faced persecution and economic distress have already moved, and migrations to Israel have tapered off over the last decade. Today, the number of people moving to Israel roughly equals the number leaving. This is terrific news. It means that Israel can maintain its open-door policy for Jews everywhere — so central to the country’s raison d’être — and still enjoy sustainable population levels.

It is Israel’s high fertility rate — 50 percent higher than most other Western countries — that puts it on an unsustainable course. This didn’t happen naturally; it is the result of decades of government programs that encouraged large families and created obstacles to abortion. As the country fills up, Israel needs a change of direction, with economic strategies to empower women of all communities in its diverse society.

During the Independence Day celebrations, tens of thousands of Israelis were turned away from beaches at the Sea of Galilee and other recreational areas that were filled to capacity. It was a sign of things to come. Israel may be able to desalinate more water but it cannot create new lakes and landscapes.

Zionism has always been pragmatic and nimble in adjusting to dynamic realities. There was a time when expanding Israel’s population was a paramount national priority. Today, the focus must change from quantity to quality of life.