No matter how you look at it, Israel has got to be one of the worst ideas in history. It is completely unsustainable.
Let’s just look at some numbers.
The total population of the country is about 8.5 million, almost 2 million of whom are Palestinians. There are roughly another 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and the birth rate among Palestinians easily outpaces that of Israeli Jews.
The total Jewish population on earth is only about 14 million.
14 million; that’s about the size of Istanbul. And Jews have one of the lowest birth rates in the world. At current rates, their numbers will only increase globally by 2 million in the next 30 years. Even if we pretend that every Jew on earth moves to Israel by the year 2050, the Palestinian population will likely have doubled by then to almost 10 million in Gaza and the West Bank, and 4 million inside Israel. So, that’s 16 million Jews with a comparatively low birth rate, and 14 million Palestinians whose population is growing faster; and again, that is assuming that every Jew in the world decides to emigrate to Israel (which will never happen).
If we assume that Jewish emigration will remain approximately as it is now, with about 60% of the global Jewish population choosing to live elsewhere; by 2050, we are looking at a total Palestinian population (within Israel and the Palestinian Territories) twice the size of the population of Israeli Jews.
When you look at these kinds of numbers, it is hard not to conclude that the wisest long-term strategy would be for the Palestinian Territories to voluntarily integrate into Israel, let the Palestinians become a unified majority, promote emigration of Palestinians from the Diaspora, as well as expatriate Muslims of all nationalities, and create a de facto Muslim country with a Jewish minority.
Why not?