Foreign Policy Challenges for the New US President – Part II

NEW YORK: As US citizens prepare to usher in a new president and Israel likewise welcomes a new administration, the long-lasting Israeli-Palestine conflict will again be on the agenda and get a fresh look. In the political and strategic calculations inevitably to be made about one of the world’s toughest problems, decision-makers would do well to ponder the silent but inexorable fact of demography that defies any short-term calculation.

For more than six decades Israelis and Palestinians have struggled within a small tract of land that in total is about the size of Haiti. The numbers of people directly involved in the conflict are also relatively small, representing one fifth of 1 percent of the world’s population, or about the population size of metropolitan Los Angeles. In addition, the economies of these populations are comparatively small, amounting to less than a third of 1 percent of world economic output.

Irrespective of these statistical facts, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an issue of global significance, spilling out well beyond its borders and region into virtually every continent. The conflict continues to be a dominant concern of international diplomacy, regional and national politics, and public and academic political debate as well as a recurrent subject capturing the attention and headlines of global media.

With upcoming new administrations both in Israel and the United States and the Palestinian Authority in disarray, the near-term prospects for a comprehensive peace settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians appear remote. Despite the daunting challenges posed by the many contentious issues and dispiriting paralysis in the current negotiations, demographics could decide the outcome for the region.

Here are four general scenarios on demographic trends that could unfold, with implications for the future of this troubled region:

The first scenario is simply a continuation of the status quo. Over the entire 40-year projection period, which begins in 2010, Israel – its population slightly more than 7 million - remains more numerous than the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. However, Palestinians have higher fertility rates than Israelis, currently 5.4 and 4.2 children per woman in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, respectively, versus 2.9 children per woman in Israel, and this leads to more rapid rates of population growth among the Palestinians – 3.2 percent versus 1.8 percent annually, respectively. Consequently, the difference in population size between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory becomes progressively smaller with the result being that by 2050 the two populations would be roughly equivalent in size, or about 10.5 million each.

The second scenario, the “three-state” option, envisions three independent states: Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In this instance, Israel remains substantially larger than either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip over the entire projection period. However, if the Palestinian refugees from the neighboring countries are incorporated into the population of the West Bank in the year 2010, then this new Palestinian State would outnumber Israel in 20 years.

The third scenario, the “two-state” option, involves two separate states co-existing peacefully side by side. Without the return of the Palestinian refugees, Israel remains larger in size than the population of the new Palestinian State up through mid-century when both are about the same size. However, if the Palestinian refugees were to be included into the new Palestinian state in 2010, it would be slightly larger than Israel at the outset.

The fourth scenario is the “one-state” option, often referred to as the binational option. Under such a scenario, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would combine into a single democratic state with Arab and Jewish residents holding citizenship and equal rights. At the time of the new unified state’s establishment in 2010, its total population would be nearly 12 million, with the numbers of Arabs and Jews being roughly the same size, each slightly below 6 million. However, due to their substantially higher rates of population growth, the Arabs in this new state would soon outnumber the Jews, and by 2050 Arabs would account for nearly two-thirds of the one-state population.

A slight variant of this scenario is for the one-state to be composed of Israel and the West Bank, with the Gaza Strip becoming an independent nation. In such a case, the Jews in this new state would represent approximately 55 percent of the population in 2010 and remain the majority up until around 2030; thereafter they would be a decreasing minority (Figure 1).

Perhaps the most obvious observation from this exercise is that whatever scenario, outcome or solution one envisions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s abundantly clear that demography plays a decisive role. Over the coming decades, barring a large-scale disaster, the Israeli and Palestinian populations will be substantially more numerous than today. Consequently, this contested region of the world will become more densely populated than it already is. The densities for Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – today around 350, 450 and 4,300 persons per square kilometer, respectively – are expected to increase to approximately 500, 1,000 and 12,500 persons per square kilometer by 2050.

The projected demographic trends also suggest that it will be increasingly difficult for Jewish Israelis to maintain their current dominant majority of 76 percent within Israel. As fertility rates are higher among Arab-Israelis than Jewish-Israelis – around 3.7 versus 2.8 children per woman – the Arab-Israeli population is expected to grow more rapidly than the Jewish-Israeli population over the coming decades. For example, whereas Arab-Israelis now account for one-fifth of the total population of Israel, they’re expected to increase to one-quarter by 2025 and may reach 30 percent by 2050.

A central question concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains, and that is which scenario is likely to happen. Considering the current state of political affairs both inside and outside the region, the status quo seems to be the most probable outcome, at least in the short term.

The continuation of the status quo, however, undermines the credibility and diminishes the chances of a two-state solution. With more than 100 Jewish settlements, approximately a half a million settlers and an extensive Israeli presence throughout the West Bank, Israel has become for all practical purposes solidly integrated into the West Bank. Consequently and in contrast to Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, withdrawal from the West Bank would likely be a logistical and emotive nightmare for the Israeli government.

Given these facts on the ground, Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in particular those in the West Bank, may eventually decide to push for the right to citizenship and to vote in Israel. Indeed, the lack of tangible progress is swaying increasing numbers of Palestinians toward the conclusion that a two-state solution is not viable and may never be realized, and therefore they should press in favor of citizenship and equal rights in an expanded democratic state of Israel.

Finally, differential rates of population growth not only redefine the relative standing of Arab-Israelis, Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians, but also impact political calculations, negotiating positions and public opinion. In the short term, these relatively slow moving changes in human numbers may not be the primary forces behind resolving the conflict. However, in the long term, as it has been throughout the history of humanity, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no exception, demography is destiny.