Joel Brinkley
As American and Middle East leaders begin peace talks in
American presidents and Israeli prime ministers have been issuing dire warnings about this for years. Late last year, former President
Former Israeli Prime Minister
These stark warnings generally come from the Israeli left, which favors trading land for peace. Give the Palestinians their own state on the
But they may all be wrong. A team of demographers headed by
But then, of course, as always happens in Israel, the new study became simply a political football. For advocates of territorial compromise, the population threats were a convenient tool. Not long ago,
Earlier this year,
Among the critics of Ettinger's study, a prominent left-wing academic,
Palestinians vastly overstated their population, for their own political aims. As examples, they double-counted Arab residents of
All told, Ettinger's study found, 60 percent of the people who live in Israel, the
What does all of this mean for the peace talks? Ettinger told me the new research "spares us a supposed demographic calamity" and, he hopes, will "set negotiations on a realistic foundation."
In truth, how much does this really matter? The unending Israeli demographic arguments remind me of the immigration debate in the U.S., each side grabbing the statistic or anecdote that best serves his point of view while ignoring the countervailing facts. And even if Palestinians did outnumber Jews in the land west of the Jordan River, would it make that much practical difference -- as long as the
But if the new data does win broad acceptance, it may serve one purpose at the peace talks that the researchers never intended. The Palestinian platform for a political settlement calls for the right of return for Palestinians who lost their homes in Israel when the state was founded in 1948. (Actually, now it would be their grandchildren.)
Israel has always insisted it would never accept that; admitting thousands of new Arab residents would irrevocably alter
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(C) 2010 Joel Brinkley