Jacksonville Business Daily

Is Israeli society sustainable based on demographics and its economy?

Specifically, the orthodox have much higher birth rates. Many of the men don't work and rely on welfare and donations so they can pursue religious studies. I also believe many of them get out of military service. So, if current trends continue then how can the nation survive?

Public Comments

1. Well, Joe, I've wondered about this topic for years. It seems to me the only things keeping Israel a viable state are American weapons and monetary support and their nuclear weapons. They have about a million Arabs who are Israeli citizens and these represent about a fifth of the population. But the Arabs have a higher birthrate than the Jewish Israelis. So, in time, unless they change the laws concening Arab citizens voting, the Arabs can simply overwhelm the Jews with population and vote themselves into control of the state of Israel. They can't be attacked by nation states, as happened in the '73 and '67 wars with their Arab neighbors because of the nukes and their proven military strength. But if a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem creates a Palestinian state right next door on the Left Bank with a connecting strip to Gaza, they will have essentially a hostile enemy within their previous borders. A Palestinian State, together with a large and growing Arab/Israeli internal population suggests to me that Israel has a limited time to remain a Jewish state. And if it's leadership becomes predominantly Arab Israelis via democratic elections, well, then Israel will become just another Arab state in the Middle East. Their Jewish leaders know all these things and are trying to head off the inevitable. Don't be surprised if, in the next few years, they begin to revise their internal policies on the rights of Arab Israelis. If a two-state solution is acceptable, they may just force the present Arab Islraelis to move to the Arab/Palestinian state and to lose their Israeli citizenship.
2. ROTFL - you are not alone. Of course one answer is that they don't need to. It seems that many fundamentalist Christians (Jews know better?) believe that once the state of Israel can rebuild the Temple, the second coming of Jesus will make all long term considerations irrelevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism Then there are the Jews who look at their own history and despair of ever having a long-lived state. They would agree with you completely. Then there are those who point out that the future is not just a continuation of the past, and that as the situation changes, so will the responses. Should it be that there comes a time when the orthodox men who don't work are such a large part of the population that it becomes a major drain on the economy, the willingness to support them may well vanish. (As it happens, there is a distinction between the orthodox and the ultra-orthodox. The orthodox Jews believe in work. The Haredi Jews claim to believe in a life of study, but even there, it isn't clear what percentage don't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism) Clearly, whatever does happen, whatever is there 25 years from now will be quite different from what is there now. On the other hand, it is fairly clear that there is no developed economy that is in any way sustainable. The situation in Israel may be more visible and more urgent, but the world 50 years from now will be a far different place no matter where you happen to live. http://dieoff.org/page13.htm http://dieoff.org/page110.htm So far, the discussion has been about peripheral issues: - global warming - availability of food - availability of water - habitat destruction and specie extinction etc. But these are just a few facets of the larger whole. Every indication is that there will be a massive decrease in the human population over the next 30 years. Will it come in a planned manner or will it be caused by famine, disease, war, etc.?