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Demographic Realities and Peace

(Asia Times-Hong Kong) Spengler - President Barack Obama was misinformed when he told AIPAC on May 22 that "the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories." In fact, Palestinian fertility on the West Bank has already converged on the Israeli fertility rate of three children per woman, if we believe the Palestine Ministry of Health rather than the PA Statistics Bureau. Around 80,000 Palestinian men are employed by one or another of the "security forces" in Gaza and the West Bank. The actual number of men aged 20 to 40 in the territories is probably around 400,000, which means that one in five has a job carrying a gun. Taking unemployment into account, that implies that one in three Palestinian men with a full-time job is a gunman. The top school for Palestinian computer science students is Ariel University in Samaria, in the midst of a Jewish settlement. The education that young Arabs receive at the settlers' university on the West Bank is better than anything available among Israel's Arab neighbors. In a quiet way, the settlers of Samaria may do more for peace than the diplomats.
2011-06-09 00:00:00
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