The Wall Street Journal reported today that Israel’s feared demographic problem has remarkably dissipated. For decades, it was predicted that the high birth rate among Palestinian women who are citizens of Israel would eventually make Israel a predominantly Palestinian country. Predictions were that this would have happened by now or no more than a decade from now. Indeed, I reported this threat in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990). Not now. Things have changed.
During the 1990s, the birth rate of Israeli Jewish women was 2.6 children per woman. But in 2014, that statistic had increased to 3.11 children per Israeli Jewish woman. Those statistics buck the usual trend worldwide. That is, as societies become more economically prosperous, their women have fewer children.
In contrast, Palestinian women have dramatically reversed their role of childbearing. A Palestinian bureau statistics reports that in 1997, Palestinian women living in the West Bank had a birthrate of 5.6 children, but in 2014 that rate had decreased to 3.7 children. And the birth rate of Palestinian women living in the Gaza Strip in 1997 was 6.9 children, but in 2014 that birthrate had declined to 4.5 children.
Thus, the difference in the birthrate between Israeli Jewish women and Palestinian women living in the West Bank is almost negligible, so that this previous demographic problem no longer threatens Israel remaining a predominantly Jewish state. Furthermore, Israeli authorities expect that Jewish emigration to Israel from Western Europe and North America will continue as it has in the past, further ensuring Israel’s Jewishness.
Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and for decades the leader of the Palestinian in seeking to fulfill their aspirations of achieving a Palestinian state, used to say that the Palestinians’ prime weapon against Israel in achieving Palestinian statehood was the high birthrate of Palestinian women. If he were alive now, he would no longer be trumpeting that.
I think the Palestinians’ best chance of achieving statehood is to adopt another two-state solution in which they would declare “the land of the Philistines” as their land because it is not the Jews ancestral land. That what I state in my book Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990). This argument might be supported with a recent archaeological discovery that I have been posting about this week.
It was announced last Sunday that over 200 Philistines skeletons have been discovered in a 3,000 year old cemetery at Ashkelon, which is in Israel. Ashkelon was one of the three foremost cities of the ancient Philistine people. And the archaeological team that made this discovery, and has been working this dig for thirty years, now has uncorrupted DNA taken from the bones. Their prime, intended purpose for using this DNA is to affirm with certainty the origin of the ancient Philistines. Many experts believe they migrated to the Levant from the region of the Aegean Sea, between Greece and Turkey, about the same time the Hebrews escaped from Egypt and settled in the Levant.
But I think the greatest use of this Philistine DNA would be to use it to find out the origin of the Palestinian people, to learn if they descended mostly from the ancient Philistines. That would be done by comparing this Philistine DNA with the DNA of Palestinians to see if there is a reasonably close match. If there is, Palestinians could then declare themselves as descendants predominantly of the Philistines, from whom the Palestinians derive their name. Then Palestinians could do as Jews did in their Proclamation of Independence by declaring a right to a sovereign, independent state in their ancestral–“the land of the Philistines.”
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