I did make this point in another thread about Gaza.
Positive News for Israel in the New Year
Only recently, the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics issued its usual press release about how, in 2020, if the current trends persist, the number of Palestinian Arabs will outnumber the number of Israeli Jews (but only if you include Gaza, land which virtually no Israelis are interested in recovering). Of course, this headline is meant to scare Israelis, and the West especially, into restarting the Palestinian Arab-Israeli Peace Process by encouraging new pressure on Israel to make concessions to those noted moderates in the Palestinian Authority. Not that this reset would be necessary, by the way, if the PA had not consistently refused to come back to the negotiating table since 2008 and not violated the prior peace process the Oslo Accords by getting the world community at the UN to recognize the non-nation(s) of Palestine.
Unfortunately for the Israel haters, though, time is no longer on their side. Consider these facts:
The population of Israel is booming, in contrast to most Western nations, and even many countries in the Arab world. Meanwhile, Palestinian statistics consistently overstate their actual numbers by 1 million. I have already written about this here. One new point though the current 66% Jewish majority in the area of the pre-1967 Israel, Judea and Samaria could actually increase to an 80% majority in 2035, if Jewish immigration increases from the former USSR, France, Britain, Argentina and the US. This is quite possible, in response to Israels positive economic indicators, the intensification of European anti-Semitism (largely because of growing Muslim populations), and the growth of Jewish-Zionist education.
Israels economy is also booming. Israels 2009-2012 economic growth of 14.7% leads the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, ahead of Australia 10.7%, Canada 4.8%, US 3.2%, Germany 2.7%, France 0.3%, Euro Bloc 1.5% decline. Also, Israels unemployment rate edged down to 6.7% in November from 6.9% in October. Tourism numbers went up to an all-time high of 2.9 million tourists in 2012. Simultaneously, much of the civilized world is or seems about ready to sink into a recession. Also, unlike the US and many other nations, Israel does not have crushing debt and entitlement burdens. Meanwhile, few of the non-oil producing Arab nations are doing well economically.
The Arab Spring, or more accurately, the Arab Winter, has demonstrated, pretty convincingly, that Israel is not the cause of all of the problems in the Middle East. Even an Arab writer in the Arab News has acknowledged this fact. It has even prompted the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt, whose leaders continue to spout disgusting anti-Semitism and eliminationist rhetoric, to refuse to stick their necks out for its little terror brothers in Hamas, especially when Egypt has so many non-Israel related problems.
With the Syrian Assad regime in its death throes and Hezbollah worried about its position in Lebanon, Israel can focus on Iranian nukes without worrying about these Iranian allies. And, by the way, the Iranian Regime, while still very dangerous, has its own economic and population problems that could hobble its drive to world power.
Related to the above, although Syrian Sunni Islamists are leading the charge against Assad and could gain power in Syria, they have a major problem to face at least 40% of the nations population is made up of Alawite, Christian, Kurdish, Druze, and other non-Arab or non-Sunni minorities. Many of these minorities, including the Alawites, the Kurds, and the Druze are located in select areas of the country and have substantial amounts of weaponry, and in some cases, the protection of mountainous territory. In reality, while the Sunni Islamists may lead the ouster of Assad, the likely forecast for Syria in general is for a continuing civil war, which should distract its rather disorganized participants from picking a fight with Israel.
Related to the above, the Kurdish peoples, perhaps one of the more pro-Israeli Muslim groups in the Middle East, have established their own quasi-states in Iraq and now Syria, and have become a force to reckon with wherever they live.and have become a force to reckon with wherever they live. They are a big threat to the Islamist government of Turkey, which is also facing its own economic problems and a decline in the birthrate of the native Turkish population. The Turkish Kurds, in contrast, are still growing demographically.
Israel has discovered a vast amount of natural gas and oil as well off shore, which should make it energy independent soon
Positive News for Israel in the New Year
