Arab Births Outstrip Jewish Ones : Israel Demographic War: It All Depends on Babies

It was a relatively slow day in the maternity ward of the Arab Aliya Hospital here. Two new Israeli-made incubators stood in the hall still partly unpackaged, and several beds were empty.

Maliha Debabsiyh, 45, had just given birth to her 11th child, a girl, and a roommate who would identify herself only as Bassema, 29, had had her fifth. But it was clear that the hospital would fall short of its daily average of about 13 births, much less match the hectic night of March 5-6.

The Arabic press reported ecstatically that there had been 50 boys alone born in Aliya that night, which turned out to be a considerable exaggeration. There were actually 28, of both sexes, according to hospital records. Nevertheless, it taxed facilities and staff to the limit and was the cause of great satisfaction among a population that values large families highly.

“In one year, Hebronites give birth to more children than there are (Jewish) settlers in the whole area,” boasted a nurse.

Three days after Aliya’s big night, a surprisingly large crowd of more than 1,000 Jewish women, many pregnant or with babies and toddlers in tow, crowded into a downtown Jerusalem hotel for the first national convention of “Mothers for Israel.”

Politically, they represented the Israeli right, committed to continued Jewish rule over all of “Greater Israel,” including the occupied territories, and intent on “protecting the reputation and integrity of the Israel Defense Forces.”

“The Arab world has turned its children into live ammunition,” said writer Naomi Frankel, one of some 6,000 Jewish settlers who live in and around Hebron. “They exploit the Jewish ethic in order to kill us. But it is our moral obligation to fight anyone who comes to kill us. They are no longer women and children. They are ammunition.”

Among the convention’s calls was for an additional child in every Jewish family to help strengthen the security of the nation.

Both scenes were part of the all-important “demographic war” between Arab and Jew that forms a backdrop for the current anti-Israeli unrest in the territories and for the Israeli elections scheduled later this year, elections that have been called perhaps the most crucial in the country’s history.

The “generals” in this population war include Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israel’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Shimon Peres, both of whom have addressed calls to their respective female constituents to have more children.

Demographic Upheaval

Both have their eye on the rapidly changing demographics of Israel and the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that Israel’s army has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

At the start of this year, Jews constituted 82% of the 4.4 million people who live within the pre-1967 borders and those areas of Jerusalem annexed immediately after the war, a comfortable majority for a nation whose raison d’etre is to be a Jewish state.

But when the West Bank and Gaza Strip are counted, that majority now stands at only about 62%, according to government figures.

A study released last week by West Bank expert Meron Benvenisti suggests that those official figures may understate the real Palestinian population in the occupied territories by more than 300,000, which would mean that already the Jewish majority is only 59%.

Jewish Majority Shrinking

And it is shrinking fast. Already by 1986, there were significantly more Arab babies born than Jewish ones in “Greater Israel”--83,000 versus 77,000. And despite a higher infant mortality rate among the West Bank and Gaza Strip Palestinians, demographers here forecast that barring some major change, this will effectively be a state with equal numbers of Jews and Arabs within a generation. Not long after that, the forecasts show, Arabs will be in the majority.

The dilemma that this poses for Israel has typically been couched in these terms: If the state absorbs all those Arabs and extends to them full political rights, Israel risks forfeiting its very reason for being; and if it continues to rule over these Arabs while depriving them of political rights, Israel may remain Jewish, but not democratic.

That argument may have seemed esoteric before, but more than 100 days of violent unrest in the occupied territories has translated the rhetoric of the so-called “demographic question” into very practical terms.

Apprehensive of Future

If the present Arab residents are causing such problems, Israelis are starting to ask themselves, what will it be like in a few more years when they will constitute half the population?

It is a question likely to be pushed to the forefront by Peres’ Labor Alignment in the forthcoming Israeli elections, currently scheduled for Nov. 1. Labor argues for “territorial compromise” in which Israel would give up its hold on at least part of the West Bank and Gaza Strip--and so shed part of their mushrooming populations--as part of a Middle East peace settlement.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rival Likud Bloc opposes giving up any of the territories, which it considers an inseparable part of “Greater Israel.” It favors an arrangement under which residents of the territories would enjoy political rights in neighboring Jordan while remaining physically under Israeli sovereignty.

There are other proposals, as well, including the physical “transfer” of all Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza into neighboring Arab countries.

Euphemism for Expulsion

While proponents are often vague about the means of “transfer,” it is generally seen here as a euphemism for expulsion, a formula that until recently was considered to be so morally repulsive to the vast majority of Israelis that only such militant rightists as Rabbi Meir Kahane spoke openly about it.

In late January, however, a retired Israeli general, Rehavam Zeevi, attracted about 150 people to what was billed as the first public symposium on the idea.

“We have lit the torch--and it shall burn,” Zeevi said enthusiastically at the meeting’s conclusion.

Still others argue that the whole “demographic threat” is nothing but statistical hocus-pocus, which ignores such important factors as the likelihood of future Jewish immigration into Israel.

No Growth From Immigration

In fact, however, during the last several years there has been almost no population growth due to immigration, because the number of Israelis leaving the country has offset the number of new citizens arriving.

“Only producing more children will help us preserve a Jewish state in its territorial borders,” wrote Michael Kleiner, a former Likud member of the Knesset (Parliament) and chairman of the Amidar government housing company, in a recent column for the Jerusalem Post.

As Israeli society itself incorporates a broad range of values from the very traditional to the extraordinarily secular, so are the attitudes of its women toward child-bearing complex.

“Making our children mere pawns of political strategy is not human, not Jewish, and pedagogically very dangerous,” wrote Lea Dasberg, a professor from the development town of Yeroham, in a letter to the Jerusalem Post late last year.

Birth Rates Compared

The annual birthrate among Israeli Jews, at about 21 per 1,000 population, is high by U.S. and European standards, but low compared to Israeli Arabs (with a rate of about 33 per 1,000), West Bank Palestinians (with 40) and Gaza Palestinians (with 47).

According to Ministry of Health statistics, there are about 20,000 legal abortions performed annually, and Health Minister Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino has estimated that another 40,000 are done illegally, almost exclusively by Israeli Jews. A total of 60,000 abortions would almost equal the 75,000 Jewish births here last year.

Birthrates are considerably higher among the ultra-Orthodox religious Jews and among Jewish settlers on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The rate among settlers, for example, is now about 44 births per 1,000 population, according to government statistics.

Palestinians are more consistently traditional in their attitudes toward large families.

Gave Up on Abortion

An urban professional man confided that he and his wife had wanted to abort their fourth child for economic reasons but that they came under such pressure from family and friends that they changed their minds.

“In the Hebron area, more than any other in the West Bank, there is a ‘family tradition,’ ” said Yusra Fasfous, 25, a nurse at Aliya Hospital and herself one of 11 children. “People believe that the more children you have, the more support you have, the more influence.”

Debabsiyh, the mother who had just had her 11th child, said this one would be her last, but then noted that she had said the same thing after giving birth to the previous three.

Polygamy is relatively common here, commented another nurse, and “women are afraid their husband will marry another woman if they stop having children.”

Debabsiyh’s roommate, Bassema, noted as well that “our (Muslim) religion says to us that we must have a lot of children.”

But then she made it clear that she is aware of the importance of the demographic war on the future of her people.

“Because of the condition of the war,” she said in halting English, “we have many young people die every day. We have to replace them.”