Archaeologists in Israel’s capital recently uncovered a vast defensive trench that once surrounded the city, which was exposed by preparations for a major infrastructure overhaul. Joanie Margulies writes:

Construction revealed the ancient moat, which measures approximately ten meters (33 feet) wide and between two and seven meters (6.5-23 feet) deep. The moat surrounded the Old City of Jerusalem in its entirety. The 1,000-year-old moat was accompanied by handprints adjacent to the structure.

Zubair Adawi, director of the excavations at the IAA, uncovered the moat and handprints underneath Sultan Suleiman Street. “Moats, usually filled with water, are well-known from fortifications and castles in Europe, but here the moat was dry, its width and depth presenting an obstacle slowing down the attacking army,” Adawi said.

The moat is believed to have kept the First Crusaders from breaching the city. Historians writing during the age of the First Crusade placed the fighters at the walls of Jerusalem in June 1099. It took the fighters approximately five weeks to cross the moat after tedious strategic planning, archaeologists involved with the excavation said.

After finally crossing, Crusaders were met with force and bloodshed by Jews and Muslims defending the city.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.