Following the orders of Israel’s supreme court, the IDF removed the residents of the West Bank town of Amona from their homes last week. While some left voluntarily, others holed up in the synagogue and waited for soldiers to drag them out, leading to a disturbing scene reminiscent of the evacuation of Gush Katif in 2009. Daniel Gordis reflects on what took place, and its implications for Zionism itself:

The supreme court had ruled that the settlement sat on private Palestinian land, and it therefore demanded that its inhabitants leave. One can question the court’s ruling or even the activism of the court in general. Yet, . . . [if] matters are so clear, why did we [Israelis] feel no moral clarity as we watched Amona brought to an end? Was not the triumph over Amona the triumph of Israel’s democracy and rule of law?

Yes, but no. What we saw as we watched the demolition of Amona’s synagogue was also the shattering of Israel’s founding ethos. Nothing articulated that ethos better than the old Zionist song, Anu banu artsah: “We have come to the Land to build and to be built on it.” Prior to statehood, Jews immigrated to Palestine and built on whatever land they could purchase. . . .

In truth, both [Israeli supporters and opponents of the settlements] lost last week. . . . If Zionism is no longer about settling the land, building on it and being built on it, then what is Zionism? . . . Do we [Israelis] as a collective still believe in anything at all? If we do, what is it? And if we do not, why do we dare imagine we can long survive in this region? . . .

If this was a week when we should have mourned, then next week and beyond need to be a time of re-imagining, of reviving dreams, of rediscovering purpose.

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.