According to paragraph 29 of the agreement cementing Israel’s governing coalition, prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu can introduce a bill in the Knesset after June 30 that would apply Israeli sovereignty to certain portions of Judea and Samaria not currently under the Palestinian Authority’s control. Stephen Daisley writes:

[A] sovereignty bill, if it passes into law, will simply begin the process of implementing the Trump administration’s peace plan. . . . The United States intends to recognize this Israeli sovereignty provided Jerusalem agrees to map out a Palestinian state with its opposite numbers in Ramallah.

Come July 1, Britain will view Israel’s application of its laws to its communities in Judea and Samaria as no different from Russia’s invasions and annexation of the Crimea. That is an unsustainable situation, not least when it involves a friendly nation that furnishes us with vital intelligence on national security threats.

In preparation for likely changes to Israel’s map, the UK should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, commit to moving its embassy there once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, and affirm, as the U.S. has, that civilian settlements are not “per-se inconsistent with international law.”

The sovereignty bill Netanyahu is likely to bring forward will leave the Palestinians with the vast majority of Judea and Samaria. Along with Gaza, this gives them substantial territory on which to found their state. Any country that considers itself a friend to the Palestinians should beg them to take the deal and end the conflict. Britain should right a historical wrong by affirming a promise it made a century ago and never again should it treat an ally like an “illegal occupier” in its own land.

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.