At a press conference on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced that, should the Jewish state go ahead with plans to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, his government will unilaterally declare Palestinians statehood. What, asks Amnon Lord, would the consequences be?

Yasir Arafat already declared the establishment of a Palestinian state in November 1988, when he was still in Tunisia. In November 2012, the Palestinian Authority launched its diplomatic campaign to upgrade its status within the international community. As a result, many entities across the globe already view it as a “state.” For example, the ever-menacing International Criminal Court recognizes a Palestinian state, ergo the PA’s routine threat of “going to The Hague.”

That same year, the United Nations passed a resolution to upgrade the PA’s status from “non-state observer” to non-member state. . . . Many countries around the world circuitously recognize the PA as a state in such a way that it isn’t always clear what they mean when they say “recognition.” It appears the only development of substance and of potential concern to Israel—in the future—is . . . the [election in the U.S.] of a Democratic administration that would recognize a Palestinian state. And even then, Israel’s answer will be: we’re ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.

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.