While peace between Jerusalem and Khartoum is unlikely to bring the mutual economic benefits that accompany the deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, it offers much else to the Jewish state. Yoav Limor explains:

[F]rom an Arab-Muslim standpoint, the accord means another dent has been made in the wall of opposition Israel faces in the Arab world. Sudan . . . has now become the fifth Arab nation to recognize Israel, and by doing so it has further chipped at the notion that any progress between the Arab world and Israel is inextricably linked to the Palestinian issue.

[No less important] is the security issue. [Once] Iranian ships regularly docked at Port Sudan, en route to delivering anything from rockets and mortars to anti-tank missiles, explosives, and weapons to Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. . . . [I]t seems that the new agreement will make it possible to tighten further control over any terrorist activity on Sudanese soil.

This deals a significant blow to terrorist organizations, and especially to their chief patron, Iran, which is no doubt concerned about the growing number of smuggling routes being cordoned off, as well as the growing number of Muslim countries that are choosing to seek peace with Israel.

Tehran will undoubtedly carve out new smuggling routes to keep assisting its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, and the ayatollahs will certainly do what they can to pressure Arab leaders against following in the footsteps of the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan.

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.