{"id":9194,"date":"2014-06-30T19:56:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T19:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohelet.org.il\/article\/kohelet-held-a-debate-over-the-demographic-question\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T08:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:52:18","slug":"kohelet-held-a-debate-over-the-demographic-question","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/kohelet-held-a-debate-over-the-demographic-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Kohelet Hosts Debate on Demographics: &#8220;The Jewish Majority Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the failure of the latest US-brokered effort to reach a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d between Israel and the Palestinians, analysts and policy makers are considering alternative models that range from unilateral disengagement to annexation. Both disengagement and annexation are motivated by demographic calculations, yet demographic assessments and trends widely differ among experts.<br><br>On June 25, 2014 Kohelet Policy Forum hosted a debate on the question of the Jewish majority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The debate was held between two experts, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger and Prof. Ian Lustik, with the goal of generating a better understanding of the &#8220;demographic threat&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ambassador Yoram Ettinger <\/strong>is a former Israeli diplomat who served as Minister for Congressional Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC and as Israel\u2019s Consul General to Houston. A founding member of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), his writing and public speaking focuses on challenging the demographic data of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Prof. Ian Lustick<\/strong> is the Bess W. Heyman Professor of Political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a founder and past president of the Association for Israel Studies and the author of many books on the Arab-Israeli conflict. His article &#8216;What Counts is the Counting: Statistical Manipulation as a Solution to Israel\u2019s \u201cDemographic Problem\u201d was published by the Middle East Journal in the Spring of 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moderating the debate was Dr. Emmanuel Navon, Head of the Political Science and Communication Department at the Jerusalem Orthodox College, and Senior Fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum.<br><br>Former Ambassador Yoram Ettinger, presented his research showing there is a stable Jewish majority between the river and the sea. Prof. Ian Lustick argued against the validity of Ettinger&#8217;s findings and claimed there is almost the same number of Jews and Arabs between the river and the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1021\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-1021x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6804\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.9970881169204519;width:612px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-1021x1024.jpg 1021w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-768x770.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2-1532x1536.jpg 1532w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d2\u05e8-2.jpg 1934w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1021px) 100vw, 1021px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ambassador Yoram Ettinger<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"730\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-1024x730.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6798\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4027763281494625;width:605px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-1024x730.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-768x548.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-1536x1095.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7-2048x1460.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Prof. Ian Lustick<br><br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/a\/mail.huji.ac.il\/forms\/d\/1h1jqz9GHusp5_fd3hU0PRIVyb4EqZtmt9Pu3lLoh_fc\/viewform\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/a\/mail.huji.ac.il\/forms\/d\/1h1jqz9GHusp5_fd3hU0PRIVyb4EqZtmt9Pu3lLoh_fc\/viewform\">registry link<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the failure of the latest US-brokered effort to reach a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d between Israel and the Palestinians, analysts and policy makers are considering alternative models that range from unilateral disengagement to annexation. Both disengagement and annexation are motivated by demographic calculations, yet demographic assessments and trends widely differ among experts.On June 25, 2014 Kohelet [&hellip;]","protected":false},"featured_media":6547,"template":"","article-category":[525],"custom-tags":[2179,680,538,548],"ppma_author":[49],"class_list":["post-9194","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article-category-publications","custom-tags-debate","custom-tags-demography","custom-tags-israeli-palestinian-conflict","custom-tags-kohelet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kohelet Hosts Debate on Demographics: &quot;The Jewish Majority Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River&quot; - kohelet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/kohelet-held-a-debate-over-the-demographic-question\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kohelet Hosts Debate on Demographics: &quot;The Jewish Majority Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River&quot; - kohelet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the failure of the latest US-brokered effort to reach a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d between Israel and the Palestinians, analysts and policy makers are considering alternative models that range from unilateral disengagement to annexation. 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