In January 2025, the ceasefire agreement interrupted the 14-month-old, the most violent escalation in past that has lasted for nearly 70 years between the Palestinian people and the State of Israel. At least 46 000 Palestinians and Palestinians in Gaza and little than a 1000 in the West Bank are estimated to have died – these figures do not include missing and indirect deaths. The sum of the killed Israelis, including the victims of the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, and members of the uniformed formations, amounted to about 2 000.
Many global organizations – including Amnesty International, Humans Rights Watch or Forensic Architecture – admit that Israel committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, and Western governments alienated themselves from their constituents, more critical of the Israeli army's actions. The planet hopes that a ceasefire will lead to lasting peace. Unfortunately, the implementation of this script is improbable due to what is at the root of the conflict. And there's biopolitics and demography.
Demographic duel
According to 1 of the fundamental assumptions of Zionism the origin Anti-Semitism, taking the form of cyclical pogroms and exiles of the judaic minority, was the fact that Jews everywhere were guests, nowhere hosts. A number at the mercy of another groups. Therefore, the question of demography and the making up of the majority by Jews in the recently created country was treated as a precedence by its founders. This logic stood behind the displacements and pogroms carried out on the arabian population, the alleged Nakba, in the 1940s and subsequent decades.
Demographic policy has been pursued through both cultural cleansing and expanding its own population, stimulating fertility and applying allia – the right of return, granting Israeli citizenship to judaic people and converting to Judaism. The demographic growth in Israel in the last 4th of the 20th century and in the early 21st century was a origin of envy to Western countries and the subject of many analyses. According to planet Bank data From the 1960s to 2000, the babies of Israeli women ranged between 3.87 and 2.72, most of the time without descending above 3.0.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century Children of Israel fell under 3.0 kid per female (Palestines gave birth on average after 4.6 to up to 6 children, depending on the source). Thanks to a series of government programs, it reached 3.11 in 2016, but briefly. The Palestinians' estate, especially those surviving in the Gaza Strip, besides fell, but milder and competed from a higher level.
In 2020, 75% of the population Israel was Jews (6.87 million), 20% (1.9 million) Arabs, including Muslims, druzes and Christians of arabian descent, 5% remaining (465,000), mostly re-entry migrants who did not identify themselves as Jews, and workers from Southeast Asia. Between 2010 and 2020, judaic population growth was about 18 percent, Israeli arabian population growth was 25 percent.
Significantly, the top increases in the judaic population were noted among the charedims—an ultraorthodox community, any of which undermines the legitimacy of the State of Israel for spiritual reasons and whose members were, to a certain extent, exempt from military service (It only changed a fewer months ago.). In 2020, there was an average of 6.6 children per Charedim mother, while the secular Israeli had only 2.2.
A terrible minute of balance
The decline (although inactive importantly higher than the average developed countries) rate of natural growth among judaic Israeli citizens and the strong increase in the population of the Gaza Strip by 100% in the last 20 years predicted the minute of the population's equilibrium. More than 2.5 million Palestinians surviving in all areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, from 2 million Gazans and a akin number of arabian Israelis (as in Israel the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are defined), totaled around 7 million in 2022.
During this time, about 7.5 million Jews lived in the occupied Palestinian lands and administrative borders of the State of Israel. In the next fewer years, it was estimated that the Palestinian population – broken down between a number of different managed administrative areas, despite the activities of the occupiers in constant contact and having a sense of community – would be greater than the judaic population. And younger ones – due to historically greater fertility and large differences in quality of life (especially access to medical care), residents of occupied Palestinian territories live on average a decade little than the inhabitants of Israel.
Grass cutting
One of the attempts to distance the spectrum from losing in the demographic war was the expansion of Israeli settlement in West Bank region C, accounting for about 60% of these areas, separated under the 1995 Cairo Agreements. This is an area full of smaller Palestinian settlements, Israeli settlements and military bases under the civilian and military administration of Israel, but forming part of the occupied territories. The construction of further illegal Israeli settlements was to alter the cultural proportions of the West Bank and let its full annexation.
The word “moving the Grass” (grass trim), which Israeli and American military were fond of utilizing for violent operations in occupied areas, officially refers to the demolition of the surviving force and infrastructure of Palestinian independency organisations (by many countries considered to be terrorist). However, the magnitude of casualties among civilians, as well as the demolition of civilian infrastructure – each of which active these operations – is asked to consider whether their aim was not to limit the growth of the Palestinian population as such: by physical elimination, maiming or bringing about a state of anxiety and uncertainty.
Report UN OCHA points out that 6343 Palestinians died from 1 January 2008 to 6 October 2023 at the hands of the IDF and another Israeli-identified formations and 153 610 were injured. The balance of Palestinian activities in the same period is 314 killed and 6412 wounded Israelis. This means that more than 20 Palestinians were murdered for each Israeli killed during this period.
The Palestinians were looking at the demography of their opportunity. In a study published in 2016 Palistine 2030. Demographic Change, chance for development– prepared by the UN agenda in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority government – it was estimated that by 2030 only 6.9 million people would live in occupied areas, not including another 2.5 or even 3 million alleged Israeli Arabs.
The publication expressed the conviction of the then Minister of Palestinian Autonomy that specified a crucial population growth would not only contribute to improving economical conditions, but would besides require the creation of a free Palestinian State. However, many analysts, both working for the UN and independent actors, warned that the rapidly increasing population of young people, deprived of rights and prospects, locked in the “world's largest prison under the open air”, exposed to force by Israeli soldiers and settlers, subjected to the spiritual and nationalist propaganda of Hamas and associated organizations, could lead to an outbreak of aggression.
In vitro and abortion
In the early 21st century, the in vitro boom began among the Palestinian community. In 2003, there were 3 clinics in West Bank, 2 in Gaza. By United Nations Population Found report In 2019 there were eleven and 9 respectively. The data from the Palestinian media that I managed to find indicate that 2 more were created before the escalation of the war in October 2023.
This may sound ridiculous to a European whose set of associations links Gaza with poorness and in vitro with advanced costs. In fact, in subsequent UN reports, the Gaza Strip was considered to be a place with highly unfavorable conditions – with a low level of food security, unemployment of more than 45%, limited access to water or a hard housing situation (this was before the Israeli army leveled the ground, destroying half the schools, most hospitals and condemning most Palestinians to homelessness). However, with the support of NGOs specified as the Palestinian Centre for Human Preservation, grants from the government of the Palestinian Authority or loans from the household and long-term savings, The Palestinians were among the in vitro leaders in the mediate East.
In the Palestinian community, procreation is 1 form of opposition to occupation. The most spectacular expression of this approach is the smuggling of semen from Israeli prisoners. It is utilized for in vitro treatments in clinics in Gaza and the West Bank, allowing the sentenced to many years of sentences to become fathers. It is estimated that since 2012, about 120 children have been born this way.
The public opinion was amazed to learn about the collection of semen from the killed on October 7, 2023 Israelis. However, this is simply a consequence of the regulations in Israel for more than 2 decades, allowing the biological material of the deceased by his relatives (in principle, wives and partners, in exceptional cases of parents). This is the alleged biological testament, which is the aftermath of, among another things, the state-funded seed retention program for IDF soldiers. Israel is besides 1 of the fewer countries (beside Britain, any states of the USA or Spain) that allow the creation of embryos after death 1 of the parents.
Israel is besides 1 of the fewer countries in which, in a number of cases, pregnancy can be legally discontinued until 24 weeks without major obstacles, and, after receiving the opinion of the applicable committee, until childbirth itself. Access to abortion, surrogacy and in vitro, frequently co-financed by the state, is 1 of the most progressive reproductive policies in the world.
This is diametrically different from the situation of Palestinians surviving in the Gaza Strip, where the government on pregnancy termination contained in Palestinian Public wellness Law No. 20 of 2004. Abortion is almost completely prohibited, besides in cases where there has been rape, the fetus is permanently damaged – the exception is simply a life-threatening situation. The procedure requires written consent of both the pregnant and her husband or a male legal guardian, usually the father.
Openness to LGBT+ people as part of reproductive policy
The LGBT+ people of Israeli origin can be seen as sinful by Israeli conservatives, but "theirs". First, they are Israelis – possible soldiers, bearers of judaic genes and identities. They have a minimum of 32 months of military service (man) or 24 (women), as do heteronormative citizens and citizens. Single sex couples, couples who are in relationships, and individuals who have been single – regardless of sex – for years have been able to benefit from adoption, in vitro or surrogates under government programmes (from the second since 2021, thanks to the ultimate Court decision).
Many of these solutions – which in Europe and today's states are considered leftist and "woke" – were pushed through during the regulation of the hard right (as you can find 5 more cabinets formed after 2009, erstwhile power lost centre-right Kadima). In the current government there are no shortages of homophobic politicians specified as Benzael Smotricz or Ben Gwir, but Benjamin Netanyahu himself expressed support for LGBT+ people, stressing that they play an crucial function in the state.
In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, it is hard to compare – LGBT+ people are victims of force and persecution there. It is besides worth noting that in most cases of killings or executions, the victims of which were accused of homosexuality – as in the case of Mahmoud Ishtiwi or Zuhair al-Ghaleeth – this was an additional charge, accompanying the charge of treason through cooperation with Israel. Recruiting non-heterosexuals utilizing blackmail by Israeli civilian and military intelligence is well documented. Palestinian gay service subordinate to a government that façadely supports LGBT+ people in Israel, force them to collaborate, threatening to outrun arabian neighbors or family.
We gotta halt the demographic race, not pause it.
Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict usage an old communicative about blood and land, the demographic race and the responsibilities of the spiritual system. What happened on October 7, 2023 and later, is simply a tragic and inevitable consequence of accepting this logic. The goal is to intimidate the another nation and reduce its population.
The possible of a demographic race is heartless and frightening: in this regard, the bodies of Israelis and Palestinians are indirectly owned by the nation. Women become small more than incubators, men (and in Israel, although much less, besides women) – cannon meat in the endless war.
Leaving the conflict between Israel and Palestine without strong global intervention, the ticking bomb of the demographic race, has led to besides many atrocities – including the practices and laws described above, resulting from the permanent state of war.
It will only cease erstwhile both nations have independent and own states—or erstwhile 1 of them destroys the other. If we agree that the second script is not an option, we will have a two-state solution, in which the global community will be able to put force on the abandonment of human rights violations and to mimic common aggression, and states, without a permanent sense of danger and the request to fight for their own lives, will be more inclined to quit these acts.
