Writer, mathematician and philosopher Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte was a “complicated” character. Highly intelligent, he led an unstable life, suffering periodic mental illness. A friend and disciple of John Stuart Mill, he abandoned Catholicism and founded the Religion of Humanity, aka “Positivism.” English anthropologist Thomas Huxley, a nonconformist-leaning Protestant, facetiously described Comte’s new religion as “Catholicism minus Christianity.”

But Auguste Comte got one thing right when he said, “Demography is Destiny,” meaning that population composition and size determined a country’s future. It does. Wherever culturally incompatible populations live cheek by jowl, we’re relentlessly reminded that “diversity is our strength,” yada yada ad infinitum. Orwellian operant conditioning.

Geopolitical reality

Once upon a time most countries were nation-states with boundaries conveniently conforming to national homelands. No more. Wars and migrations have wrought multicultural polities plagued by identity politics. Of the globe’s many fissiparous countries, perhaps the most consequential is the State of Israel.

Israel is a Mecca for Jews worldwide. It is the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Israel is hugely influential in the US, thus has global clout. In foreign policy and military affairs, the US and Israel are joined at the hip. While the US is boss of the West, some contend that Israel is the boss of America. How’s that?

Here is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scolding Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at a 2001 cabinet meeting:

[E]very time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.

Benjamin Netanyahu:

I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.

In July Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress, an audience Le Monde reported “that rose and rose for him for 52 minutes, ready to offer him nearly 50 standing ovations.” No other foreign head of state is similarly received. Israel is the recipient of billions in US aid. No other country comes anywhere close in US largesse. Consequently, what happens in Israel has global geostrategic ramifications.

Challenging demographics

If demography is destiny, will Israel be eternally at war with itself? There’s a shocking piece in Eurasia Review, “Challenges Of Demography: The Rapid Growth Of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Population Threatens Israel’s National Security – Analysis” that explains:

Demography in Israel… is the most important national security issue and a crucial indicator influencing Israeli-Palestinian relations. As of early 2023, around 7.45 million Jews were living in Israel and the West Bank. Approximately the same number, 7.53 million Palestinians or Arabs, lived in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel, and East Jerusalem. Given such figures, it is no surprise that Jewish politicians oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, as it would quickly outnumber Israel due to the traditionally stronger fertility rates of Palestinians… Such a populous Palestinian state could pose a military threat to Israel. This is why the Israeli right opposes the two-state solution.

At the same time, Israeli/Jewish nationalists are against a single-state solution, even if it were under Israeli control. If Israel were to annex the entire West Bank, and Palestinians remained there, it would pose a significant demographic challenge, potentially leading Palestinians to outnumber Jews significantly over time. This is why Israeli nationalists publicly or secretly advocate for the relocation of Palestinians to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The above mentioned “Israeli right” or “Israeli/Jewish nationalists,” aka Zionists, hold the whip hand in government. They are rabidly anti-Palestinian (Palestinians are fervently anti-Zionist), because they believe that Israel should be exclusively for Jews. To make that a reality, 7.5 million Palestinian Arabs need to hit the road or be removed otherwise. Nasty business.

Total fertility rates (TFR) tell the story: In 1960 in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Arab TFR was over 8.0 while that of Jews was 3.5. By 2000 the ratio was 4.5 for Arabs and 2.7 for Jews. In 2022 it was 2.91 for Arabs and 3.03 for Jews. Therefore, a quarter of Israelis are Palestinians, overwhelmingly Muslim but with Christian (1.68 TFR) and Druze (1.85 TFR) minorities.

As the Zionist-dominated ruling coalition favours neither a two-state nor one-state solution, what do they want? In 2018 the government formally declared Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

But one in four Israelis are not Jewish. Territories under Israeli control (Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria’s Golan Heights) have overwhelming Arab majorities. Many Jews consider Israel plus these lands (aka occupied territories) as Greater Israel (“Eretz Yisrael” or Land of Israel). Palestinians disagree and talk about setting up shop “from the river to the sea.” Problem is, Palestinians get the short end of the stick and are not accorded equal legal status with Jewish residents. That is why Israel is widely regarded as an apartheid state, especially throughout the Global South.

Geopolitical ramifications

The Gaza War is yet another chapter in an intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As veteran foreign policy analyst Dr Clifford Kiracofe explains, this predates the founding of the State of Israel (1948).

[P]ro-Zionist leaders, such as Winston Churchill… facilitated the establishment of the Zionist settler colony in Palestine.

The British-backed Zionist settler colony became the state of Israel in 1948 after the partition of Palestine by the United Nations.

On Israeli control of Palestinian territory:

Under international law, the Israeli occupation is illegal. The United Nations organization has issued a number of resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied areas.

Everything changed on October 7, 2023, when Gaza rebelled: Hamas attacked Israel. Ten months on the war continues. Accusations abound (though are denied) that the Netanyahu government wants the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. Israel’s disproportionate military response has been widely condemned. The Lancet estimates that thus far 186,000 Palestinians have perished in Gaza. Several thousand Israelis have also died. The bloodletting could well metastasize into a full-blown regional war.