The Exorcist

In an apparent response to the Levi Report, President Shimon Peres took advantage of the memorial ceremony for visionary of the State of Israel Theodore Herzl to attack the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. To prove his point, he brought the demographic demon back from the dead, explaining that by building and remaining in Judea and Samaria, Israel will have to incorporate the Arabs living there and will succumb to the Arab birth rate. The demographics these days actually favor Israel and not the Arabs, no matter how much some Israeli politicians and media try to scare us with the ‘demographic bogeyman’. For details, see Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger’s detailed demographic study.

And what exactly were the demographics when Herzl first initiated the idea of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel?

At the end of the 19th century, during Herzl's lifetime, approximately 26,000 Jews and 450,000 Arabs lived in Israel. In other words, when Herzl called to establish a Jewish state here, the Jews were just 5% of the entire population of the Land of Israel.

It's a good thing that Herzl didn't ask Peres and his demographic exorcism team for advice before he got to work.