{"id":295136,"date":"2026-09-27T17:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T17:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295136\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T17:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T17:34:12","slug":"there-is-no-ethnic-cleansing-in-israel-and-the-west-bank-this-is-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295136\/","title":{"rendered":"There is no ethnic cleansing in Israel and the West Bank – this is why"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recurring accusation promoted by the Palestinian Authority is that Israel has pursued a policy of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and\/or \u201cgenocide\u201d against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs since 1948.<\/p>\n

What was once largely a PA libel is now echoed by anti-Israel voices worldwide. At the UN General Assembly this week, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres accused Israel of actions that he said risked \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the film world, anti-Israel activists are similarly linking the film NAZA to what they describe as Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n

However, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics recently published a chart showing the combined Palestinian and Israeli Arab population growth since 1914 within Israel, or what the PA calls \u201chistoric Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PA\u2019s chart highlights the utter failure<\/a> of Israel\u2019s “ethnic cleansing policy.”<\/p>\n

\"GraffitiGraffiti depicting Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the directors of the documentary film NAZA, and the word ”traitors” in Hebrew, on a wall in Ashdod Tuesday, September 15, 2026. (credit: REUTERS\/AMIR COHEN)<\/p>\n

From 1948 to 1967, the years that Jordan illegally occupied Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank), the Arab population dropped 4.2 percent, from 1.42 million to 1.36m. That period of Jordanian rule is the only period on the chart since 1914 when the Arab population dropped.<\/p>\n

Under Israeli rule of Judea and Samaria since the 1967 Six Day War, which brought the entire Arab population under Israeli administration, the Arab population started to skyrocket. Over the next 60 years, according to the PA, the Arab population grew from 1.36m. to 7.41m. today, a staggering 445% rise.<\/p>\n

Evidence of \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019: None<\/p>\n

The PA\u2019s statistical data demonstrates an \u201cepic failure\u201d of Israel\u2019s \u201cethnic cleansing policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The population growth experienced by Arabs living under Israel since 1967 isn\u2019t just noteworthy \u2013 it\u2019s unique. By comparison, Germany\u2019s population grew from 78m. to 84m. from 1967 to 2026, a rise of 7.7%. Britain rose from 55.7m. to 69.6m., a 25% increase.<\/p>\n

Even when comparing the growth to neighboring Arab states, the Arab population<\/a>\u2019s growth under Israel has been monumental. The population of Lebanon rose from 2.2m. to 5.8m. \u2013 a 164% rise.\u00a0
Syria\u2019s population grew from 6.3m. to 24m., a 281% increase. No other Arab population grew 445% as did the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs under Israel.<\/p>\n

There are many reasons for Israel\u2019s \u201cfailed ethnic cleansing policy.\u201d First, Israel imposed major changes in healthcare, including training Palestinian doctors to follow the standards of Israel\u2019s healthcare system.<\/p>\n

As a result, infant mortality dropped in Judea and Samaria from 152\/1000 births before Israeli rule to 29\/1000 under Israel by 1996.<\/p>\n

Life expectancy for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria before Israeli rule was 48 years, while under Israel\u2019s \u201cethnic cleansing,\u201d it rose to 72 years by 1996, according to the UN.<\/p>\n

Israel also introduced modern agricultural techniques to the Arab residents of the West Bank, like drip irrigation and other advanced Israeli farming methods. As a result, harvest yields surged, and Arabs in Judea and Samaria experienced an economic boom as early as the 1970s.<\/p>\n

By any benchmark, Israel\u2019s treatment of Israeli Arabs<\/a> has been the worst ethnic cleansing failure. The Israeli Arab population has grown from 150,000 in 1948 to 2.15m. today \u2013 a 1,333% increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Christian population is 5.4 times larger as well, as it grew from 35,000 to almost 190,000, a 443% growth, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n

So, if Israel has a policy of ethnic cleansing, as claimed by the PA, it has been an utter failure. If Israel wants to persist in its so-called ethnic cleansing policy, it will have to look for new and better ways.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Israel does not have to reinvent the wheel. There are examples of highly successful ethnic cleansing by the Palestinians that Israel can learn from.<\/p>\n

During the period between 1990 and 2005, when Israel handed the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority in stages, until before Hamas\u2019s Gaza war in 2023, estimates are that the Christian population dropped from approximately 3,000 to 1,000 \u2013 a 66% drop.<\/p>\n

Looking at Bethlehem\u2019s Christians, the PA had a similarly successful \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d Under Israeli rule, Christians in Bethlehem and the surrounding area made up 50% of the population. Since Israel handed Bethlehem over to the PA in 1994, the number of Christians<\/a> has dropped to less than 10% of Bethlehem\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Israel must now learn from its neighbor. If Israel ever wants to get its \u201cethnic cleansing policies\u201d in order, it should stop everything that it\u2019s been doing since 1967, which has caused exponential Arab growth.<\/p>\n

Instead, Israel should echo the model used by the PA to \u201cethnically cleanse\u201d Christians in Bethlehem since 1994, which caused them to drop to 10% of the population.
Now that\u2019s ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

The writer is the director of Palestinian Media Watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recurring accusation promoted by the Palestinian Authority is that Israel has pursued a policy of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,7600,122102,122103,456,5061,1559,2510,122101,10426,30237],"class_list":["post-295136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-christianity","tag-demography-of-israel","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-opinion","tag-palestinians","tag-plo","tag-statistics","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}