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Transnational Thursday for March 20, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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That is not true. Secular Israeli Jews have a fertility rate of 2, and that’s the lowest Israeli Jewish fertility gets.

And if their adversary and neighbor was North Korea that would be pretty good. But they have the misfortune of being in conflict with one of the few remaining fertile groups on the planet.

This isn’t 2005. Islamic fertility isn’t sub-Saharan Africa level. Israel’s TFR is generally higher than it’s neighbors.

Israel’s TFR is generally higher than it’s neighbors.

It is not, thoughbeit. The fertility rate of the Palestinian territories is 3.44. Gaza is 3.88. While that’s down from a whopping 7 in 1990 that’s still almost double of Israel’s. Egypt is 2.88. Syria, despite being in the middle of a horrific civil war, is 2.70. Iraq is 3.88. The only country Israel is keeping up with is Lebanon. Unfortunately it seems western culture has a more deleterious effect on fertility rates than several million smart bombs do.

A quick google says Israel's overall TFR is 2.89 and the Israeli overall Jewish TFR is 3.03. Both of those are higher than any neighbors except Palestine and Iraq(which is stretching the definition of 'neighbor').