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Australia 21 million, Israel 7.5m population issues

By: Mark Tronson
Christian Today Australia Advisor
Monday, 7 June 2010, 0:42 (EST)
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With Israel continuing to be in the news, it might be interesting to note that Israel's Ynetnews revealed that the Central Bureau of Statistics had recently released population data that showed that there are 7,587,000 people living in Israel, 75% of whom are Jewish. Most of the remainder are Arab residents, with about 4 % classified as ‘other’ – possibly immigrants who have not registered as Jews.

After tallying up the number of babies born, the number of citizens who died, those who migrated and those who left, the net increase since last year was 137,000.

The numbers further show that over 70% of the Jewish population was born in Israel, compared to 35% in the year 1948.

In the year David Ben-Gurion declared the State's establishment, only one city in Israel, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, had a population of over 100,000 residents. Today, Israel has 14 cities with over 100,000 residents. Six of these cities have populations that exceed 200,000 residents: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Haifa, Rishon Lezion, Ashdod, and Petah Tikva.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3877574,00.html

Israel's geographical territory fits into the Australia's State of Victoria several times. Australia is like Israel in that much of its land mass is uninhabitable and water is always a problem.

Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson says that although he is not comparing Israel and Australia in terms of population, he notes however there are many similarities that should be considered.

There is a current debate on Australia's future population growth. This in itself is important to consider.

The lack of drinking water and associated agriculture is an issue for Australia, and could Australia sustain a population around the 35 million mark? Politicians will be making decisions associated with this question.

Australia is in a unique situation, being a country with variable rainfall and extremely poor soils due to historic erosion issues. Australia doesn’t even have high mountains – some have suggested they have been eroded away, along with arable soil.

Therefore many suggest Australia cannot sustain a population density the same as most other countries – including Israel. Israel has deserts, but they also have very fertile soil, so when they put water on, then things can grow. Hence their population density is much higher than Australia – with one twenty-fifth of the area, Israel have one-third of our population. So Israel's density is about 7 times Australia's. Many other countries are even denser – even India, again it has many areas with low or variable rainfall, but with fertile soils so when water is applied, food can grow.

M V Tronson says there is another issue under consideration as well, the social-balance and religious issue. This idea of an Australian population increase of 15 million people over the next 25 years raises the tricky issue of social harmony. Would the electorate tolerate immigration of say, 10 million Muslims into Australia, or 2 million Tamils from Sri Lanka?

As a democracy, Israel has a different problem, in that their Parliament will not allow a growing 'voting' population of Palestinians or from any Arab nation, as their voting power could very easily upset the balances that Israel deems necessary to safe guard their Jewish identity.

Similar issues have confronted Fiji, as the military Polynesian native Fijians felt they were being over run by native Fijians from an original Indian migration (and the influence of their businesses).

M V Tronson says, that as democracies, in Australia and Israel, political considerations take centre stage and every lobby group exercises its right to put forward its views. Christians too are part of this, and should not shy away from involvement in the political process.


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