Or demographics of the southern Levant:

Population of Israel: 6.4m

Religious breakdown: 4.9m Jewish (of which half are “secular” and one quarter non-believers), 1m Muslim, the rest Christian, Druze, or unclassified.

Population of the West Bank and Gaza: 3.5m

Muslim birthrates are considerably higher than those for other groups.

There appears to be lots of debate about all of these numbers, take them as approximations. With that caveat, consider that in the territory the jurisdiction of Israel controls or has military dominion over (Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza) there are about 5m Jews and 4.5m Muslims with the latter number increasing faster and more solidly religious than the former.

Clearly the strategies of war, riots, terrorism and demanding a separate state pursued for approximately three generations by politicians of surrounding Arab jurisdictions and Palestinians are incredibly stupid.

All Arabs need to do to end their hated “Jewish state” in relatively short order is to renounce violence and a separate state and demand full citizenship and voting rights in Israel. The best or worst outcomes of such a strategy (which may be flipped if one is crazy) within a generation would be a secular jurisdiction (not Jewish nor Muslim) or civil war, like Lebanon at its best or worst.

Someone who follows the politics of the Insane Land (Christianity and Islam consider it holy, which marks a strong correlation with insanity in my book) could doubtless name many reasons Palestinians and their putative friends do not pursue this strategy. Surely some do. It seems just too obious a winner (but then I have another draft post entitled something like “why is nationalist policy always stupid?”)

Those who wish to maintain a separate Jewish jurisdiction and preempt this strategy would be advised to support the creation of a “legitimate” Palestinian jurisdiction immediately, preferably one that offers citizenship and residence to Muslim citizens of Israel.

If I were a resident of the Insane Land, regardless of religion, I would do no such thing as advocate any of the above. I would concentrate on getting the hell out of the Insane Land. The West offers prosperity and safety, and parts of it offer desert and religious fanaticism, if I really wanted to be reminded of home.