The Jeriusalem Post has editorialized from a very left perspective that population increase for Israel will be bad. The fact is that the problems they are predicting are already being attacked by better public transportation, including electrification and expansion of the railroad system, light rail in the three major cities, with that in Tel Aviv really closer to a full Metro, and discoveries of making food production far more efficient and greatly reducing spoilage, and getting water out of thin air, and better education for ultra-Orthodox and having them join the workforce as well as study Torah, and better intergration and more opportunities for Arabs, and so forth. These are all answers to the following Jerusalem Post editorial, and I am very happy that expanded use of rail transportation is part of the answer:
Israelis live in the most crowded country in the developed world. But few understand the cumulative price they pay now that quantity of life has begun to degrade quality of life.
On August 14, the Israel National Economic Council issued a seemingly banal, technical publication called “Regional Population Scenarios for the State of Israel During the Years 2015-2040.” The local press paid little attention to the report even though its findings should have troubled anyone who cares about the Land of Israel and the future of the Third Jewish Commonwealth. Distilled to its essence, the report’s three main findings are: Israel’s population is set to expand by 5 million people over the next 23 years; the number of elderly citizens will double; and the percentage of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Israelis will increase from 11% to 20%.
Typically, population pronouncements by the government are festive affairs; on Independence Day, the medi