A new study shows a sharp increase in the Jewish fertility rate in Israel, concluding that “that the dire predictions of an Arab demographic takeover of Israel that have become ‘common knowledge’ are actually not true,” the Israel National News website reports today.

According to the news site, “For one thing, the fertility gap between Arab and Jewish women dropped from six births per woman in 1969 to 0.7 in 2009. At the same time, the proportion of Jewish births has grown from 69 percent of total births in 1995 to 75 percent in 2008. Secular women now give birth to an average of 2.6 babies, as opposed to their mothers, who bore only 2.1 children each. Over the past 15 years, the number of Arab births in Israel has remained more or less steady at around 39,000, while Jewish births grew over this period from 80,000 to 120,000.”

Ashkenazic Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews have a total fertility rate above 8.5.

The 2.6 fertility rate for secular Jewish women is by far the highest in the industrial world. The American fertility rate, skewed upwards by a high immigrant birth rate, is 2.1. The second-highest fertility rate is America’s at 2.05, although the 2.89 fertility rate for Hispanics is responsible for keeping America just at the replacement level.