When Scholarship Disturbs Narrative: Ian Lustick on Israel's Migration Balance

In response to Ian Lustick's article on Israel's migration balance in the previous issue of Israel Studies Review, I question the author's
(lack of) theoretical frame, data handling, and conclusions, all set up against a robust narrative. I show that, until 2010, Israel displayed a positive, if weakened, migration balance and that immigration trends continued to reflect conditions among Diaspora Jewish populations more than Israel's absorption context. Emigration rates from Israel, while admittedly
difficult to measure, were objectively moderate and proportionally lower, for example, than those of Switzerland, a more developed country of similar size, or those of ethnic Germans returning to and then again leaving Germany. The main determinants of emigration from Israel- namely, 'brain drain'- consistently related to socio-economic changes and not to security. I also reject Lustick's assumptions about the ideological bias of
Israel's research community when dealing with international migration. Scholarship about Israel should not ignore global contextualization and international comparisons.