Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). It is not Iranian missiles that pose the greatest threat to Israel in the medium and long term, but rather net emigration – which has already doubled – coupled with a sharply rising willingness amongst well-educated, younger Jewish Israelis in the most productive years of their lives to leave their country.
For decades, Israel was a country of immigration. However, the movement in the opposite direction is now gaining momentum. Since 2022, the number of Israelis leaving the country on a long-term basis has risen dramatically. What is particularly problematic here is not so much the sheer number as the composition of the emigrants: young, well-educated, secular Israelis with above-average incomes are leaving at a disproportionately high rate – precisely those sections of the population on which the high-tech industry, the healthcare sector, science, tax revenue and, ultimately, the country’s military and technological capabilities are particularly dependent.
According to the currently available time series from the ‘Central Bureau of Statistics’ (CBS), around 59,400 emigrants were recorded in 2023. In 2024, the figure jumped to just under 82,800 – roughly twice as many as in 2022 and approximately twice the average seen in many years prior to the current crisis. Preliminary figures for 2025 show just under 69,500 emigrants. At the same time, the number of returnees fell from 29,600 in 2023 to 24,150 in 2024 and 18,780 in 2025. In 2024 alone, this resulted in a net emigration of around 58,600 Israelis.
Individual annual figures vary due to differences in statistical categorisation. This does little to alter the overall picture. An analysis by the Knesset Research Service puts the cumulative net emigration for 2022 to 2024 at around 140,000 Israelis. Particularly striking is the fact that, on average, those emigrating are young, comparatively well-educated and increasingly married.
War and insecurity are changing the motives
This means that the latest wave of emigration differs qualitatively from earlier phases. Whilst better career prospects abroad have always played a role, since 2023 war, the precarious security situation, political tensions and fears for the future have intensified this trend.
In a major study conducted in 2025, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) found that around a quarter of Jewish Israelis and about a third of Arab Israelis had considered leaving the country, either temporarily or permanently. The willingness to do so was particularly high among secular Jews: 39 per cent were considering moving away, compared with just three per cent of the ultra-Orthodox. Among Jewish Israelis aged between 18 and 34 as a whole, the figure stood at 36 per cent.
The IDI identified the high cost of living, concerns about their children’s future and the security situation as key push factors. It is also noteworthy that 69 per cent of Jewish Israelis and 62.5 per cent of Arab Israelis surveyed who were willing to emigrate did not cite any specific professional or academic reason. The decisive factor was, first and foremost, the desire to leave Israel.
However, these figures should not be taken to imply an imminent mass exodus from Israel. This is because another IDI survey conducted in 2025 also showed that, despite favourable opportunities abroad, more than 70 per cent of both Jewish and Arab respondents would prefer to stay at home in Israel. Their ties to family and society remain strong.
More dangerous than the number of emigrants is who is leaving
Even from an economic perspective, there is a significant problem here. A study published in 2026 by the Israeli tax authority concluded that emigration among high earners had almost doubled within five years. Doctors, engineers and other highly qualified workers are disproportionately represented.
The authors of the study, Ariel Greizaz and Nili Ben-Tovim, writing in the Times of Israel, describe the trend clearly: whilst the emigration rate among lower-income groups has remained virtually unchanged, it has risen significantly among the ‘strong and affluent classes’. The income of today’s emigrants is around 50 per cent above the Israeli average prior to their departure.
This has significant fiscal consequences. By 2019, those who went on to emigrate had paid an average of around 500 million shekels in income tax in the year prior to their departure. In 2023 and 2024, the figure was approximately 1.2 billion shekels in each year. If this trend continues, the annual loss of revenue could, according to calculations by the tax authority, rise to around 3.5 billion shekels (just over 1.01 billion euros) within five years. This is particularly acute because the top 20 per cent of income earners account for around 92 per cent of the income tax revenue of the small state of Israel.
Doctors, engineers and the backbone of the ‘Start-up Nation’
The trend is even more evident in the healthcare sector. Researchers at Tel Aviv University found that between 2023 and 2025, around 1,370 doctors left Israel for at least one year – almost twice as many as in the comparable period ten years earlier. Professor Itai Ater warned that this would directly result in longer waiting times, poorer medical care and, ultimately, a decline in quality of life.
Even more alarming is a survey of trainee specialists: more than half were considering working abroad in the coming years. Alongside working conditions, political and security concerns were cited as reasons.
At the same time, the focus of Israel’s high-tech industry is shifting. According to the “High-Tech Annual Report 2026” by the Israel Innovation Authority, the number of research and development staff employed in Israel fell for the first time in more than a decade. In March 2026, only 62 per cent of employees at private Israeli technology companies were working in Israel; in 2019, the figure had been 69 per cent. Management and research roles are also increasingly being relocated to the US and other countries.
The danger of a self-reinforcing spiral
This is precisely where the medium-term danger lies. Israel is not simply losing residents. It risks losing a disproportionate number of people who set up businesses, pay high taxes, treat patients, conduct research and hold key technological positions.
If these groups leave permanently, the tax base will shrink. At the same time, the burden on those who remain will increase, whilst the healthcare system, universities and public services will face a shortage of skilled workers. If this leads to a deterioration in quality of life and economic prospects, the incentive for further internationally mobile professionals to leave the country will in turn grow.
Economist Itai Ater therefore warns of a ‘spiral effect’ that is difficult to reverse. It is precisely this feedback loop that makes this development more dangerous for Israel than the threat posed by Iranian missiles. After all, the latter is easy to control. For without Israeli overt military attacks and covert terrorist operations against Iran, the Palestinians and other neighbours in the region, Israel could live in lasting peace.
The crucial question for Israel’s survival is therefore not whether Israel will have a sufficient population in the medium term, or which Israelis will still be living and working there in five or ten years’ time, but whether the Israeli leadership will continue to wage war in several geographical directions in order to bring the entire region under its control and realise its murderous dream of Eretz Israel (Greater Israel) as a nuclear superpower.
If the Zionist leadership continues to pursue these criminal objectives, this will lead, in the medium term, to Israel’s demographic suicide. Increased warfare, heightened insecurity and rising casualty figures amongst the civilian population and conscripted soldiers – who are then absent from the economic cycle – as well as a higher cost of living due to the war economy and social conflicts arising from polarisation will drive away precisely those highly mobile Israelis on whom Israel’s tax base, medicine, science and technological strengths depend.
The IDI study illustrates particularly clearly that this concern has long since taken hold in Israeli society: 64 per cent of Jewish and 73 per cent of Arab respondents regard the emigration of well-educated and economically established Israelis as a threat to the country’s future.
