They were dying out faster before Israel. At the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel took over the territories occupied by Jordan and Egypt, the average Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza expected to live just 49 years, according to a United Nations report. In 1975, Palestinian life expectancy rose to 56; by 1984, it climbed to 66. That this is “a rise of almost seventeen years in longevity within seventeen years of Israeli rule.” Since 1984, Palestinians have lived an average of 75 years. That’s not only higher than the global average, but longer than the life expectancy in many Arab and South American countries—and even in some European countries. Israeli Arabs, meanwhile, have the highest life expectancy in the Muslim world.