Palestinians may soon outnumber Israeli Jews

PALESTINE:The Palestinian central board of statistics reported on Saturday that the Palestinian population of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem had risen to 3.761 million over the last decade.

According to the breakdown, 2.137 million live in the West Bank, 208,000 in east Jerusalem and 1.416 million in the Gaza Strip. The census showed that the Palestinian population has grown by 30 per cent since the 1997 census when it was 2.89 million.

Hatem Abdel Khader, adviser on Jerusalem affairs to the Palestinian Authority, expressed doubt over the number given for residents of the city.

This was lower than the 1997 estimate of 210,000. Palestinian census takers operated covertly in Jerusalem, occupied and annexed in 1967 by Israel, because it prohibits Palestinian Authority activities there.

Furthermore, the number of Palestinians with residence rights in the city may be higher than the number who actually live there. Many have settled in West Bank suburbs because housing is scarce and highly priced in Jerusalem.

Demographics have always played a major role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. When Israel was proclaimed in 1948, the population of Palestine was 1.3 million Palestinian Arabs and 700,000 Jews. Israel currently has a population of 5.45 million Jews, 1.4 million citizens of Palestinian origin, and 310,000 others.

This means that the Palestinian population of Israel and the occupied territories is 5.16 million, 290,000 fewer than the Jewish population. Since the Palestinian growth rate is 3 per cent and the Israeli rate of increase from births and immigration is 1.7 per cent, Palestinians could outnumber Jewish Israelis within a few years.

Over the past two decades, Israel has been forced to consider that its Jewish population could become a minority in the region between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.

This was a major factor in the 2005 decision to withdraw from Gaza taken by former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Demography is also propelling his successor Ehud Olmert to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority which is demanding the entire West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem for the proposed state.

While most Palestinians say they cannot accept less because of their rapidly growing population, a minority argues that Israel's 450,000 West Bank and east Jerusalem settlers make it impossible to achieve separation and calls for the creation of a bi-national democratic state where Palestinians would eventually be the majority.