The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) shows that the numbers continue to tell a different demographic story than the one that pro-Palestinian elements wish to ensconce in the public consciousness.
Yoram Ettinger, head of the group's Israeli research desk, a consultant on American-Israeli relations and a former liaison to Congress in
A perpetual theme running throughout the presentation is that the PCBS (Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics) exaggerates the number of Arabs in its territory in a number of ways. The latest census includes some 400,000 overseas residents, adds 200,000 Jerusalem Arabs who are also counted as Israeli-Arabs and ignores some 200,000 emigrants since 1997. The World Bank documents a 32 percent gap between the number of Arab births given by the PCBS and that provided by the PA's Ministry of Health and confirmed by its Ministry of Education.
It is with methods such as these, Ettinger says, that the PA is able to jack up its total numbers in
In addition, the PA takes the "assumed" numbers, adds it to the 1.4 million Israeli-Arabs, and states that the total number of Arabs west of the
The AIDRG shows, however, that in fact, a 2-1 majority of Jews has been consistently maintained.
The PCBS partially based its numbers and projections on an assumption of mass immigration into
The AIDRG's "Arab Population in the West Bank and Gaza: The Million Person Gap" was presented at the January 2006 Herzliya Conference. The
Other important aspects of the latest study:
* The Arab fertility rate has declined 20 years faster than projected. In
* There has been a 50 percent rise in annual Israeli Jewish births during 1995-2009 (from 80,400 to 121,000), while the number of annual Arab births stabilized (39,000). The gap in births-per-woman between Arabs and Jews has dropped ten-fold, from six in 1969 to 0.6 in 2009.
* In
*
In sum, Ettinger states, "There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal. The demographic trend is Jewish. Anyone claiming that