State Department: Arabs outnumber Jews in Israel/Palestine
This may have been widely commented on already, but if it has, I haven't seen it. In any case, while looking for population figures for the West Bank and Gaza, I came across this US State Department human rights report for 2004. It was released on February 28, 2005. Here are the population figures it gives for Israel and Palestine:
By my calculations: 1.3 + 2.4 + 1.4 + .41 - .18 = 5.33 million Arabs. As compared with 5.2 million Jews. This is of course the sort of doomsday scenario for Israeli democracy that numerous people have warned of. I always heard that this demographic shift would occur in 2010. Guess not.
UPDATE: Just found something else on this. The Electronic Intifada has this article from March 1, 2005.
The country's (Israel) population is approximately 6.8 million, including 5.2 million Jews, 1.3 million Arabs, and some 290,000 other minorities.
The population of the Gaza Strip was approximately 1.4 million, of the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) approximately 2.4 million, and of East Jerusalem approximately 414,518, including 177,333 Israelis.
By my calculations: 1.3 + 2.4 + 1.4 + .41 - .18 = 5.33 million Arabs. As compared with 5.2 million Jews. This is of course the sort of doomsday scenario for Israeli democracy that numerous people have warned of. I always heard that this demographic shift would occur in 2010. Guess not.
UPDATE: Just found something else on this. The Electronic Intifada has this article from March 1, 2005.