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Palestinian 'population bomb' a lie
Posted: January 18, 2005 6:06 p.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A bombshell study to be presented in Israel tomorrow proves
the current Palestinian population has been overstated by as
much as 1.5 million, and debunks the widely accepted notion
that Palestinians threaten Israel by demographic trends, one
of the main foundations for the U.S. and Israel's support of
a Palestinian state and for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral
withdrawal plan, the leaders of the study told WorldNetDaily.
According to Palestinian statistics, which for years have been
accepted by Israel's top demographers, the Arab population west
of the Jordan River has maintained a forward growth trend that
will result in Palestinians outnumbering Jews by 2015. The numbers,
based on a census carried out by the PA's Central Bureau of
Statistics in 1997, have been one of the major factors in Israel's
acceptance of demands for a Palestinian state and were cited
by Sharon as a major rationale for his plan to unilaterally
separate from the Palestinians in Gaza and parts of the West
Bank this summer.
Conventional political thinking has assumed that once Palestinians
outnumber Jews, they will precipitate an identity crisis in
Israel by demanding the right to vote, thus changing the Jewish
character of the state. But the new study, which will be presented
tomorrow to the Knesset's Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense,
refutes official Palestinian data, contending the current Palestinian-Arab
population of the West Bank, 1.4 million, and Gaza, 1 million,
totals 2.4 million, not the 3.8 million reported by the PA.
The study also finds a dramatic and growing decline in the Palestinian
growth rate and in the number of children per mother, and states
Palestinians have actually been moving away from the West Bank
and Gaza in contrast to PA claims of large immigration numbers.
"Our study focuses on long-term demographic trends, which document
a sharp decrease in the number of children per Palestinian woman
and a sustained and substantial net negative migration by Palestinians
away from the West Bank and Gaza," Yoram Ettinger, a strategic
consultant and researcher for the study, told WND. "The study
is the first serious initiative which defies conventions, sheds
light on the Palestinian demographic realities and identifies
the management and the doctoring of data by the Palestinian
Bureau of Statistics."
The study was conducted by a team of Israeli and American researchers
led by American businessman Bennett Zimmerman. The study compared
the accepted PA data to Palestinian voting records, birth and
death records published annually by the PA's Health Ministry,
immigration and emigration data from Israel's Border Control,
internal migration of Palestinians from the territories into
Israel recorded by the Israeli Interior Ministry and others,
Israeli Civil Administration population studies, U.N. population
surveys, and surveys conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau
of Statistics and the World Bank.
Zimmerman's study found extreme faults in the methods used by
the PA to determine its population, including counting the 230,000
Arab residents of Jerusalem twice.
The PA claims a natural growth rate of 4 to 5 percent per year,
among the highest in the world, but Palestinian Ministry of
Health records published annually since 1996 contradict the
PA's own claim by publishing growth rates averaging around 3
percent. Zimmerman's study documents the PA tampered with its
own data, retroactively raising the growth numbers in 2002.
The new study shows a steady pattern of decrease in growth leading
to a natural growth rate in 2003 of just 2.6 percent.
The PA has documented rises in Palestinian fertility rates -
the number of children per woman - but Zimmerman's study found
a dramatic decrease from 7.4 in 1997 to 3.89 in 2003. Palestinian
women in the West Bank averaged 4.1 children in 1999 and 3.4
in 2003, and women in Gaza averaged 5 children each in 1999
and 4.7 in 2003.
The PA also projected a net population increase of 1.5 percent
per year as a result of immigration from surrounding countries.
But Zimmerman's researchers found that except for 1994, when
the bulk of the Palestinian leadership and their families entered
the territories from Tunis, Palestinian emigration from the
area has outweighed immigration by a net negative of about 10,000
per year.
The study, which has been lauded by esteemed American demographers
Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt and Murray Feshbach, shows the Jewish
majority west of the Jordan has remained relatively stable for
the past 38 years. In 1967, Jews made up 64.1 percent of the
total population, and in 2004 the Jewish share was 59.5 percent.
The Jewish majority in Israel proper, including Jerusalem, is
80 percent. Prior to the publication of this study, the PA's
statistics have been accepted by Israel and adopted by such
prominent Israeli demographers as the University of Haifa's
Arnon Soffer and the Hebrew University's Sergio Della Pergola,
who both warned that by 2020 Jews will make up between 40 and
46 percent of the overall population of Israel and the territories.
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post calls the PA's accepted
statistics "the greatest single victory [of] the PLO." She credits
predictions by Israeli demographers based on PA statistics as
a key factor in influencing Israeli policy-makers, including
Sharon. In justifying the withdrawal plan, Vice Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert wrote, "Above all hovers the cloud of demographics.
It will come down on us not in the end of days, but in just
another few years. We are approaching a point where more and
more Palestinians will say: 'There is no place for two states
between the Jordan and the sea. All we want is the right to
vote.' The day they get it we will lose everything."
Some Israeli critics, a few of whom have been associated with
Israel's liberal parties, have been slamming Zimmerman's breakthrough
study. Della Pergola, who conducted previous studies in Israel
upholding the PA claims, called Zimmerman's findings "groundless,"
politically slanted and baseless from a research perspective.
He slammed some of the credentials of Zimmerman's researchers.
But several high-level Israeli politicians, including a member
of Sharon's cabinet, told WorldNetDaily they found the new study
credible.
"This changes major previous assumptions, and it must result
in an immediate debate as to the wisdom of our rushing into
certain arrangements and solutions for the Palestinian problem,"
the cabinet minister said.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who was
presented with the findings last week, told WorldNetDaily: "We
are open to the presentation of groups representing different
assessments of demographic realities, which is very important
in terms of policy ramifications. We heard from these credible
demographers just as we have heard from their critics, some
of whom may disagree."
Ettinger said his group is not lobbying for political changes,
but is merely presenting their data for immediate consideration:
"Our study does not contain any political conclusions. We do
hope that policy-makers and public opinion molders, who consider
demography as a central factor shaping their worldview, will
examine our breakthrough study."
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