Some amazing new population numbers. First Ynet gives the "happy news:" Jews are an "overwhelming majority" in Israel. 75 percent. Not so fast, bub. You didn't include the Occupied Territories, which Ynet charmingly describes as the Israeli empire. (And I thought the age of empire was over!)
According to the data provided by the
Central Bureau of Statistics and by the CIA, the Israeli government
rules over 11.43 million people at this time.
Of
those, 5.6 million people are Jewish, while 5.83 million people are not
Jewish (2.46 million Palestinians in the West Bank, 1.55 million
Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip, 1.5 million Palestinians who
are citizens of the State of Israel, and another 0.32 million people
characterized as “other non-Jews.”)Therefore, the accurate figures are in fact as follows: A total of
49% Jews and 51% non-Jews currently live across the territory of the
Israeli empire.
Let's do the math: If you look at greater Israel and count the .32 million "other non-Jews" (these are mainly individuals from the Former Soviet Union with Jewish fathers, but not Jewish mothers, and non-Jewish spouses of Jews) as non-Jews, as the Israeli government does, you now have more non-Jews living in greater Israel than Jews (5.83>5.6). The Israeli Jews do slightly outnumber the Palestinians (5.6>5.51).
However, if you account for the approximately .7 million Israeli Jews living outside of Israeli–Haaretz has put it at about 1 million–many of whom are unlikely to return because minority freedoms are so beautiful in the west (including the freedom to write books about Christian evangelical political influence in the U.S.)–then you have roughly 4.9 million Israeli Jews living in greater Israel. A whole lot less than the 5.83 million non-Jews, or the 5.51 million Palestinians living in greater Israel.
Question: What do the hardliners in Israel and the lobby imagine when they oppose a two-state solution?
