11-2001
HAIFA (June 11) - Israel's future as the Jewish State is under
threat from the ongoing population boom among Palestinians and
Israeli Arabs, according to a demographic working paper written by
the University of Haifa's Prof. Arnon Soffer.
The Green Line border has eroded to the point that 100,000 Arabs
have entered and remained in Israel illegally over the past decade
alone and especially since the 1993 Oslo accords, says Soffer,
deputy head of the university's National Security Studies Center.
Soffer, in his booklet on demographic predictions up to the year 2020,
also warns that if the current situation continues, Israel could
become an underdeveloped, Third World country.
His sobering assessments of population growth and economic trends
and his recommendations for solving the situation have already
drawn fire from certain quarters.
Soffer, however, who heads the Geo-Strategy Chair at the center
and is a senior lecturer in the university's Geography Department, is
adamant that there is only one feasible solution: separation between
Israel and the Palestinians.
"We are at a crossroads where the situation, if it continues, will
deteriorate on the demographic and socio-economic fronts which will
be like a time bomb just waiting to explode," he said.
"The other alternative is to start to take action now and plan for the
future in terms of national infrastructure, primarily water,
desalination and sewage treatment, to ensure a stable future."
According to Soffer, there is already a demographic balance in terms
of the number of Jews and non-Jews in the region from the Jordan
River to the coast and running the length of Israel from North to
South.
"Today, there are five million Jews and five million non-Jews. The
latter figure is composed of 4.5 million Arabs and the remainder
non-Jewish immigrants, mainly from the former Soviet Union, and
foreign workers," he said.
By the year 2020, he forecasts around 6.4 million Jews, based on
population growth and an average 50,000 Jewish new immigrants a
year. He expects the Arab population to reach around 8.5 million, in
addition to another million non-Jews of various origins.
Gaza's population is expected to grow to 2.5 million by 2020 and
that in the West Bank to increase from just over two million today to
around four million. The Israeli Arab population, which today stands
at 1.3 million when taking into account over 200,000 residents of east
Jerusalem, is expected to reach over two million by 2020.
"I cannot understand why the government, the Knesset, and the
military seem to find it so difficult to absorb these figures and why
some people still insist on saying that time favors the Jews," he
said.
"This is simply not true. On the contrary, the trends and indicators
all point to an economic and ecological catastrophe waiting to
happen, and of the death knell of the ideological dream of a Jewish
State."
