Following from last week's entry about the missing 1.5 million Palestinians Caroline Glick wieghs in with this column: The demographic bomb is a dud.
I recommend that you read the whole thing, but here's a snippet.
While Hamas has placed its emphasis mainly on the terrorist aspect of the post-modern battlefield, the PLO has placed an equal emphasis on the psychological component of the war. In fact, it could be said in retrospect that the greatest single victory the PLO has scored in its 46-year-old war with Israel was the publication of a single report in 1997. That report, "Demographic Indicators of the Palestinian Territory, 1997-2015," is based on a census carried out by the PA's Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 1997. It projects that the Arab population west of the Jordan River will by 2015 outnumber the Jewish population.
BUT WHAT if the numbers are wrong? What if the doomsday scenarios we hear on a daily basis, arguing that Israel is about to be overrun by the Arab womb, are all based on fraudulent data – part of an ingenious Palestinian plan to psychologically manipulate Israel into capitulating?
Last week however, a team of researchers presented a study which revealed the calculated Palestinian psychological strategy for the deceptive hallucination that it was.
You can view the entire report at www.pademographics.com.
The summary shows that rather than the claimed 3.8 million Arabs living west of the Jordan, there are actually only 2.4 million.
The researchers found that:
The million-and-a-half person gap occurred because the PA numbers are based on Palestine Bureau of Statistics (PBS) 1997 projections, not on actual population counts. The PBS used the PA’s official 1997 census as a base population and assumed the population would grow at 4 to 5% a year, one of the highest growth rates in the world. When the research team reviewed PA Ministry of Health birth data and actual border entry/exit data, they found that the PBS’ expectations were not met in any year between 1997 and 2004. “There were dramatically fewer births and lower fertility rates, and instead of immigration, the Territories experienced a steady net emigration,” reported project leader Bennett Zimmerman. “When the PBS’ incorrect assumptions were applied over many years, the error in population forecast compounded exponentially.”
Some Findings:
· Fewer births: PA Ministry of Health birth reports were substantially lower than the number predicted by the PBS.
· Lower Fertility Rates: Palestinian fertility rates declined from the mid-90’s through 2003, according to PA Ministry of Health, consistent with the trend occurring in other Middle Eastern Arab societies.
· Net Emigration: Instead of the large immigration originally projected by the PA, the Territories experienced a steady net emigration averaging 10,000 a year.
· Double Counting: 210,000 Jerusalem Arabs who are already counted in Israel ’s population survey were included in the PA survey.
· Inclusion of non-residents: Palestinians with IDs living abroad for over one year were included in the PA Census & Projection.
· Internal migration: 150,000 PA Arabs who have legally relocated to Israel since 1993 are still counted by the PA..
· Retrospective Alterations of Recorded Birth data.
You can view the press release here.
Comments