Barak Can't Count (Or, Another Demography Dumbkopff)

Yoram Ettinger sent me this article and from it I excerpted what follows. It is from Haim Rozenberg, former head of Long-Term Planning at RAFAEL (Israel Defense Ministry's Armament Development Authority), and seems to have been published at News First Class on February 8, 2010:

Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, said on February 4, 2010 that there are 12 million persons between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean: 6 million Jews and 6 million Arabs. Therefore, he concluded, a two state solution would spare Israel the wrath of Apartheid...[but] Barak's conclusion is based on a dramatic error of a two million person gap.

In fact, the total population west of the Jordan River is 10 million. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Israel's population includes 6 million Jews and 1.5 million Arabs...

Recent studies, which were published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and by the Institute for Zionist Strategies [should be Strategy] have documented about 4 million – and not 6 million - Arabs between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean: 1.5 million in pre-1967 Israel, 1.5 in Judea and Samaria and 1.2 in Gaza. Barak has been off by two million Arabs!

A solid 67% Jewish majority – without Gaza – has existed west of the Jordan River since 1967. The 10 million persons west of the Jordan River consist of some 6 million Jews, 3 million Arabs in the combined area of "pre-1967 Israel" and Judea and Samaria and 1.2 million Arabs in Gaza.

Current demographic bode well for the Jewish majority, which is expected to grow during the next 20 years due to a substantial rise in fertility since 1995, while Arab/Muslim fertility throughout the Middle East has declined sharply. In addition, the Arab minority has experienced an accelerated net-emigration from Judea and Samaria: 580,000 since 1967...