Researchers to Report That Arab Population Figures in West Bank and Gaza Are Dramatically Overestimated as House International Relations Subcommittee Reconsiders US Aid to Palestinian Authority

* ADRG found over a Million Person Gap between official PA population reports and the data recorded by other PA and Israeli agencies since 1997. The 2004 population in the West Bank and Gaza was 2.5 million (1.4 million in the West Bank and 1.1 million in Gaza) -- not the 3.8 million claimed by the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

* The PCBS figures were based on a 1997 forecast that was never adjusted for actual demographic events. The PCBS 1997 census included overseas residents and Jerusalem Arabs already counted by Israel in its population survey. On top of this expanded base, it added unrealized birth forecasts and assumptions of mass immigration that never occurred. Birth data recorded by the Palestinian Ministry of Health and school records released by the Palestinian Ministry of Education confirm much lower birth levels than original forecast by the PCBS.

* The ADRG examined voter data from the Palestinian Central Election Commission which confirmed the lower population figures for the West Bank and Gaza. The ADRG also confirmed that while many Palestinians voted for Hamas, others voted with their feet, by leaving Palestinian controlled territories to live abroad, or in their preferred destination, pre-1967 Israel and Israeli-controlled Jerusalem.

* Emigration and gradually declining birth rates collapsed the PCBS' forecast that projected the world's highest growth rates. Since 1997, Jewish growth has surpassed West Bank Arab growth -- 2.1% versus 1.8% -- largely because of significant emigration from the West Bank.

* US tax dollars and other international humanitarian aid have been based on inflated population numbers which have been accepted without question by government and aid agencies. The researchers pointed out that money has been spent to help Palestinians who were double-counted, never born, or not present in the West Bank and Gaza.

* The ADRG will present US government agencies reports, including those prepared by the US State Department and the CIA, which unquestioningly adopt the errant PCBS numbers.

* After correcting the current population figures, the ADRG developed a forecast based on recent growth and fertility trends. They found that the current 2 to 1 Jewish to Arab majority in the West Bank and Israel will remain stable through 2025 because of high Jewish fertility rates (the highest of any Western nation), high but declining Arab fertility rates and continuing Jewish immigration and Palestinian emigration.

The ADRG released, "Arab Population in the West Bank and Gaza: The Million Person Gap," a report authored by Bennett Zimmerman, Dr. Roberta Seid and Dr. Michael L. Wise at the American Enterprise Institute. Their study has been presented at the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Security Committee, multiple hearings at the Knesset Government Operations Committee and to the President of Israel, over 40 Knesset Members, the Herzliya Policy Conference, and to numerous think-tanks throughout Israel. The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies published the study last week in Israel.

The ADRG's new companion study, "Forecast for Israel and West Bank 2025" debuted in January 2006 at the Herzlyia Conference, Israel's premier annual policy planning conference on national security.

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