The figures of the population census that was
conducted by the Palestinians in 1997 are reliable and their forecasts
regarding population growth during the coming decade are reasonable. So
says the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in a document it has
submitted to the Knesset State Control Committee. The explanation in the
document for the contradiction between the Palestinian data and the data
that the CBS itself published over the past decade is that the CBS
estimates were erroneous, based on a very old census from 1967 and
apparently under-estimated. The head of the demography department at the
CBS, Ahmad Halihal, writes: "The Palestinian census was conducted
according to accepted international procedures and the census process was
correct."
The CBS document relates to the stormy debate currently
dividing the political and scientific establishments on the question of
how many Palestinians are living in the territories of the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip. The CBS has in effect come down on the side of the veteran
school of demography, on which the Palestinians' estimates are based and
which holds that 3 million to 3.5 million Palestinians are living in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. This, in contrast to a new document published
some six months ago by an Israeli-American team of experts, headed by Ben
Zimmerman and Yoram Ettinger, that states that only 2.4 million
Palestinians live in the territories.
The claim that far fewer
Palestinians are living in the territories than usually thought serves
those who argue that the disengagement is unnecessary.
The
Zimmerman-Ettinger team noted, among other things, the fact that,
according to the figures of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
(PCBS), in 2000 there were 3.2 million Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza. According to the figures of the Israeli bureau, in 1990 in those
areas there were only 1.5 million Palestinians. A population growth of 109
percent in a decade "is nearly double that in most countries of the
world," they wrote. In other words, this is an unreasonable and illogical
difference and one (or both) of the bureaus erred. Now the CBS is saying
it made the mistake.
`Reasonable and
appropriate'
Halihal also writes in the document he sent to the
Knesset that "the natural growth assumptions [of the PCBS] seem reasonable
and appropriate ... However, the Palestinian bureau's assumptions about a
positive integration balance appear very exaggerated for a period of
intifada and economic crisis." And indeed, recently the Palestinian bureau
has amended its immigration estimate and has decreased the estimate of the
number of inhabitants in the PA from 3.8 million to 3.6 million (including
East Jerusalem).
Government Statistician Prof. Shlomo Yitzhaki
wrote to Knesset State Control Committee Chair MK Yuri Stern (National
Union) that the ICBS cannot provide an estimate of its own of the number
of inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, because it cannot gather data
there.
The fact that the Palestinian bureau has managed to wipe out
about 200,000 inhabitants could be seen as an achievement for the
Zimmerman-Ettinger team of experts. However, in the team they are
rejecting outright the ICBS support for the amended Palestinian figures.
Over the years, says Ettinger, a former diplomat and a strategic adviser,
they never raised an eyebrow in the [CBS] bureau at the contradictions
between their figures and the Palestinians'. "Now they are prepared to cut
off the branch on which they are sitting in order to explain away their
impotence." According to him, "The bureau's document is an unprofessional
response of the sort that gets scrawled on a napkin in a
restaurant."
Today the issue will come up for discussion for the
second time in the State Control Committee. "There are claims and there
are counter-claims, and I want to hold a face-to-face confrontation," says
Stern. He does not conceal his dissatisfaction with the CBS document.
According to him, the bureau did not examine the Israeli-American team's
document but rather decided the Palestinians had done a better job,
"without any proof." At the CBS they say that they could not check the
Zimmerman-Ettinger document because "we did not receive an orderly
research report but rather a PowerPoint presentation." In the terms of
academic discourse, this can be considered an insult.
Rather than
succeeding in selling their answers, the people of the Zimmerman-Ettinger
team have succeeded in selling the questions. The team stresses the fact
that the PCBS numbers are not data but rather a forecast, which is based
on the census the Palestinians conducted in 1997, counting 2.6 million
people. The team's examination was based on statistics regarding births,
deaths and immigration, as collected by the Palestinian Health Ministry,
the Palestinian elections committee, the CBS in Israel and other bodies.
"There is not a shadow of doubt that the figures need to be reexamined,"
agrees Prof. Sergio della Pergola, a senior Israeli demographer for Hebrew
University and head of the Jewish People Planning
Institute.
However, the answer the team is providing is very
controversial. According to the team's calculations, the number of
Palestinians in the West Bank is 1.4 million and in the Gaza Strip - 1
million. This, in contrast to the CBS figures until recently - 2.4 million
in the West Bank and 1.4 million in Gaza. And what does the veteran school
say? Della Pergola estimates that currently there are 3.3 million
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
At a conference held by
Haifa University about two weeks ago, Prof. Arnon Sofer of that university
presented a series of alternative estimates, but said he tends to support
the population estimate that is based on Israel Defense Forces figures - a
total of 3 million, of which 2 million reside in the West Bank and 1
million in Gaza.
According to the members of the Zimmerman-Ettinger
team, in the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River
there are 60 percent Jews and 40 percent Arabs, and therefore the
population symmetry between Jews and Arabs is distant and will perhaps
never arrive. According to della Pergola, taking into account only Jews
versus Arabs, the tie point of 50:50 will occur this year. If non-Jewish
immigrants and foreign workers are also taken into account on the Jewish
side, the Jewish majority now stands at about 54 percent and the tie point
is expected towards the middle of the next decade.
Drastic
decline
How does the Ettinger-Zimmerman team arrive at a number
of inhabitants that is smaller by 1.4 million than the PCBS
figure?
According to the team, there is a drastic decline in the
rate of natural reproduction in the territories of the PA - from 3.8
percent annually in 1997 to 2.4 percent at present. On the basis of
Palestinian Health Ministry figures, the team members calculated that the
number of births in the West Bank and Gaza in reality is smaller by
274,000 than the PCBS stated. This dramatic development, say the team
members, has been caused by a large migration of inhabitants from the
villages to the cities, an increase in the use of birth control, an
increase in the age of marriage and the divorce rate and the expansion of
the education system. The claim about this drastic decline in the
birthrate in such a short time is without a doubt the weakest link in the
team's claims.
Della Pergola says he does not see why he has to
believe the Palestinian Health Ministry and not the CBS, "which usually
tries to do a good job."
At least with respect to one claim, there
is no argument. The Palestinians count the 200,000 inhabitants of East
Jerusalem, as does Israel. However, the Israeli demographers have taken
this fact into account, so there is not much new here. More controversial
is the argument that the Palestinians also count 150,000 people who have
received Israeli identity cards since 1993.
In 1998, the director
of the PCBS, Hassan Abu Libda, said the cenus included "325,000 people who
live outside the land of Palestine." According to Ettinger, the inclusion
of these people in the figures is like Israel including in its census all
the Israelis who have immigrated to other countries. According to Halihal,
from the reports of the PCBS it emerges that the Palestinians who live
abroad were included in the census questionnaire, but were not counted as
inhabitants.
The PCBS forecast assumed, perhaps on the basis of the
euphoria of Oslo, that a positive balance of immigration of 230,000 people
into the PA territories was to be expected between 1997 and 2004. In
reality, according to Ettinger, during those years a negative immigration
balance was recorded of tens of thousands of people a year. The
researchers claim this means there is a difference of 300,000 people
between reality and the forecast. This argument has been adopted recently
in part even by the PCBS.
And another problem: The PCBS death rate
forecast is lower than the figures of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
This, said Ettinger at the Haifa University conference, is because "the
Palestinians don't die much," that is - they do not report deaths, so as
not to lose the support from the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency.
Della Pergola says that "even if we subtract several
hundred thousand from the forecast, this only moves the year of the
demographic tie by a few years. Does this change anything?" According to
him, this process is nearly inevitable because of the phenomenon called
"demographic momentum." The young age structure of the Palestinian
population will give rise to a larger number of babies. However, della
Pergola believes that all the focus on the "tie year" is a mistake,
because "even a situation of 45:55 percent has major social
significance."
They are not demographers
Like
entertainment troupes, over the past two weeks the people of the
Israeli-American team and della Pergola, Sofer and the CBS people have
been going from event to event, conference to conference, symposium to
symposium. The debate between them is accompanied by many harsh
statements. Della Pergola says of the team's work that "this is only
supposedly scientific work. They are not demographers. They are not
knowledgeable about what they are writing."
"They are lying
brazenly," says Prof. Sofer, "and are beginning to give advice to our
bureau of statistics, which is one of the best in the world."
"To
cry out that the king is not wearing any clothes you don't need to be a
tailor," says Ettinger. "It is a matter of very simple actions of addition
and subtraction." He says the work was reviewed and he claims that it has
won the backing of several leading demographers in the United States. "We
are basing ourselves on figures between which there is a very clear
correlation. The other school has only now discovered that there is data."
Ettinger also says that on their team there are three people who are
experts on what is occurring in the PA, such as former Civil
Administration head Brigadier General (Res.) David Shahaf.
There
are, of course, many charges of political motives. "The document you have
written is political, lying and impertinent," said Sofer to Ettinger at
the conference at Haifa University. Ettinger runs an Internet site called
"Hatikvah" against the disengagement. According to Sofer, the timing of
the publication before the disengagement is not coincidental and derives
from the fact that the Israeli right has begun to discover that the use of
demography is a two-edged sword and is now working to its detriment. "They
have stuck in the arrow and drawn the target around it," says della
Pergola. But Sofer himself is a leading supporter of the separation fence,
and the people of the team are displaying documents in which he supports
different figures, according to them to suit his political aims.