The relative size of the population of Arabs and Jews in Israel Palestine– as well as the raw numbers of people involved– tends to surprise many people in the West.
Perhaps it is emblematic of the problems there, but the numbers can be confusing to pin down or understand because the definition of the areas involved requires some explanation.
Like everything else about the lands of Israel-Palestine, it seems, even population statistics have to be accompanied by a modern history lesson.
But with the violence, hatred and partisan rancor spiraling again, it is a small but important thing to at the least try to share terminology and the numbers of people involved.
THE REGIONS, AND TERMINOLOGY
The region of historic Palestine roughly corresponds to what is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The briefest possible description of these regions is as follows…
1. The State of Israel
De-facto boundaries of the State of Israel today were initially established following the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the subsequent 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel expanded the area under its military control by capturing territories including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egyptian sovereignty as part of the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.
The Area of the State of Israel is 21,937 square kilometers, or about 8,470 square miles. That is about the size of New Jersey, with a similar number of people.
2. The West Bank
The West Bank is a region located to the east of The State of Israel, on the western bank of the Jordan River. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured and has since occupied the West Bank. The West Bank is home to a majority Palestinian population and contains cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron.
Since the 1990’s Oslo Accords, limited Palestinian self-government of the West Bank is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The political party Fatah, the current heirs of Yasser Arafat’s PLO, has traditionally played a central role within the PA. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank persists, and the coordination between Israel and the PA involves a complex and often contentious arrangement.
The area of the West Bank is 5,628 square kilometers, or about 2,172 square miles. That is about the size of Delaware, but with 3 times the number of people.
3. The Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Israel to the east and north and by Egypt to the south. It is approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and varies in width. (Generally referred to as simply Gaza, but technically speaking that is imprecise: Gaza is the name of the largest city within the Gaza Strip.)
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank and other territories. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its settlements and military presence from Gaza, leading to the end of direct Israeli governance. Following the withdrawal, the Gaza Strip came under the control of the Palestinian political and militant organization, Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and took control of Gaza in 2007 after a violent conflict with Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction. Israel maintains tight control over the Gaza Strip’s borders, airspace, and sea access.
The area of the Gaza Strip is 365 square kilometers or 141 square miles. That is about 3 times the size of San Francisco, and about 80% as dense as San Francisco.
POPULATION STATISTICS
According to the CIA World Fact Book, the population of the State of Israel as of 2023 was approximately 9.0 million. The population of the West Bank was around 3.18m and the Gaza Strip 2.1m. The combined population of Palestinian territories is thus around 5.44 million people, bringing the total population of Israel-Palestine to about 14.32 million people. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) cites a higher number for the population of Israel, at 9.84 million as of December 2023, but this number includes the Jewish residents of the Occupied Territories. (I.e. it includes the Arab residents of Israel, the Jewish residents of Israel, and the Jewish residents of the Occupied Territories, just not the non-Jewish residents of the Occupied Territories, who are predominantly Arab.) The Israelis put this number of settlers living beyond the 1967 borders at just above 500,000 (as of Dec 2023), the Palestinians at around 719,000 (as of 2021), and the CIA at around 705,000 (as of 2021/22).
Sticking with the CIA numbers for consistency, within the State of Israel, the estimated Jewish population is about 7.0 million (73.5% of the total) and the Arab Palestinian population is about 2.0 million (21.1% of the total).
The West Bank has seen a steady increase in Jewish settler activity in the past 50 years since the Likud party came into power and embraced the settlers as a political constituency. The CIA estimate is that the West Bank had 468,300 Israeli settlers as of 2022 and East Jerusalem was the home of 236,600 settlers as of 2021. That would indicate that the Jewish population of the West Bank and East Jerusalem would represent more than 22% of these areas currently. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) claims a ~2% higher number of settlers for this period. The Gaza Strip, since the unilateral withdrawal of Jewish settlers in 2005 under Ariel Sharon, has no Jewish residents.
If you add this all up, and use the CIA figures again for consistency, the total population breakdown of Jews vs. Arabs within the combined three regions of Israel-Palestine may surprise you. Those figures indicate that 51.3% of the population is, broadly speaking, Jewish; 44.5% is Arab; and 4.2% identify in other ways.
