How Many Live in Israel?

Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Israeli population expected to top 10 million within weeks – Times of Israel Headline, 26 September, 2024

With Israel’s population, as counted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), slated to shortly pass the ten million mark, one should be aware of exactly how that number is derived and calculated.

The ten million figure from the CBS is broken down as follows: 7.689 million Jews, 2.095 Muslim Arabs and the balance consisting of other ethnic minorities. As there is no breakout by country of origin, the 1.3 million Israeli Russians, who are predominantly atheists and at least 450,000 are not considered Jewish for purposes of marriage, are nonetheless seemingly counted as ethnically Jewish by the CBS. The ten million also includes 503,000 Israeli Jews living in the West Bank  and 240,000 living in East Jerusalem. The Golan heights are also included with a total population of about 50,000 with half being Druze and the other half Jewish Israelis.

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The ten million apparently excludes approximately 400,000 Palestinian permanent residents of East Jerusalem who are not Israeli citizens. It also excludes a further 2.2 million in Gaza and 2.6 million in the West Bank.

In order to count residents of Israel it is necessary to define exactly where the borders of the state are for the purpose of being able to define who is a resident. Israel obviously controls all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Israeli Jews have created and settled in neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as well as multiple settlements, towns, and villages scattered throughout the West Bank.

The number of ten million, as generated by Israel’s CBS, and parroted by the news networks, is simply a part of the deceptive screen used by successive governments of Israel to ignore and mask the fact that there are millions of Palestinians living in the areas controlled and ruled over by Israel. These Palestinians, who are not counted, do not have equal civil and political rights with the rest of Israel’s population. They live under Israeli military rule administered by the IDF.

If we don’t count them then they don’t exist. If we don’t include them as residents of the land we live in we can pretend to be a democracy. If they are transparent, not counted, we can dehumanize them and pretend that they are not human beings like ourselves with the same wants, desires, and ambitions just like us. If we don’t count them we can pretend they don’t exist and exclude them from our economy. If we don’t count them we can act as if they are just not there. And finally, if we don’t count them, we can continue to control their lives and territory, live and behave as if they don’t matter, continue to steal their lands, and delegitimize their national aspirations.