By By Fatimah Al-Shihabi
The Jerusalem Times - February 7, 1997

A statistical study, entitled "Palestinian Demography after 1948 and the Impact of Israeli Policies on Population", conducted by Nabil Al-Sahli from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics in Damascus, estimates that the Palestinian population living inside and outside the Palestinian territories is 6,291,737 persons.

Al-Sahli intends to provide a clear picture of the distribution of the Palestinian population, focusing on the demographic distribution of Palestinian refugees.

The only census that encompassed all Palestinians was conducted during the Turkish Rule of Palestine in 1914. Two other surveys were conducted during the British Mandate of Palestine (1922-1948): the first in 1922, the second in 1931. A further survey was done by Israel following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in l967.

Al-Sahli sheds light on the basic guidelines of Israeli policies concerning the distributing population. The policies focused on the establishment of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to serve both security and

demographic aims. The principle Zionist goals were the resettlement of the Jews of the world in Palestine, the expulsion of the maximum number of Palestinians from their lands, and the allocation of money for these purposes.

The study says that the Zionist Movement and its institutions, the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund (JNF), were able to settle approximately 550,000 Jews in Palestine during 1882-1948, and to confiscate an area of 1,800 square Kilometres of the total area of Palestine which amounted to 27,009 Kilometre.

The main period of immigration was during the British Mandate and in response to the Balfour Declaration. Jewish immigration increased the presence of Jews in Palestine by 71%. There were 83,000 Jews in 1922. By 1948, their number had gone up to 650,000. Al-Sahli says that, during the same period, the number of Palestinian Arabs increased from 174,000 to 1,450,400.

The Declaration of the Jewish State in 1948 (77% of the total area of Palestine) deprived 77% of the Palestinian population of their land. As a result, Palestinians were divided into three categories: Those living to the West of the green line inside Israel, original residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian refugees who fled to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip (then under Egyptian rule), Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

As a result of the 1948 war, approximately 700,000 Palestinians were expelled and 400 villages destroyed. Al-Sahli also examines the methods used by Israel to attract more Jews to Palestine. In 1950, the Israeli authorities issued the law of return which "gives every Jew the right to return to Palestine as an immigrant."

The study says the number of Jews had increased from 650,000 to 2 million by 1960. However, Jewish immigration witnessed an enormous drop between 1983 and 1989 due to the deteriorating economic situation at that time. It rose again in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the second Gulf War.

As a result, Israel received more than 500,000 Jewish, immigrants- during the period 1989-l994. In 1994, the total population of Jews was 4,441,100 constituting 34.5% of the total Jews in the world, which amounts to around 13 million.

The study says that the number of Palestinians increased from 1,454,000 to 1.9 million in 1967. In the wake of the June War of 1967, approximately 460,000 Palestinians were dispersed from Palestine, the majority of whom went to Jordan.

The number of Palestinian refugees in 1995 was 3,582,000, the study says. In contrast, statistics prepared by UNRWA put the number of refugees in 1995 at 3,172,640. According to UNRWA's statistics, the Palestinian refugees are distributed as follows: 10.6% in Jordan, 21.6% in the Gaza Strip, 16.3% in the West Bank, 10.9% in Lebanon, and 10% in Syria.

Al-Sahli also looks at the original homes of the refugees and their distribution:
95% of the Gaza refugees are originally from Jafa, Askalan, Majdal and Ashdod.
75% of Jordan's refugees are come from Al-Lid, Jafa, Ramleh, Bisan, Tiberias, and central Palestine.
70% of the West Bank's refugees are from central Palestine and the middle coast.
40% of the Syria's refugees are from Safad and its suburbs, 22% from Haifa, 16% from Tiberias, the rest from Akko, Jafa, Nazareth and Jerusalem.
85% of Lebanon's refugees are originally from Safad, Akko, Haifa and Nazareth.