On the eve of Israel’s 60th Independence Day, the population stands at 7,282,000, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the Jerusalem Post reports.
Some 5,499,000 of the population (75.5%) are Jews, 1,461,000 (20.1%) are Arabs, and 322,000 (4.4%) are non-Jewish immigrants and their offspring, the CBS reports.
Since last year, Israel’s population rose by some 130,000. The increase is attributed to natural growth (babies and legal immigrants).
These figures support the findings of Bennett Zimmerman and Michael Wise, who wrote a piece in the latest inFOCUS Quarterly that challenges the notion that Israel is in demographic danger of being overtaken by an Arab population. Read it here.
