Demography in Israel/Palestine:

Background Population variables and processes are intimately and crucially related to the past, present and future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This paper reviews some of the main demographic trends among Jews and Arabs in Israel and Palestine, presents some new population projections covering the period 2000-2050, and discusses some possible policy implications of the emerging demographic scenarios. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from ideological, historical, religious and political differences whose roots go back to antiquity. During the 19 and 20 centuries, the Jewish and Arab national movements provided new symbolic meanings, added new contentious frameworks to old disagreements, and thus reinforced mutual hostility rendering solutions more difficult. At the core of the contemporary conflict, two peoples Jews and Arabs claim rights of settlement and political sovereignty over the same territory Palestine (in Arab: Falastin, in Hebrew: Eretz Israel) they both view as homeland. Around this local core, two additional tiers further complicate the conflict. The first tier reflects hostility of Arab societies against the state of Israel. This regional dimension is demonstrated by repeated direct interventions of Middle Eastern countries and political movements in support of the Palestinian side of the conflict. The second tier relates to the broader contentious between Islam and the Western civilization, especially since Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s. This global dimension is demonstrated by the impressive array of contemporary conflicts opposing Islamic and other forces in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, and by the explicit or implicit ideological ties among them all. In this respect, Israel is simply part of a cluster of other Western, Christian, or otherwise non-Islamic entities. In an attempt to solve the core conflict, on November 29, 1947 the United Nations General Assembly approved resolution 181 providing the legal foundations to partition of the territory of the former British Mandate over Palestine through the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. Further provisions concerned the status of the Jerusalem and Bethlehem area. Following such U.N. resolution, the Jewish side complied with territorial partition and independence of the State of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948, thus implementing the