Population of ‘Greater Israel’/’Greater Palestine’ (1851-1995)

2006-12-23T02:38:00.000-08:00

(Updated 14 December 2010)

Whilst in Israel in 2000 I remember speaking with a settler. She said that in 1910 there were only 10,000 Arabs in Israel. I thought this sounded ridiculous, so when I returned to England I went to the British Library to research this question. A quick inspection of Encyclopaedia Britanica 1910 and Baedeker’s Travel Guide to Syria and Palestine 1876 proved the settler’s assertion was ludicrous. The following indicates my research on the population of Palestine from 1851-1995. It is important to remember that the region now called Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been known by a variety of names. In this blog the name ‘Greater Israel/’Greater Palestine’ refers to the following regions:

1. Independent Sanjak of Jerusalem, Sanjak of: Nablus and Acre (Ottoman ‘Palestine’/‘Southern Syria’/Bilad el-Sham) (-1918)
2. Occupied Enemy Territory (1918-1920)
3. British controlled Palestine as a result of the San Remo Conference (April 1920-1922)
4. British Mandate Palestine as a result of the League of Nations (1922-15 May 1948)
5. Israel (16 May 1948 - ) + West Bank (Jordan), Gaza Strip (Egypt)
6. Israel + Occupied Palestinian Territories (1967- )

Ottoman Jerusalem (Jerusalemites)
Vilayet (Wiki), Sanjak (Wiki);

For a comprehensive account see:

Year__Non-Jewish__Jewish___Percentage of __TOTAL
______Pop. (m*)_____Pop.____Non-Jewish/___POP
___________________________Jewish

1851____327 000g____13 000g____96/4_______340 000
1861____356 000g____13 000____96/4________369 000
1881____442 000g____25 000d ___95/5________467 000
1895____522 000g ____47 000a____92/8_______569 000
1900____556 000g/c___50 000a/c__92/8______606 000
1910____640 000g____60 000 ____91/9 ____700 000
1914____675 000g ____85 000a____87/13____760 000
1916____57 000a ____________________________
1918____57 000a ----------------------------------------------
1919____500 000d -----65 000d -------87/13------ 565 000
1922____723 000g -------93 000g -----89/11 ------816 000
1924____765 000g ------113 000g------87/13----- 878 000e
1931____881 000g ------175 000a ------83/17---- 1 056 000
1936___1 003 000g ------370 000d ----73/27---- 1 373 000
1940___1 113 000g -------467 000a---- 70/30 ---1 580 000
1945___1 295 000g -------564 000a---- 70/30--- 1 859 000
1948___1 319 000b -------650 000f ----67/33---- 1 969 000

1988 ---2 435 900h ------3 659 000h ---40/60--- 6 094 900
1995L --3 247 000j -------4 607 800i ---41/59 ----7 854 800

'The Population of Palestine Prior to 1948' (MidEast Web)

References to Population Table

a. Jewish figures: Statistical Abstract of Israel, no. 23 (1972), p.23—as cited in
A.Shama & M. Iris, Immigration without Integration: 3rd World Jews in Israel, Massachusetts: Schenkman, 1977.
b. non-Jewish/Palestinian Arab figures: J. Abu-Lughod, The Demographic Transformation of Palestine—as cited in I. Abu-Lughod, The Transformation of Palestine, North Western University Press, 1971, p.139-163—as cited in A.Shama & M. Iris, Immigration without Integration: 3rd World Jews in Israel, Massachusetts: Schenkman, 1977.
c. Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition (1910-11). Cambridge University Press.
d. Palestine: Royal Commission (1937).
e. Report on the Tour of Investigation in Palestine in 1925. League of Nations. Health Organization, Malaria Commission.(1925). Geneva.
f. The Jewish Agency, Immigration Information Departments, 16 years of immigration to Israel (1964). Jerusalem—as cited in A.Shama & M. Iris, Immigration without Integration: 3rd World Jews in Israel, Massachusetts: Schenkman, 1977.
g. McCarthy, Justin, The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the late Ottoman Period and the Mandate, Columbia University Press, 1990.
h. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 1989 p. 78 and p. 701—as cited in UN Population and Demographics in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip until 1990 by W. Ennab UNCTAD (24 June 1994).
i. The Mitchell Report. Report of the Sharm el-Sheik Fact-Finding Committee -
May 2001, USA. [Accessed CAABU]
L. (i) Population of the State of Israel at 1995 was 5 612 3009 (1 004 500 Palestinian-Israeli (18%) 4 607 800 Israeli Jews (82%) )
(ii) Population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories at 1995 was 2 242 500 Palestinians (934 000 from Gaza Strip, and 1 308 500 from West Bank)
m. Note, the Jewish Settler population doubled in West Bank during 1993 - 2001 to 200 000 (this excludes the East Jerusalem population, which stood at 170 000 in 2001k.
n. Arthur Balfour in 1917, referred to the two communities as Jewish and Non-Jewish. Note the percentage of 'non-Jewish' persons two years after the Balfour Declaration i.e. almost 9 persons out of ever 10 were 'non Jewish'.

Links to further information on the population of Israel and Palestine

Stewart Mills, Finding a common narrative of Palestine and Israel, 12 December 2010

http://israelandpalestinediary.blogspot.com/2010/12/finding-common-narrative-for-palestine.html

The Palestine Question: A Brief History Prepared for, and under the guidance of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, 1 July 1980

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/38D6C47FC5FB0CDD852575D6006C70D4

The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988 Part I, 1917-1947

http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/AEAC80E740C782E4852561150071FDB0

Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition (1910-11). Cambridge University Press, p 604

http://www.archive.org/stream/encyclopdiabri20chis#page/604/mode/2up/search/palestine [original]

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Palestine [html]

[Population 650,000, two thirds Moslems, rest Christians and Jews.]

Historic Images of Palestine and Israel

http://israelandpalestinediary.blogspot.com/2010/10/images-of-palestine-and-israel-1948.html

Other sites

Population in Urban Localities and Other Geographical Divisions. Provisional Data as of December 31, 2004. Central Bureau of Statistics. Jerusalem, April 2005

CIA Factbook

Historical Maps of the Middle East (The University of Texas, Libraries)

"Palestine and Syria" 3rd Edition.
Baedeker (1912).

Often different writers who wish to push the notion that Palestine was a land with no people use Mark Twains description of Palestine to indicate the land was vacant. It would be interesting to see how Twain would respond to his reference being miscontrued today. Karl Baedeker's travel guides to Syria (Palestine) are another useful source to give an impression of the population demographics of the region.

The following has been put together thanks to the work of the University of Texas Libraries which uploaded Baedeker's 3rd edition (1912) to Syria on their website.

Population Syria (includes Southern Syria i.e Palestine)

"The populaton of the sanjak of Jerusalem about 320,000 and that of the sanjak of Zor at 100,000. The total population of Syria is therefore not more than 3 or 3 and a quarter millions...which gives about the same density of population as in the State of Mississippi." (Baedeker Population 1xxix)

Demographic breakdown - Vilayet Beirut, Suriya, Lebanon, Aleppo

INDEX (p. 448)
Map Syria and Palestine 1:3,000,000

IX. Works on Palestine and Syria (p. cxvi)

Jerusalem and its environs

Description of Jaffa (p. 6)

Map of Jaffa

Population of Jaffa

An account of the 'German Temple' sect of Christians who sought to establish a Christian colony in the 'Land of Promise'

Ramleh (p.12)

Map of Jerusalem

Population of Jerusalem
"According to a recent estimate the population numbers about 60,000, of whom about 7,000 are Muslims, 41,000 Jews and 12,800 Christians...The number of Jews has greatly risen of late years" (p. 33)

The Haram esh Sherif (p. 36)

The Mosque El-Aksa (p. 47)

Wailing Place of the Jews (p. 56)

Jaffa Suburb, Jerusalem (p. 81)

Jerusalem map 1:25,000

The Lepers' Hospital (p. 102)

II. Judaea index

Map of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jericho and the Dead Sea 1:250,000

Bethlehem map 1:16,250

Bet Jala (p. 128)

Hebron (p. 135)

Hebron Map 1:15,000

Southern Palestine Map: Hebron, Gaza, Akaba 1:500,000

Gaza (p. 142)

Jericho (p. 151)

The Dead Sea (p. 157)

Amman map 1:22,500 (p. 171)

Hauran (p. 180)

Beersheba (p. 199)

Masada (p. 201)

Petra (p. 205)

Sinai Peninsula Map 1:1,500,000

Haifa Map 1:18,300

Mt Carmel

Haifa (p. 265)

Acre Map (p. 269)

Nazareth (p. 279)

Kfar Birim (p. 295) [Father Elias Chacour's home town]

Beiruit (p. 321)
[120,000 of this 36,000 Muslims, 81,500 Christians, 2,500 Jews]

Palmyra (p. 397)

Antioch (p. 445)

INDEX (p. 448)

Map Syria and Palestine 1:3,000,000

Population Syria (includes Southern Syria i.e Palestine)
The populaton of the sanjak of Jerusalem about 320,000 and that of the sanjak of Zor at 100,000. The total population of Syria is therefore not more than 3 or 3 and a quarter millions...which gives about the same density of population as in the State of Mississippi." (Baedeker Population 1xxix)

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Letters

The following is a letter I wrote to the World Net Daily in response to an article I saw on their website.

23 December 2006.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was deeply disturbed to read Joseph Farah's article in World Net Daily "The Jews took no one's land" (April 23, 2002). As an Australian we were fed the same rubbish by the English that the land was terra nullius, that it was a land without people ["civilised people"], therefore they could claim the land.

Farah's use of the Baedeker's travel journal is one sided he does not cite the population of other regional centres in Palestine at the time like, Hebron (19,000 including 1500 Jews), Jaffa (35,000 of these 23,000 Mohammedeans, 5000 Christians, 7000 Jews), Gaza, (35,000 including 100 Jews) Acre (11,000 including 8000 Muslims), Nazareth (10,000 including 6,500 Christians and 3,500 Muslims) and Haifa (12,000 half of who are Muslim, the other half Christian as well as 1,600 Jews).

According to noted Ottoman scholar Justin McCarthy by 1910, 91 percent of the population of Palestine [then part of Syria] was not Jewish and only 9 percent were Jewish (i.e 640,000 non-Jews to 60,000 Jews).

This is why so many Palestinians are angry that the British planned to make the region a national home for the Jewish community given the obvious historical demographic differences.

Could you please make a note of this error.

Regards,

Stewart Mills

Historic Population of Israel/Palestine

Population of ‘Greater Israel’/’Greater Palestine’ (1851-1995)