Palestinian census carries sobering subtext for Israelis

An expected spike in population could loom large in future negotiations with Israel.

from the October 30, 2007 edition

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And yet, collecting the data means a number of practical hurdles for Palestinian census-takers. Though one statistics bureau official described the count as a "national project," others admit field workers have met reluctant participants in politically contested areas like the West Bank city of Hebron and East Jerusalem.

Mahmoud Jeradat, the executive director of a census operation that includes 5,500 workers and costs $8.6 million, says he was arrested in 1997 for trying to conduct the census in Jerusalem. This year, he can't get a permit to oversee the Gaza operation.

"I don't want to stand here and claim that everything is going fine and everything is going perfectly," he says. "This is something professional and technical, but in this area of the world it's political."

The survey is also shaping up as a test of the Palestinian Authority to prove to a constituency disillusioned by widespread chaos and Hamas's takeover of Gaza that the Ramallah government can function. And because the statistics bureau is seen as a function of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, there's always a risk that Hamas in Gaza could decide to interfere in the effort.

Statistics bureau officials say that questionnaires delivered today will be picked up and tallied in December, and published next year.

While the Palestinian statistics bureau has won praise from Israeli and international statisticians, the agency has been charged with voodoo demographics by a group linked with the Israeli right-wing.

In an article published by Bar Ilan University entitled the "Million Person Gap," researchers argued that the Palestinian statistics bureau exaggerated its population figures for 2004 by 1.3 million. Della Pergola says the article's conclusions are not supported by the evidence and notes that the authors are not professional demographers.

Yet analysts say that, ultimately, Palestinian negotiators are unlikely to marshal the demographic trends as leverage in negotiations. Such arguments would imply that Palestinians would accept a unified state with Israelis – a scenario rejected by the Palestinian national movement, says pollster Mr. Shikaki.

But many believe that in the absence of a peace treaty in the short term, the shifting demographic balance, coupled with a new uprising and a Palestinian political gridlock, could also render the two-state solution impossible. If the results of the census show a rapidly expanding Palestinian population, Palestinians may rally behind a shared, binational state in which they would have the majority.

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