February 03, 2006

Palestinian Authority Overstimates Own Population by 62%

When is overstating your population by 1.5 million people a big deal? When your actual population is only 2.41 million. That's an overstatement of 62%! That would be kind of like the U.S. claiming it had 453 million people instead of 280.

Worse, the numbers built of phony assumptions grow the error rate over time. Thus, the PA actually overstates its future population far more than it is already overstating it today. They overstate the number of Arabs expected to be living in Israel and the West Bank by over double!

So, what incentive could the Palestinian Authority have in lying about their population? The Officer's Club:

The report has the ability to bust a legion of myths perpetuated by pro-Palestinian factions. It disproves notions that Arabs outnumber Jews in Israel and the occupied territories, it reveals a Jewish majority in Arab East Jerusalem, and cements the dominant Jewish majority (4-1) within Israel's pre-1967 borders.

This affects the Israeli-Arab conflict on every level. The PA has long used these bogus head counts to generate sympathy for their cause on the international stage. It impacts Arab claims to the entirity of the West Bank, and blows the whistle on millions -perhaps billions- of dollars worth of international aid donated to help people that never actually existed (and in reality was probably directed into the coffers of Islamic Jihad or the now reigning Hamas).

Here is the actual report in Power Point format as presented to The American Enterprise Institute.

Click the image below for larger view.

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 03:24 PM | |