Geography and Population Basics
 Source: CIA World Fact Book Click for larger version. |
Israel (area=20,770 sq. km.), a country slightly smaller than New Jersey, is located in the Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt (area=1,001,450 sq. km.) and Lebanon (area=10,400 sq. km.) on the coast and bordering Jordan (area=92,300 sq. km.) and Syria (area=185,180 sq. km.) inland. Another way to visualize Israel’s size is to note that Lake Erie along the northern border of the U.S. is considerably bigger than Israel (approx. 25,700 sq. km.)The territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war are not included in the area of 20,770 sq. km.. These territories are Judea, Samaria (the “West Bank”) (area=5,860 sq. km.), the Gaza Strip (area=360 sq. km.), and the Golan Heights (area=1,158 sq. km.).The population of Israel is 6,592,000 (August 2002 est.) The Jewish population in Judea, Samaria (the “West Bank”), and Gaza, exclusive of East Jerusalem which has been annexed, has reached 220,000. (August 2002 est.)
Over half of Israel’s population lives in the coastal strip, where the population density is already among the highest in the world, while the Galilee and the Negev remain relatively under-populated and under-developed. Israel has one of the highest population densities in the world with an average of 294 people per square kilometer. Israeli population density has multiplied by six since the nation was established; there was an average of 43 people per square kilometer in 1948. |
Jews make up 77.2% of Israel’s population, Muslims 15.4%, Christians 2.1%, Druze 1.6% and unaffiliated citizens 3.5%. The percentage of Israeli residents who are Arab is 19%, about the same as it when the country was established in 1948.
Largest cities in Israel (end of 2001):
- Jerusalem – 670,000
- Tel Aviv – 359,000
- Haifa – 272,000
- Rishon Letzion – 208,000
This satellite photograph of the Middle East is from NASA. The huge territory of Saudi Arabia is in the center with Egypt and other North African countries to the left, Iraq and Syria upper center, and Iran and the Persian Gulf nations to the right of center. At this scale Israel is barely visible, being less than one percent the size of the hostile Islamic nations that surround it, as shown even more clearly on this map of the world distribution of Muslims:
Click for larger image. Map courtesy of Azanne Research.
In 1998, fifty years after its establishment, Israel was an economic and technological powerhouse. It had the 21st highest per-capita GDP in the world; a United Nations report ranked it 23rd worldwide in its standard of living, based on per capita income, life expectancy and educational standards. As a country almost bereft of natural resources, special emphasis was placed, from the beginning, on the need for advanced education and scientific research.
Israel has more engineers per capita than any other country, perhaps because of the Jewish tradition of placing great value on education. Israeli exports totaled $30 billion in 1997, more than 60 percent of which came from technology-based exports. Nearly all Israeli technology exporters are publicly traded companies; most are traded on New York stock exchanges, principally the NASDAQ. More Israeli companies are traded on NASDAQ than any other non-US country, with the exception of Canada. The local technology venture capital industry is flourishing, and is reckoned to be the largest industry of its kind outside the United States.
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Raymond, you are whinging!
Refugees all around the globe have existed for a long time and continue to exist – it’s a tragic fact of life but they dont whinge. Ever heard a whinge from the Burmese refugees who live in camps on the Thai-Burma border?
In my case, my family, yes Jewish, were killed by the Nazis and their local helpers in Poland; their homes and their land stolen by their neighbours. This was a scenario repeated a good million times (no exaggeration here) but we have not made demands to have the land back etc. Instead we dusted ourselves down and got on with life in many other countries around the globe and made a success of it. Yes, the loss still hurts in some ways (and I am second generation ex-Polish Jewish) but in other ways this resilience is a source of pride and strength.
Arabs/Palestinians should do the same – it could be liberating!
Raymond, please stop. No offense. I am not a Jew. Palestine could have accepted 85% of the region as their own in the early 1900s. Today, approximately one in five Israeli residents are Arab and that is what is was in 1948 also. Check your facts, Raymond, please. Don’t just hate. Learn for yourself what the facts are. Many Jews and Palestinians have lived in that land together for thousands of years. Palestinians are in their predicament primarily because they let the surrounding Arab nations use them for political reasons at the Palestinians expense. You refused to allow Israel to have a recognized state you let your Arab brother nations manipulate you. That is why you have no recognized nation of your own. They (the Arab nations) did everything they could think of to keep you from organizing in a peaceful way. Yes terrible things have happened in the last century to the present day (my heart aches), but most of it could have been avoided had you accepted to live in peace with Israel rather than in war and hate. Now, because of past choices and continually attacking Israel, your choices are not as desireable as they once were. I hope your leaders will some day refuse to be manipulated by the surrounding Arab nations, stand on their own feet and reperesent the people of Palestine truthfully who really want to live in peace. Historical facts show that Palestine has not been willing to share and now has nothing. Fom the outset you chose war. Now your living with the decisions of your fathers. I hope your present day leaders will learn from history to Love Peace. You cannot blame Israel as much as you’d like to. We all try to blame some power outside ouselves, but ultimately we have to bear the burden our our own decisions, some of our fathers’ decisions, and some of our nations’ decisions. I sometimes cringe at having to bear the weight of unjust decision of my nation’s leaders. My hope is for peace.
Reinhard, would you consider that if you had ethnically cleansed a peoples of their lands in 1948 blaming defense against “Arab hordes” as the reason for the war, and the fact that the indigenous population there did not “voluntarily leave” to make room for Arab army invaders to have anything to do with it? The calling of “hostile Islamic Nations” is inflammatory just as it is meant to be, leaving out the terrorism of the Israelis in the occupied territories, to paint a derogatory view of non Israelis? And should any nation who ethnic cleansed an entire peoples be allowed to exist in that manner of domination as a nation who displaced 800,000 people from Palestinian lands in six months of 1948, should they be allowed to live as a normal peace loving nation that developed without decimating the previous indigenous people there? The phrase “having a right to exist,” can’t that mean in the manner that produced them, as in for them to exist they had to be involved in forcibly removing, raping and intimidating, setting homes on fire, laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers, planting mines so no one will return and if they do will blow up due to the planting of mines in the rubble left behind in all the destruction, leaving 531 villages destroyed, 11 urban areas emptied of people that used to live there. No one has a “right to exist” if their existence is based on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples and the taking of these peoples lands for their own. Doubtful this comment will remain on this site for long if at all, part of the revision of history by the Zionists. This site is a fantasy a factfree site biased completely and in denial of what actually happened beginning in 1948. And, no I am not anti-semitic, but I am anti inequality, and anti-injustice.
Raymond, if (as you claim) you are anti-injustice and anti-inequality, I’d like your opinion on the dispossession of 1,000,000 who used to live in such countries as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Lebanon and Yemen. Please notice, NONE of these countries is European, and the descendants of those Jews, who were there before the Arabs arrived, are today living in Israel (most of them). Many of those Jews left behind homes, lands, factories, etc, valued at about 10 Billion dollars or more. I’d also like your opinion about the facts that you don’t seem to see any injustice in denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination. I’m also curious, if what is happening started in 1948, was the Ethnic cleansing of Hebron in 1929, when the entire Jewish population was either massacred or expelled not part of the equation? How about the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem in 1948? or the Gush Etzion?
Israel most certainly has welfare; it’s referred to as “National Insurance”. Every person is required to pay approximately $50 a month; this covers health and welfare benefits. Employers usually pay this. There is an extra $15 or so a month if one wants the “gold star” extended medical plan. A large and growing number of religious “students” and their large families receive welfare and heavily subsidized housing, and another large population of Bedouin and other Arabs receive welfare and housing subsidies for their multiple wives and numerous children. For example, one Arab suicide bomber’s two wives and all their children went on welfare. Actually, I find living here isn’t all that different from living in Hialeah, just outside of Miami, except it’s Hebrew instead of Spanish and the weather is better.
I actually do find it unbiased. While it is true that Israel is wealthier than the surrounding Arab countries, one of the reasons for this wealth is in fact “Jewish Tradition”. The connection between cultural background, social structure and the creation of wealth is a known sociological fact. In the case of Israel, it has been described by Dan Senhor’s book “The Start Up Nation”; I highly recommend it to you. As for the rampage against taxes, one of the reasons Israel has high taxes is the needs for defense, in spite of which Israel DOES HAVE a free Health Care system. Google “Kupat Cholim”. Even if you are in Israel as a tourist, you will never be denied free access to medicine. Actually Israel treats patients from Arab countries, the West Bank and Gaza for free, and even Hadassah Hospital – arguably the most advanced Hospital in the Middle East – offers free care for people who cannot afford it. Israel also has rule of law and a functioning democracy. That is what makes Israel an Advanced Society…
What is written here are not facts…
Facts are unbiased, here this site mentioned “hostile Islamic Nations.”
Israel is only “technologically advanced” and has a high GDP due to one thing, MONEY, not “Jewish tradition” which is total nonsense. Most of the Israelis living in the settlements are simply shallow, many of the population are in the army. The money comes from extremely high taxes (more than 100% for anything with a motor, e.g. for cars, it is 117% for those things), Israel also charges books, newborn and infant equipment with large taxes (which is totally against the concept of a “civilized” nation), it also does not have welfare, no free health insurance, which is very common in economically able countries. I realized this articles mixes up between wealth and advancement. Many of this article’s claimed Israeli population is living in the United States and other Countries with Israeli Passports.
As to “hostile Islamic Nations”: Would you accept, that the term “hostile” is applicable, if a country officially declares that another country should be extinguished or at least has no right to exist? If so, I cannot see any problem in the term “hostile Islamic Nations”. I am certainly sad about it, but it comes close to the truth.