JERUSALEM (Jul. 5)
A report prepared for the Ministry of Interior predicts that the Arab population will exceed the Jewish population in northern Israel within the next few years. The report, prepared by Eliezer Brutzkus, an architect, was published in a planning quarterly today.
According to the projection, the present population ratio of 53.6 percent Jewish to 46.4 percent non-Jewish in the north will be reversed in a few years as a result of a steady Jewish exodus from that region and the relatively small number of new immigrants settling there.
Brutzkus! projections are based on estimated Israeli population of five million by 1991 of which 4.180 million will be Jews and 820,000 Arabs. The projection covers only Israel proper and the areas of Jewish settlement in the administered territories where Israeli law applied.
The Jewish population is expected to rise by 58 percent and the Arab population by 79 percent but there will be a substantial drop in the annual rate of natural increase among the Arab population from 3.9 to 2.6 percent, Brutzkus said. The Jewish rate of increase is expected to drop but to a smaller degree. Brutzkus’ report anticipates major growth for Jerusalem but a decline of population in Tel Aviv where the trend is to move to the suburbs.