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Israel at Sixty ... Israel was established as a state in 1948 with 873,000 inhabitants, since then the population has reached 7,282,000 at the beginning of 2008 of which 75.5% are Jewish. According to the forecasts for 2030, Israel will have a population of approximately 10 million people. Currently 5,499,000 are Jewish, of which 69% were actually born in Israel, 1,461,000 are Arab and 322,000 are considered “others”. The population density has also grown from 43 people to each square kilometer in 1948 to 310 people to each square kilometer in 2006. The most crowded region is Tel Aviv with 7,000 people per square kilometer as opposed to the least crowded region, the south with 72 people per square kilometer. In 2006 the population was more spread out than it was in 1948. At the country’s inception the northern and southern regions combined contained 19% of the population and by 2006 this number was increased to 31%. However, parts of the population located in the Tel Aviv and central regions were decreased throughout the years from 71% to 53%. Tourist entrances have increased from 47,000 a year in the 1950s to 2.7 million in 2000, with 57 million tourists have entered Israel. Life in Gaza ... According to a recent survey, eighty percent of the residents of Gaza find it difficult to cope with the situation there and are considering emigration. Gazans are finding it more difficult to deal with the economic situation there and 44 percent said explicitly that they want to leave Gaza. The survey also shows that since Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, economic conditions in Gaza have worsened considerably. This is primarily due to the closure of border crossings into and out of Gaza, including the crossing into Egypt at Rafiah. The Karni crossing was closed for 107 days and the total number of trucks which crossed into Gaza in 2007 was 8,397. The exports totaled 1,695 trucks. The survey found that 64 percents of respondents live under the poverty line. More than two out of every five, 41 percent, said they would leave Gaza immediately if they could. Majority of Arabs Support Terro ... Two recent polls find a large majority of Arab supporting terror attacks and a growing Israeli majority opposed to further withdrawals. A recent Palestinian Authority poll shows that 84 percent of PA Arabs approve of the massacre at Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where eight students were gunned down and ten wounded. 64 percent support the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza. Those who oppose the attacks don’t necessarily do so on moral grounds, but rather strategic considerations. A slim majority of PA Arabs support Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas for president over Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas. In February of last year a poll found that 75 percent of PA Arabs do not think that Israel has a right to exist. Israelis questioned about further withdrawls showed that 64.9 percent answered that they oppose further withdrawals and 23.9 percent said are in favor. The others would not answer the question. Divided into religious demographics, 95 percent of the Orthodox-religious opposed withdrawals, followed by 90.9 of the national religious and 57 percent of the non-observant public. Israeli Insurance Institute on Poverty ... port: Standard of living rises, poor remain impoverished National Insurance Institute report indicates no change in poverty indicators, despite overall rise in standard of living and wages. Rise in amount of elderly living under poverty line given the fact that there have been wages and employment rates have been on the rise which has led to a higher standard of living in the country. There was a 2% increase in poverty indicators among Israel’s elderly, which constitute 20% of all Israeli households. There is also a continuing trend of impoverishment among working families, which can be explained by low-income jobs as well as part-time employment. Fifth of wage earners below poverty line and this is in spite of an increase in pensioner’s benefits. Israel’s elderly are not faring any better financially. The Insurance Institute had initially anticipated that raising pensioner’s benefits would decrease the levels of poverty among Israel’s aged. They were surprised to see a 2% overall increase in impoverishment among the elderly in spite of this stipend hike. The NII hopes that the stipend increase will have a more definitive impact on Israeli pensioners in the future. Families with multiple children appear to be hardest hit, with 60% of all families with four children or more living beneath the poverty line. Jerusalem and the outer periphery towns of the north and south appear to be hardest hit by poverty. Jews Earn More in the USA ... Jews are the highest-earning religious group in the United States, with 46 percent of the working population earning a six-digit figure every yea. In terms of annual earnings, the only other group to even come close to the average Jewish income was the Hindus, with 43 percent earning over $100,000. No other group reached even the 30 percent mark, and the overall US average was only 18 percent earning six-figure digits annually. The study also showed that after Hindus, the Jews were the second most educated religious group in the US. 35 percent of Jews were found to have done at least some graduate work, as opposed to 48 percent amongst Hindus. The survey found that Jews were aligned with the national averages in terms of marital status and divorce rates, but showed that the Jewish birth rate was the lowest among religious groups, with 72 percent of those polled replying that they had no children. Americans are pro-Israeli ... Americans are decidedly more pro-Israeli these days according to a new poll which revealed that 71% of Americans look favorably upon the State of Israel, a rise of some 8% from last year’s figures. These figures represent an all-time high in terms of support for Israel, rivaled only by data compiled during the first Gulf War in 1991, when a staggering 79% of Americans polled indicated that they support the State of Israel. This was in large part due to the restraint exhibited by Israel in contending with repeated Scud missile attacks from Iraq on its civilian centers. Support for Israel among Americans 35-54 years old stood at 74%, while 72% of Americans 55 year-old and above indicated that they looked favorably upon Israel. Among Americans between the ages of 18-34, support for Israel stood at only 65%. Republicans are emphatically more pro-Israeli in their views than their Democratic counterparts. A staggering 84% of Republicans indicated that they supported the State of Israel, as compared to only 64% of Democrats. In respect to the Palestinian Authority, only a measly 16% of Democratic Party voters, and 15% of Republicans indicated that they looked favorably upon the PA. Americans look favorably upon 10 countries in total world wide. Israel was fifth among them, with an approval rating of 71% overall. First on this list was Canada with an approval rating of 92%, followed by the United Kingdom (89% approval), Germany (82%), and Japan (82%). The American public, conversely, harbors a strong dislike for ten countries worldwide, Iran and North Korea chief among them with only an 8% and 12& approval rating respectively among the American public. The Palestinian Authority is also decidedly unpopular with the American public, with only 14% of Americans stating that they supported the PA. Israelis Don't Seek Arab Neighbors ... Fifty percent of Jews polled do not want Arabs living in their neighborhoods, even though 69% would welcome a friendship with an Arab. Conversely, 56% of the Arab public supports living in Jewish neighborhoods and 85% would welcome having Jewish friends. The Arabs were much more willing to cohabitate or befriend Jews than vice versa. Fourteen percent of Jews would object to any sort of friendship with Arabs while 17% would be amenable to it, but would prefer befriending another Jew. Among the Arab population, just 6% would object to such a friendship and 10% would prefer making friends with other Arabs. Fifty four percent of the Jews said they did not have any Arab friends and another 23% said that while they did have Arab friends they had not visited them at home in at least two years. Nineteen percent of Arabs polled did not have Jewish friends and half had visited their Jewish friends at home in the last two years. Integrated schools and dialogue groups received mixed responses from the Jews and the Arabs. Thirty-five percent of the Jews polled did not want to see Arabs in Jewish schools and 23% disdained dialogue groups. Forty four percent gave full support to integrated schools and 61% supported dialogue groups. Among the Arabs, 44% supported integration, and 80% supported dialogue. Israelis: Jewish first, Israeli second ... A poll looking at Israelis' perception of identify, says 94% of Jewish population in Israel believes it is part of worldwide Jewish community. The Survey reveals that 47% of the public sees itself as Jewish first and Israeli second, as apposed to 39% with consider themselves first and foremost Israeli. Those taking part were asked to rate the way they perceived their identity according to importance, and so 47% said they were Jewish, 39% said they were Israeli, 10% based their identity according on their religious affiliation and 4% according to their ethnic denomination. The religious sectoring showed that the more devout the sector – the stronger the Jewish definition, Some 78% of those identifying themselves as ultr-Orthodox and 73% of their religious counterparts chose the Jewish persona over the Israeli one, with 0% and 16% respectively choosing to define themselves as Israelis. Among those who said they were traditionalist, 55% saw themselves Jewish and 35% as Israelis. Within the secular sector, 49% said they saw themselves as Israeli first and 34% said they were Jewish first – Israeli second. As for the Arab sector, the polling data showed that the majority of Israeli Arab see themselves as Palestinian or as Arab, and only a minor percentage of the sector see themselves as Israeli: Forty-five percent said they were Arab, 24% think of themselves as Palestinians, 19% define themselves by their religious affiliation and only 12% said they were Israelis.

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