JERUSALEM – Israel must quickly withdraw from Judea and Samaria to ensure a Jewish majority by separating from the large Palestinian Arab population within the territories slated for evacuation, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claimed during a speech yesterday.

Olmert and top officials from his Kadima Party have stated many times the planned uprooting of Judea and Samaria's Jewish communities is being carried out due to urgent demographic issues that threaten Israel's Jewish make up should the country retain Judea and Samaria.

But the Israeli government and the media here largely have ignored a new study recently presented to the United States Congress which contends the evacuation is based on erroneous Palestinian Arab population data (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49159) and predicts that in 20 years Jews will outnumber Arabs by two-to-one even if all territories are maintained.

The study found the current Palestinian Arab population is inflated by almost 50 percent, with some major cities even being counted twice.

"Time is not neutral. It is acting against us," said Olmert yesterday at a speech in Jerusalem at the Zionist Congress, a meeting of top Jewish leaders. "If we wish to ensure the existence and future of a Jewish and democratic Israel, we must act now, in the next few years, and shape the permanent borders of the State of Israel. This is my responsibility."

Olmert was referring to his withdrawal plan.

Judea and Samaria are also commonly called the West Bank. The territories are within rocket firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.

Olmert's party recently announced it is drawing plans to evacuate parts of Jerusalem as well, also stating demographic trends as the impetus.

About 200,000 Jews live in Judea and Samaria. Israel's security barrier, still under construction in certain areas, cordons off nearly 95 percent of the territory from Israel's pre-1967 borders. Olmert seeks to vacate the vast majority of Judea and Samaria – all areas that fall outside the barrier.

"It is our duty to prevent any danger of losing this Jewish majority or creating an inseparable bi-national reality in the land of Israel," stated Olmert at yesterday's event.

Israel largely relies on Palestinian Arab population data collected by the Palestinian Authority Bureau of Statistics, which claims there are 3.8 million Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

The number is also accepted by the U.S. and the international community.

But a new study led by American researchers, titled "Forecast for Israel and the West Bank 2025," found the actual current Palestinian Arab population in Judea and Samaria is 1.4 million, with 1.1 million in Gaza for a total of 2.4 million Palestinian Arabs.

It contended an Israeli withdrawal based on demography is groundless because Israel's Jews will more than double Arabs in 20 years and that alarming Palestinian Arab birthrates claimed by the PA and quoted by Olmert are greatly exaggerated.

The study, led by American researcher Bennet Zimmerman, has been lauded by top demographers in the U.S. and Israel and was found to be credible by members of Congress and top officials in the American and Israeli intelligence communities.

The Israeli government, though, officially states it is browsing the study. It has yet to express any conclusion regarding the study's findings.

Zimmerman's study could directly affect the Judea and Samaria withdrawal, which largely dominates Israeli news, but the country's media agencies have given it scant coverage.

The study said Jewish birthrates are far outstripping Palestinian Arab rates, and Israel's own statistics fail to account for even low levels of Jewish immigration when calculating national demographic trends.

Zimmerman's team found extreme faults in the methods used by the PA to determine its population, including counting the 230,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem twice and retroactively raising growth and birth rates, which the study contends have been declining.

The PA claims a population growth rate of 4 to 5 percent per year, among the highest in the world, but Palestinian Ministry of Health records published annually since 1996 contradict the PA's own claims by stating growth rates averaging around 3 percent.

Zimmerman's study documents the PA tampered with its own data, retroactively raising its growth numbers in 2002. The new study shows a steady pattern of growth decline leading to a natural growth rate in 2003 of just 2.6 percent.

The PA projected a net population increase of 1.5 percent per year as a result of immigration from surrounding countries. But Zimmerman's researchers found that except for 1994, when the bulk of the Palestinian Arab leadership and their families entered the territories from Tunis, Palestinian Arab emigration from the area has outweighed immigration by a net negative of about 10,000 to 20,000 per year.

The study also found a dramatic and growing decline in the number of children per Palestinian Arab mother and says Palestinian Arabs actually have been moving away from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, in contrast to PA claims of large immigration numbers.

At the same time, Zimmerman's team has shown birthrates among Israeli Orthodox Jews are at the highest rates ever, and general Israeli Jewish fertility over the past five years has risen above top scenarios first considered by Israel's Bureau of Statistics. The study states Israel did not account for a likely continuation of Jewish immigration trends over the next 20 years.

Under Zimmerman's mid-case scenario, Israeli Jews maintain current fertility rates and immigration averages of 20,000 per year or 400,000 over two decades. Israeli Arab fertility rates, meanwhile, fall slowly over a 20-year period. The result is a Jewish majority in Israel in 2025 of 63 percent.

According to other likely scenarios contained in the new data, Jews could outnumber Arabs by 71 percent if Jewish fertility rates continue to rise and immigration increases further.

"It is ironic that just as we now find Israel is in the best position ever with regard to population, Olmert announces a plan to run away and give up the West Bank, claiming Israel's Jewish character is threatened," said Zimmerman.

Zimmerman's study was presented last month to a House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East.

"Recent studies show that the PA numbers were grossly inaccurate," subcommittee chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., told WorldNetDaily. "I found the new study raises a whole host of questions that must be answered."