By Corinne Heller Thu Aug 11, 6:19 AM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Non-Jews now outnumber Jews in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the planned Israeli pullout from Gaza will ensure a Jewish majority in the other two areas for two decades, a study showed on Thursday.
The study, published in Israel's left-wing Haaretz newspaper, said that for the first time fewer than half of the people living in Israel itself together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza are Jewish.
Figures from Israel and the Palestinian Authority show about 5.26 million Jews and 5.8 million non-Jews, mainly Palestinians, live in Israel and the occupied territories, it said.
However, this month's Gaza evacuation will change the demographic balance in Israel and the West Bank, one of the reasons Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given for his plan to withdraw from all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank. The evacuations, due to start on Wednesday, will mark the first withdrawal from land Palestinians want for a state. About 8,500 Jewish settlers live among 1.4 million Gaza Palestinians.
"If you disregard the Gaza population, the percentage of Jews (in Israel and the West Bank) grows to more than 60 percent," said Hebrew University Professor Sergio Della Pergola, whose research contributed to the study.
"The disengagement from Gaza adds 20 years to the process and delays the situation we are in now," he told Israel Radio.
Some Israelis fear that fast-growing Palestinian and Israeli Arab communities will compromise Israel's Jewish identity and democratic aspirations if it holds onto occupied territories.
Lumping together the populations of Israel and the West Bank in such calculations is liable to strengthen Palestinian fears that Israel will tighten its grip on the West Bank after the Gaza pullout, rather than prepare to end its occupation.
Sharon's plan also calls for strengthening large enclaves in the West Bank, home to about 2.4 million Palestinians and 240,000 settlers, and which Palestinians want for the bulk of their state, along with Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem.
Washington hopes the withdrawal will help restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Settlers and right-wingers say it rewards a Palestinian uprising and betrays Israel's claims on biblical lands.
The study said non-Jews in Israeli-controlled areas include 4 million Palestinians, 1.35 million Israeli Arabs, 185,000 foreign workers and 290,000 non-Jewish immigrants.