RAMALLAH, 15 August 2007 — The Israeli settlers’ population in the West Bank is growing twice as fast as the rest of the Jewish sate every year, and the ultra-Orthodox settlers’ community is responsible for approximately half its annual growth, according to analysis of Israeli Interior Ministry figures for 2006. In the last year, the Israeli settlers’ population has grown by 5.45 percent, from 260,932 to 275,156.
Without the ultra-Orthodox community, the West Bank settlements’ growth is 3.7 percent, only a little more than the natural growth the settlements would see, which stands at 3.5 percent. The growth rate in the ultra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit and Modi’in Ilit settlements is higher than most places inside Israel. Modi’in Ilit’s population, some 40,000, grows annually by about 11 percent (this year it has grown by 12.5 percent).
Beitar Ilit’s population, some 35,000, grows annually by some 10 percent — five to six times more than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s population growth respectively and twice as much as the growth of many other WB settlements.
By the end of June, 72,106 people — more than a quarter of the West Bank settlers — were concentrated in Beitar Ilit south of Jerusalem, Modi’in Ilit west of Ramallah, and Kochav Yaakov, another ultra-Orthodox settlement southeast of Ramallah, according to Israeli Interior Ministry figures.
Most of the ultra-Orthodox settlers — young couples or young families with numerous children — do not live in the West Bank for ideological reasons. They moved to the settlements due to the soaring real estate prices in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak inside Israel, which created an acute housing shortage.
Meanwhile, the British government has blocked almost one-third of British military exports to Israel this year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment might facilitate human rights violations, a report said yesterday.
According to official figures revealed by Israeli daily, the Jerusalem Post, the value of UK military sales arms to Israel declined by one-third last year, and has fallen by a drastic 75 percent since 2005. “There is evidence that the British government’s export control policy to Israel may have been tightened up,” said Parliament’s new 2007 Strategic Export Controls report, issued by the Quadripartite Commission, which comprises representatives from four ministries.
