Every year on the day before Rosh Hashana, Jewish new year's day, the government here makes an announcement of Israel's updated population statistics. As of this New Year, the number stands at just a few thousand below 7 million people. Population growth in 2005 was 1.8%. This is about the same as in 2004 and 2003.5.3 million Israelis are Jewish and 1.4 million Israelis are Arabs. And a total of 1.2 million Israelis have re-settled (generally successfully) in Israel from the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Life expectancy: For all Israelis, it's 79.5 years. For female Israelis, it's 81.7 years. For male Israelis, 77.3 years. Israel's overall population density is 313 persons per sq km, and its overall literacy rate is 96%.
Israel's economy: Its gross domestic product (GDP, based on purchasing power) is US$154.5 billion. In 1980, it was US$23.2 billion.
Per capita, this means US$24,600 (the 2005 estimate). Egypt by comparison, with its 74 million people in 2005, produced GDP of US$4,158.
Between the time the state was established in the late 1940's and 1997, Israel's GDP grew annually by 7%. Its GDP per capita in 1948 was 30% of that of the United States. Fifty years later, the proportion was 65% of American per capita GDP.
In 2005, Israel had a current-account surplus of $3.8 billion. Its exports to the world in 2005 amounted to US$40.1 billion.
We plan to go look for, and then publish here, some comparative statistics showing how Israel's statistical profile compares with its own early-days performance (the country was re-established after a 2,000 year interruption only 58 years ago), and with that of the various Arab entities. There's an unforgivable tendency to swallow whole the data which are trotted out at every opportunity to justify the desperation and lack of alternative (to teaching their children to blow themselves up) of the Palestinian Arabs. But not today.
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