Muslims in Israel increasing

JERUSALEM -- Almost one in four Israeli children is Muslim, the government said yesterday, reflecting fears among Jews that Arabs could outnumber them in the near future.

According to a Central Bureau of Statistics report based on figures from 2002, 24 percent of Israelis younger than 16 are Muslim. Seventy-one percent are Jewish, while the rest are from other Arab sectors or are unaffiliated, the bureau said.

"The annual average growth rate of the Muslim population in Israel in recent years is 2.4 times higher than that of the Jewish population, 3.4 percent, as opposed to 1.4 percent," the report said, citing a record high birth rate among Arab Muslims.

Data suggesting a population boom among Israeli Arabs, who now make up 18 percent of the 6.6 million population, have set off alarm bells in a government keen to see the Jewish majority, with its electoral clout, remain unchallenged.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked a furor in December by calling Israeli Arabs a worse "demographic problem" than the Palestinians.

Adding to Israeli worries over the population balance are the 3.6 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many of the latter favor abandoning the uprising, more than three years old, and demanding full, equal citizenship.

To explain the differences in population growth, the bureau cited the 20 percent incidence of single-parent families among Israeli Jews in contrast with the more strictly traditional Muslim community, which, it said, encourages child-bearing.