ABSTRACT
By the time of the ceasefire at the end of 1948 the state of Israel, which was established on about 80 per cent of the territory of the former mandatory state, had a population of 800,000 of whom 80 per cent were Jewish and the remainder Arabs. By the census of 1983 Israel (including East Jerusalem, annexed from Jordan in 1967, and the Golan, effectively annexed from Syria in 1981) had a population of 4 million, of whom 83 per cent were Jewish. The growth of the Arab population was almost wholly the result of natural increase but more than half the increase of the Jewish population was attributable to immigration.
