A look at Israeli settlers, by the numbers

About 80,000 Jewish residents will remain outside Israel’s West Bank security barrier when it is completed

View of the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin (photo credit: Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
View of the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin (photo credit: Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

JERUSALEM — A look at Israeli Jewish settlers by the numbers:

  • Israel has built dozens of settlements since 1967 that are now home to at least 541,000 Israelis, about 4 percent of the Israeli electorate.
  • As of the end of 2012, there were just over 341,000 settlers in the West Bank. The remaining 200,000 are in east Jerusalem. (About 2.3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and 300,000 in east Jerusalem.)
  • About 80,000 settlers will remain outside Israel’s West Bank security barrier when it is completed. The barrier, which Israel says is a security measure, gives a glimpse into the communities that Israel hopes to keep under a peace accord. Settlements outside the barrier would likely be removed.
  • More than half of settlements are defined as “national religious” and “ultra-Orthodox.” About a quarter of settlers live in large non-orthodox towns, while most of the rest live in smaller villages of secular or religiously mixed populations. Two percent live in small farming settlements along the Jordanian border.
  • In the January 2013 elections, the pro-settler Jewish Home party received the most votes, some 28 percent, followed by 21% for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beyteynu faction. The two main ultra-Orthodox parties garnered 27 percent of the vote.

Source: Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.

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