By: Gil Ronen – Arutz Sheva

(IsraelNN.com) The demographic balance in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem is shifting and Arabs could outnumber Jews there in the not-distant future, according to a new study by Nadav Shragai for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA).

Shragai told Arutz Sheva that a series of governmental missteps led to the dangerous situation. “The Jerusalem District Committee’s master plan changed the designation of lands which currently separate Arab neighborhoods within Jerusalem from neighborhoods that are adjacent to the city. This strengthens the Palestinians’ demand to apply a similar arrangement in the all of the contiguous Arab neighborhoods inside and outside Jerusalem, and this endangers the city’s unity.”

Shragai explained: “The District Committee is the highest authority and creation of an urban continuum between neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem and Arab neighborhoods outside Jerusalem will make it possible for the Palestinians to say in the future that eastern Jerusalem should also be included in a diplomatic arrangement.”

The good news, according to Shragai, is that upon seeing the document he drew up, Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the Jerusalem District Committee and the Jerusalem Municipality to “redraw the plan and re-examine its implications.”

Shragai found that there are enough apartments in Jerusalem to last the Arabs until 2030, while the Jews lack housing even for the next ten years. “Our goal used to be 70% Jews and 30% Arabs,” he recalled, “and now it is 60-40… We must enlarge the supply of apartments for Jews and create more jobs because 300,000 Jews have already left Jerusalem and every year another 16,000 leave. They look for less expensive places and this threatens the demographic balance.”