The Jews should savor their final years of majority in the Holy City. This is the conclusion reached by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies after a frightening demographic study it released just weeks before the 40-year anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification.

Out of a current population of 720,000, two thirds are Jews and one third are Arabs. But those numbers are changing. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Arab population is growing at a rate double that of the Jews. And as Arab numbers swell in East Jerusalem and the Old City, many Israelis are fleeing to the suburbs in search of affordable housing and job opportunities.

“If these trends continue, we could reach the 60/40 rate by 2020, and by 2035 we could see the same number of Jews and Arabs in the city,” senior institute researcher Dr. Miya Hoshen said (ibid., May 8).

The Arabs have implemented the vision of their former leader Yasser Arafat when he said back in 1996, “We have a long struggle ahead of us. I call on each and every one of you to bring at least 12 children into the world and give me 10 of them so that we can continue the struggle” (Intelligence Digest, Oct. 31, 1996). Whether or not the current demographic numbers came about as a result of Arafat’s plea, the fruits of the Arab population explosion are now taking effect.

Increasing the alarm, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski warned during a cabinet meeting on Sunday that Hamas “knows that it can conquer Jerusalem demographically within 12 years.”

“We need a plan in order to ensure that Jerusalem remain Israel’s capital for all eternity,” the mayor added in comments reminiscent of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s final speech to the Knesset before his assassination when he affirmed that Jerusalem must always remain the united capital of Israel.

Israel now faces a major crisis: Accept this slow demographic slide resulting in the eventual loss of sovereignty, or concede East Jerusalem’s Palestinian areas to the control of the Palestinian Authority. This is a choice Israel’s prime ministers have mulled time and again: Do we sacrifice the land of Israel to ensure a Jewish majority in the areas of greatest importance?

This was, at least in part, the reasoning former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon used in giving up the Gaza Strip in 2005. In a speech to the Jewish Agency Assembly, he commented, “It is obvious that we do not have the ability to ensure a Jewish majority in every area, and that we have no desire to rule over millions of Palestinians …. At the same time, we are directing the majority of our efforts to the most important areas to ensure our existence—the Galilee, the Negev, greater Jerusalem, the settlement blocs and the security zones” (emphasis ours).

Now, just two years later, “greater Jerusalem” is under demographic attack. Will the Jews succumb there as well?

Israel is slowly being eaten up by an insatiable Arab appetite. And now the cherry is closer to Arab mouths than it has been in 40 years. Through infiltrating the population, then out-producing their rival Israelis, the Palestinians have used the biological bomb to take more territory than by any other means. Your Bible reveals that half of Jerusalem will fall into Arab hands.

However, it is another power, that of a united Europe, which will eventually take Jerusalem. Read our booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy to learn more.