Fact #3 Founded in Basle a hundred years ago, in August, 1897, the Zionist movement had as its first objective the creation of a national home for world Jewry in Palestine. Twenty years later, at the end of the World War I, some 55,000 Jews were living in the Promised Land in the midst of 700,000 Arabs. By the time of the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948, they had reached 650,000 and the Arabs 1.3 million. On August 1, 1997 the number of Jews in Israel stood at 4.7 million (80% of a total population of 5.8 million). The 2.6 million immigrants who have arrived since 1948 have made Israel the only country whose population has multiplied by nine in the space of 50 years. Amnon Kapeliuk in Le Monde Diplomatique (1997) http://mondediplo.com/1997/11/israel
Fact #4: Immigration from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) After 190,000 olim (people making aliyah) reached Israel in 1990 and 150,000 more came in 1991, the stabilization of conditions in the former Soviet Union and adjustment difficulties in Israel caused immigration to level off at approximately 70,000 per year. From 1989 to the end of 2003, more than 950,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union had made their home in Israel. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/Immigration_Since_1948.html
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