Security Council chief warns of dwindling Jewish majority

Jews will be a minority in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea by 2020, the chairman of the National Security Council, Major General Uzi Dayan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

Dayan said that if current demographic trends did not change, this area, in 2020, would have 15 million inhabitants, out of which Jews would constitute 45 percent and Arabs 55 percent. Currently, the ratio is reversed: There are some 5 million Jews and 4 million Arabs in the region.

Dayan said these demographic trends required Israel to make immediate strategic decisions as did the worldwide proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"In the coming years, we are liable to find ourselves with 20 to 25 countries that possess nuclear weapons," he said, adding that these might include radical states such as Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq. All of these states were actively trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, primarily in the area of ground-to-ground missiles, he noted.