Arnon Soffer

Arnon Soffer (Hebrew: ארנון סופר; born 24 December 1935) is an Israeli geographer and a professor of Geography and environmental sciences, specialising in water issues and demography.

He and his classmates from the Gymnasia Realit formed the first handball team of the city, which operated under the auspices of "Maccabi".

Soffer served in a variety of roles in the academic faculty at the University of Haifa, including the Department for Geography, chairman of the Jewish-Arab Center and the Institute for the Study of the Middle East, Dean of the Faculty for Social Sciences and Vice Chairman of the Center for National security research.

His obsession with the demographic threat posed by the increase of the Arab population led to some of his colleagues at the University of Haifa nicknaming him "Arnon the Arab-counter", a joking reference to the fact that the Hebrew surname Soffer literally means "one who counts".

Soffer received pushback for his claim that the gather of secular Israelis in Tel Aviv "emboldened" Arab citizens of Israel and endangered the state.