Arab Israelis: overview, demographics, history and identity

The Arab citizens of Israel are referred to by various appellations.

They are usually called "Israeli Arabs" or "Arabs of Israel" by Jewish-Israeli society; the designations "minorities" and "Arab sector" are also used.

According to a 2020 poll by the Jewish Policy Institute (JPPI), only 7 percent of Israeli Arabs self-identify as Palestinian. Half identify themselves as Arab-Israeli and 23 percent as "primarily Israeli."

Palestinians in the occupied territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) refer to this population group as "Palestinians in Israel", or also as "forty-eighters" and "Arabs of the landlocked" (Arabic عرب الداخل, DMG ʿarab ad-dāḫil). i.e. as Arabs who lived on Israeli territory (including the Arab territories gained by Israel in the 1948 Middle East War) after the founding of the Israeli state.

Other terms include "Arab Israelis", "Israeli Palestinians", "Palestinian Arabs in Israel", "Palestinian Arabs" and "Israeli Palestinian Arabs".

Jews born in Palestine with Arabic as their mother tongue, who formed a large part of the Jewish population of Palestine until the onset of Zionist immigration from Europe and assimilated into the country's newly emerging Hebrew culture in the course of the 20th century, were referred to as Sephardic or Oriental Jews and as members of the ancient Yishuv, but rarely as Jewish Arabs. Jews who immigrated from Arab countries are generalized in Israel as members of the "communities of the Orient" or are called Iraqi or Babylonian Jews (or simply Iraqis), Moroccan Jews (or Moroccans), etc., according to their or their parents' or grandparents' country of origin; sometimes the terms "Arab Jews" and - rarely - "Jewish Arabs" are also applied to them.

Arab Israelis are equal citizens under the law. They often have more extensive civil rights than Palestinians in surrounding states such as Lebanon and Syria, including the right to vote and other democratic social freedoms. This is especially true for Arab-Israeli women.

The more than 278,000 Arabs living in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have a special status of "permanent residents". East Jerusalem's Arab residents often have close ties to the West Bank, and few applied for and received Israeli citizenship. They can, however, vote in Jerusalem municipal council elections. The Golan Heights were effectively annexed by Israel under a 1981 law. The vast majority of residents have rejected Israeli citizenship, choosing to retain Syrian citizenship.

The majority (52 percent) of Israel's Arab population considers itself Israeli Arabs, Israelis, or Arab citizens of Israel, while a minority (23 percent) prefers the designation Palestinian, Palestinians in Israel, or Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many nevertheless have family ties to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The Bedouin of the Negev identify more strongly with Israel than other Arab Israelis. Druze men, unlike other Arab Israelis, are conscripted into military service. The non-Druze Arabs of Israel can volunteer for military service. By comparison, Palestinian refugees in Israel's neighboring states usually do not have citizenship there; nevertheless, in some countries, such as Syria, they are required to perform military service.

After the elections to the 20th Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 2015, 13 of the 120 members of parliament were Arab Israelis. They are members of the United Arab List, Chadash and Balad parties, which appeared as the United List on the occasion of the election, and see themselves as representing the interests of Israeli Arabs. In 2007, Raleb Madschadele was the first Arab to be appointed to a ministerial post.

Since the Arab population is particularly child-rich compared to the rest of Israel's population, the proportion of Israeli Arabs in Israel's total population is expected to rise well above 20 percent in the coming decades.

Many Arab Israelis feel like second-class citizens in everyday Israeli life and complain of being disadvantaged compared to Jewish Israelis. Land ownership issues in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are particularly contentious. Moreover, until 2006, the term terrorist attack was defined solely as an attack by organizations directed against the existence of the State of Israel; Arab victims of attacks by radical Israeli settlers were not covered by the Terror Compensation Law. After protests, the relevant law was generalized and expanded to cover general terrorist attacks. There are repeated complaints about the lower level of state investment in the infrastructure of Arab residential areas (road construction, education, health care, etc.) compared to Jewish cities and municipalities.