The Arab citizens of Israel form the country's largest ethnic minority. The base of these communities are the Arab, non-Jewish former Palestinian citizens (and their descendants) who continued to inhabit the territory that was acknowledged as Israeli under the 1949 Armistice Agreements ending the 1948 Palestine War. Notions of identity among Israel's Arab citizens are complex, encompassing civic, religious, and ethnic components. Most sources report that the majority of Arabs in Israel prefer to be identified as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
<!-- History -->
In the wake of the 1948 Palestine war, the Israeli government conferred Israeli citizenship upon all Palestinians who had remained or were not expelled. However, they were subject to martial law until 1966, while other Israeli citizens were not. In the early 1980s, Israel granted citizenship eligibility to the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the Syrian citizens of the Golan Heights by annexing both areas, though they remain internationally recognized as part of the Israeli-occupied territories, which came into being after the Six-Day War of 1967. Acquisition of Israeli citizenship in East Jerusalem has been scarce, as only 5% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem were Israeli citizens in 2022, largely due to Palestinian society's disapproval of naturalization as complicity with the occupation. Israel has made the process more difficult, approving only 38% of new Palestinian applications from 2002 to 2022.
<!-- Statistics -->
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the Israeli Arab population stood at 2.1 million people in 2023, accounting for 21% of Israel's total population. They mostly live in Arab-majority towns and cities, some of which are among the poorest in the country, and generally attend schools that are separated to some degree from those attended by Jewish Israelis. Arab political parties traditionally did not join governing coalitions until 2021, when the United Arab List became the first to do so. The Druze and the Bedouin in the Negev and the Galilee have historically expressed the strongest non-Jewish affinity to Israel and are more likely to identify as Israelis than other Arab citizens.
<!-- Identity -->
Speakers of both Arabic and Hebrew, their traditional vernaculars are mostly Levantine Arabic dialects, such as Palestinian Arabic in central Israel and Lebanese Arabic further north, particularly among the Druze. Negev Bedouins, on the other hand, speak a Northwest Arabian dialect. Because the modern Arabic dialects of Israel's Arabs have absorbed multiple Hebrew loanwords and phrases, it is sometimes called the Israeli Arabic dialect. By religious affiliation, the majority of Arab Israelis are Muslims, but there are significant Christian and Druze minorities, among others. Arab citizens of Israel have a wide variety of self-identification: as Israeli or "in Israel"; as Arabs or Palestinians; and as Muslims, Christians or Druze.
Terminology and identity
thumb|Arabs in Israel, by natural region (2018).
The choice of terms to refer to Arab citizens of Israel is a highly politicized issue, and there is a broad range of labels that members of this community use to self-identity. Generally speaking, supporters of Israel tend to use Israeli Arab or Arab Israeli to refer to this population without mentioning Palestine, while critics of Israel (or supporters of Palestinians) tend to use Palestinian or Palestinian Arab without referencing Israel. The New York Times uses both 'Palestinian Israelis' and 'Israeli Arabs' to refer to the same population.
thumb|250px|Israeli Arabs at a [[Land Day rally in Sakhnin, 30 March 2010]]The relationship of Arab citizens to the State of Israel is often fraught with tension and can be regarded in the context of relations between minority populations and state authorities elsewhere in the world. Arab citizens consider themselves to be an indigenous people.
List of demonyms
Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel may refer to themselves by a wide range of terms. Each of these names, while referring to the same group of people, connotes a different balance in what is often a multilayered identity assigning varying levels of priority or emphasis to the various dimensions which may be historic-geographic ("Palestine (region)"), "national" or ethnoreligious (Palestinian, Arab, Israeli, Druze, Circassian), linguistic (Arabic-speaking), civic (feeling "Israeli" or not), etc.: is a term that most Arab citizens of Israel prefer to refer to themselves, and other organizations use to refer to Israeli Arabs, either consistently or alternating the use of other terms for Israeli Arabs.
- Palestinian Arabs
- Palestinians in Israel
- Israeli Palestinian Arabs
Similar terms that Israeli Arabs, media and other organizations may use are Palestinian Arabs in Israel and Israeli Palestinian Arabs. Amnesty reports that "Arab citizens of Israel" is "an inclusive term used by Israel that describes a number of different and primarily Arabic-speaking groups, including Muslim Arabs", Christian Arabs, Druze and Circassians. They further stated that "considering the number of those defined as Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs together, the population of Palestinian citizens of Israel amounted to around 1.8 million" in 2019.
There are at least two terms which specifically exclude the East Jerusalem Arab population and the Druze and other Arabs in the Golan Heights: the Arabs inside the Green Line, and the Arabs within (). These terms clarify that
- Although Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, the vast majority of its Arab population does not have Israeli citizenship
- Although Israel annexed the Golan Heights, that area was originally part of Syria, not Mandatory Palestine.
Identification as Palestinian
While known officially by the Israeli government only as "Israeli Arabs" or "Arab Israelis", the development of Palestinian nationalism and identity in the 20th and 21st centuries has been met by a marked evolution in self-identification, reflecting a rising identification with Palestinian identity alongside Arab and Israeli signifiers.
Between 1948 and 1967, few Arab citizens of Israel identified openly as "Palestinian", and an "Israeli-Arab" identity, the preferred phrase of the Israeli establishment and public, was predominant.
University of Haifa professor Sammy Smooha commented in 2019, "The largest now and the most growing identity is a hybrid identity, which is 'Palestinian in Israel' or a similar combination. I think that’s what’s going to take over."
Distinction of Druze and Circassian citizens
In the Amnesty International 2022 report "Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity", the organization excludes the Israeli Arab Druze and non-Arab Circassians from the term Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel:
- The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially classifies the roughly 2.1 million Palestinian citizens of Israel as "Arab citizens of Israel", reflecting their attributing a racialized non-Jewish, Arab status to all of them
- The term "Arab citizens of Israel" includes Muslim Arabs including Bedouins, Christian Arabs, the 20–25,000 Druze, and even the 4–5,000 Circassians, whose origins are in the Caucasus but are mostly Muslim.
- According to Amnesty, the Israeli state views and treats Palestinian citizens of Israel differently from the Druze and Circassians, who must for example serve in the army while Palestinian citizens need not serve.
- Nonetheless, Israeli authorities and media refer to those who self-identify as Palestinians – as "Israeli Arabs".
The Washington Post included the Druze among the Palestinians. The Council of Foreign Relations stated:"The majority of Arab citizens are Sunni Muslims, though there are many Christians and also Druze, who more often embrace Israeli identity." Abbas gave an interview to Israeli media in November 2021 and said "My rights don't just come from my citizenship. My rights also come from being a member of the Palestinian people, a son of this Palestinian homeland. And whether we like it or not, the State of Israel, with its identity, was established inside the Palestinian homeland." Sami Abu Shehadeh of Balad is "an outspoken advocate of Palestinian identity".
Israeli surveys
Surveys of Arab-Israeli self-identification are diverse, and have often presented differing if not contradictory results. In 2017 the Konrad Adenauer Foundation's Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University conducted a telephone poll, in which the results were:
- National identity with Israeli civil component 49.7%, of which
- Palestinian (citizen) of Israel 8.9%
- Arab (citizen) of Israel 40.8%
- Pure national identity 24.1%, of which
- Palestinian 15.4%
- Arab 8.7%
- Civil identity: Israeli 11.4%
- Religious identity 9.5%
- Other / Don't know 5.3%
The focus groups associated with the poll provided a different outcome, in which "there was consensus that Palestinian identity occupies a central place in their consciousness". reflecting "the strength of Palestinian-Arab identity", and that they do not see a contradiction between that and Israeli civic identity. The focus group revealed strong opposition to the term "Israeli-Arab" and to the concept of Israel's "Independence Day". The study concluded that the focus group findings of strong Palestinian national identity, not conflicting with Israeli civic identity, match those seen in the public sphere.
According to a 2020 survey by Camil Fuchs of Tel-Aviv University, 51% of Arabs identify as Arab-Israeli, 7% identify as Palestinian, 23% identify as Israeli, 15% identify as Arab, and 4% identify as "other." This significantly differs from their 2019 survey, in which 49% identified as Arab-Israeli, 18% as Palestinian, 27% as Arab, and 5% as Israeli.
Academic practice
Common practice in contemporary academic literature is to identify this community as Palestinian as it is how the majority self-identify (See Self-Identification for more). There are, however, individuals from among the Arab citizenry who reject the term Palestinian altogether. A minority of Israel's Arab citizens include "Israeli" in some way in their self-identifying label; the majority identify as Palestinian by nationality and Israeli by citizenship. The term Israeli Arabs in particular is viewed as a construct of the Israeli authorities. It is nonetheless used by a significant minority of the Arab population, "reflecting its dominance in Israeli social discourse." With the end of military administrative rule in 1966 and following the 1967 war, national consciousness and its expression among Israel's Arab citizens spread. As permanent residents, they are eligible to vote in Jerusalem's municipal elections, although only a small percentage takes advantage of this right.
The Golan Heights was not part of Mandatory Palestine or the Ottoman political units which preceded it, but rather was part of Syria, and the UN still recognizes it as such, and calls it the Syrian Golan. The remaining Druze population of the Golan Heights, occupied and administered by Israel in 1967, are considered permanent residents under Israel's Golan Heights Law of 1981. As of mid-2022, 4,303 Druze citizens of Syria have been granted Israeli citizenship, or, 20% of the total Druze residents in the Golan Heights. In 2024, Rami Zeedan estimated that approximately 25% have Israeli citizenship.
History
1948 Arab–Israeli War
Most Jewish Israelis refer to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as the War of Independence, while most Arab citizens refer to it as al-Nakba (the catastrophe), a reflection of differences in perception of the purpose and outcomes of the war.
In the aftermath of the 1947–49 war, the territory previously administered by the British Empire as Mandatory Palestine was de facto divided into three parts: the State of Israel, the Jordanian-held West Bank, and the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip. Of the estimated 950,000 Arabs that lived in the territory that became Israel before the war, over 80% fled or were expelled. The other 20%, some 156,000, remained. Some of them supported Israel from the beginning. Arab citizens of Israel today are largely composed of the people who remained and their descendants. Others include some from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who procured Israeli citizenship under family-unification provisions made significantly more stringent in the aftermath of the Second Intifada.
Arabs who left their homes during the period of armed conflict, but remained in what had become Israeli territory, were considered to be "present absentees". In some cases, they were refused permission to return to their homes, which were expropriated and turned over to state ownership, as was the property of other Palestinian refugees. Some 274,000, or 1 of every 4 Arab citizens of Israel are "present absentees" or internally displaced Palestinians. Notable cases of "present absentees" include the residents of Saffuriyya and the Galilee villages of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit.
1949–1966
thumb|right|upright|[[Seif el-Din el-Zubi, member of the first Knesset]]
Between Israel's declaration of independence on 14 May 1948 and the Israeli Nationality Law of 14 July 1952, there technically were no Israeli citizens.
While most Arabs remaining in Israel were granted citizenship, they were subject to martial law in the early years of the state. Zionism had given little serious thought as to how to integrate Arabs, and according to Ian Lustick subsequent policies were 'implemented by a rigorous regime of military rule that dominated what remained of the Arab population in territory ruled by Israel, enabling the state to expropriate most Arab-owned land, severely limit its access to investment capital and employment opportunity, and eliminate virtually all opportunities to use citizenship as a vehicle for gaining political influence'. A variety of Israeli legislative measures facilitated the transfer of land abandoned by Arabs to state ownership. These included the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which allowed the state to expropriate the property of Palestinians who fled or were expelled to other countries, and the Land Acquisition Law of 1953 which authorized the Ministry of Finance to transfer expropriated land to the state. Other common legal expedients included the use of emergency regulations to declare land belonging to Arab citizens a closed military zone, followed by the use of Ottoman legislation on abandoned land to take control of the land. Travel permits, curfews, administrative detentions, and expulsions were part of life until 1966.
Arabs who held Israeli citizenship were entitled to vote for the Israeli Knesset. Arab Knesset members have served in office since the First Knesset in 1949. The first Arab Knesset members were Amin-Salim Jarjora and Seif el-Din el-Zoubi who were members of the Democratic List of Nazareth party and Tawfik Toubi, member of the Maki party.
In 1965 a radical independent Arab group called al-Ard forming the Arab Socialist List tried to run for Knesset elections. The list was banned by the Israeli Central Elections Committee.
In 1966, martial law was lifted completely, and the government set about dismantling most of the discriminatory laws, while Arab citizens were granted the same rights as Jewish citizens under law.
1967–2000
thumb|upright|right|A monument to residents of [[Arraba, Galilee|Arraba killed in the Arab–Israeli conflict]]
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Arab citizens were able to contact Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the first time since the establishment of the state. This, along with the lifting of military rule, led to increased political activism among Arab citizens.
In 1974, a committee of Arab mayors and municipal councilmen was established which played an important role in representing the community and pressuring the Israeli government. This was followed in 1975 by the formation of the Committee for the Defense of the Land, which sought to prevent continuing land expropriations. That same year, a political breakthrough took place with the election of Arab poet Tawfiq Ziad, a Maki member, as mayor of Nazareth, accompanied by a strong communist presence in the town council. In 1976, six Arab citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli security forces at a protest against land expropriations and house demolitions. The date of the protest, 30 March, has since been commemorated annually as Land Day.
The 1980s saw the birth of the Islamic Movement. As part of a larger trend in the Arab World, the movement emphasized moving Islam into the political realm. They built schools, provided other essential social services, constructed mosques, and encouraged prayer and conservative Islamic dress. The Islamic Movement began to affect electoral politics particularly at the local level.
Many Arab citizens supported the First Intifada and assisted Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, providing them with money, food, and clothes. A number of strikes were also held by Arab citizens in solidarity with Palestinians in the occupied territories. IDF enlistment by Bedouin citizens of Israel dropped significantly.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Arab advocacy organizations complained that the Israeli government had invested time and effort to protect Jewish citizens from Hezbollah attacks, but had neglected Arab citizens. They pointed to a dearth of bomb shelters in Arab towns and villages and a lack of basic emergency information in Arabic. Multiple Israeli Jews viewed the Arab opposition to government policy and sympathy with the Lebanese as a sign of disloyalty.
In October 2006, tensions rose when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert invited a right-wing political party Yisrael Beiteinu, to join his coalition government. The party leader, Avigdor Lieberman, advocated an ethnicity-based territory exchange, the Lieberman Plan, by transferring heavily populated Arab areas (mainly the Triangle), to Palestinian Authority control and annexing major Jewish Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank close to the green line as part of a peace proposal. Arabs who would prefer to remain in Israel instead of becoming citizens of a Palestinian state would be able to move to Israel. All citizens of Israel, whether Jews or Arabs, would be required to pledge an oath of allegiance to retain citizenship. Those who refuse could remain in Israel as permanent residents.
In January 2007 the first non-Druze Arab minister in Israel's history, Raleb Majadele, was appointed minister without portfolio (Salah Tarif, a Druze, had been appointed a minister without portfolio in 2001). The appointment was criticized by the left, which felt it was an attempt to cover up the Labor Party's decision to sit with Yisrael Beiteinu in the government, and by the right, who saw it as a threat to Israel's status as a Jewish state. In 2021, Mansour Abbas, the leader of the United Arab List, made history by becoming the first Israeli Arab political leader to join an Israeli governing coalition.
During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis widespread protests and riots intensified across Israel, particularly in cities with large Arab populations. In Lod, rocks were thrown at Jewish apartments and some Jewish residents were evacuated from their homes by the police. Synagogues and a Muslim cemetery were vandalized. Communal violence including "riots, stabbings, arson, attempted home invasions and shootings" was reported from Beersheba, Rahat, Ramla, Lod, Nasiriyah, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Haifa and Acre.
thumb|upright|right|A protest against the killings in the Arab community in [[Tel Aviv]]
The Arab community in Israel has seen a significant increase in violence and organized crime, including a rise in gang-related murders in recent years. A report by the Abraham Initiative highlighted that 244 Arab community members were killed in Israel in 2023, more than double the previous year's count. The report attributed this surge in homicides directly to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who campaigned on a platform promising to improve personal security and oversees law enforcement. Prominent organized crime families among Israeli Arabs include Al-Hariri, Bakri, Jarushis, and the Druze Abu Latifs.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, Israel has carried out mass arrests and detentions of Palestinian workers and Arab citizens of Israel. On 5 November 2023, CNN reported that "dozens" of Palestinian residents and Arab Israelis were arrested in Israel for expressions of solidarity with the civilian population of Gaza, sharing Quran verses, or expressing "any support for the Palestinian people". Haaretz described the widespread targeting of Arab Israelis by Israeli security forces. Referring to "hundreds" of interrogations, El País reported on 11 November that Israel increasingly treats its Arab minority as a "potential fifth column". At the same time, the conflict saw an increased self-identification with Israel among Arab citizens and continued cooperation with their Jewish counterparts in various areas, including healthcare, military service, education and sports. According to different polls, a majority of Israeli Arabs condemned the 7 October massacre, but also opposed the mass bombardment of Gaza. Multiple Israeli Arabs expressed a general resentment over the war, as other Palestinians regarded them as supporters of Israel, whereas Israeli Jews saw them as potential Hamas supporters.
Sectarian and religious groupings
In 2006, the official number of Arab residents in Israel – including East Jerusalem and Golan Heights permanent residents some of whom are not citizens – was 1,413,500 people, about 20% of Israel's population. The Arab population in 2023 was estimated at 2,065,000, representing 21% of the country's population.
The national language and mother tongue of Arab citizens, including the Druze, is Arabic and the colloquial spoken language is of the Palestinian Arabic dialect. Knowledge and command of Modern Standard Arabic varies.
Muslims
thumb|250px|Muslim performs prayers in [[El-Jazzar Mosque.]]
Muslims comprise 17.9% of the Israeli population in 2019. with an Ahmadiyya minority. There are around 4,000 Alawites in Israel and the majority of them live in Ghajar village in the occupied Golan Heights near the border with Lebanon. The Bedouin in Israel are also Arab Muslims, with some Bedouin clans participating in the Israeli army. The small Circassian community is composed of Sunni Muslims uprooted from the North Caucasus in the late 19th century. In addition, smaller populations of Kurdish, Romani and Turkish Muslims also live in Israel.
In 2020, Jerusalem hosted the largest Muslim population in Israel, numbering 346,000 residents, constituting 21.1% of Israel's Muslim population and about 36.9% of the city's total residents. Rahat followed with the second-largest Muslim population at 71,300 residents, while Umm Al-Fahm and Nazareth had approximately 56,000 and 55,600 residents, respectively. The eleven towns of the Triangle area are home to approximately 250,000 Israeli Muslims.
Regarding regional distribution in 2020, approximately 35.2% of Israeli Muslims resided in the Northern District, 21.9% in the Jerusalem District, 17.1% in the Central District, 13.7% in the Haifa District, 10.9% in the Southern District, and 1.2% in the Tel Aviv District.
Prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948, there were an estimated 65,000–90,000 Bedouin living in the Negev. A study published by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in 2017 found that Bedouins have the lowest achievements in the Arab sector on all indices: bagrut scores, rates of college graduates, and fields of employment. As they tend to be the least educated.
Druze
thumb|240px|[[Israeli Druze|Druze dignitaries celebrating the Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu'ayb festival at the tomb of the prophet in Hittin]]
Most Israeli Druze reside in the northern part of the country and are officially recognized as a separate religious community with their own courts. They maintain Arabic language and culture as integral parts of their identity, and Arabic is their primary language. The Galilean Druze and Druze of the Haifa region received Israeli citizenship automatically in 1948. After Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed it to Israel in 1981, the Druze of the Golan Heights were offered full Israeli citizenship under the Golan Heights Law. Most declined Israeli citizenship and retain Syrian citizenship and identity and are treated as permanent residents of Israel. As of 2011, fewer than 10% of the Druze population in the Golan Heights had accepted Israeli citizenship.
At the end of 2019, approximately 81% of the Israeli Druze population lived in the Northern District and 19% lived in the Haifa District, and the largest population of Druze were Daliyat al-Karmel and Yirka. Israeli Druze live in 19 towns and villages, either singly or mixed with Christians and Muslims, all located on the tops of the mountains in northern Israel (Upper and Lower Galilee and Mount Carmel), including Abu Snan, Beit Jann, Daliyat al-Karmel, Ein al-Asad, Hurfeish, Isfiya, Julis, Kafr Yasif, Kisra-Sumei, Maghar, Peki'in, Rameh, Sajur, Shefa-Amr, Yanuh-Jat, and Yarka. There are four remaining Druze villages in the Israeli-annexed portion of the Golan Heights—Majdal Shams, Mas'ade, Buq'ata, and Ein Qiniyye—in which 23,000 Druze live.
During the British Mandate for Palestine, the Druze did not embrace the rising Arab nationalism of the time or participate in violent confrontations. In 1948, multiple Druze volunteered for the Israeli army and no Druze villages were destroyed or permanently abandoned. Male Druze citizens serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
From 1957, the Israeli government formally recognized the Druze as a separate religious community, and are defined as a distinct ethnic group in the Israeli Ministry of Interior's census registration. On the other hand, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics categorizes Druze as Arabs in their census. While the Israeli education system is basically divided into Hebrew and Arabic speaking schools, the Druze have autonomy within the Arabic speaking branch. Survey data suggests that Israeli Druze prioritize their identity first as Druze (religiously), second as Arabs (culturally and ethnically), and third as Israelis (citizenship-wise). A small minority of them identify as Palestinians, distinguishing them from the majority of other Arab citizens of Israel, who predominantly identify as Palestinians. while a 2017 Pew Research Center poll reported that while 99% of Muslims and 96% of Christians identified as ethnically Arab, a smaller share of Druze, 71%, identified likewise. Compared to other Christians and Muslims, Druze place less emphasis on their Arab identity and self-identify more as Israeli. Most do not identify as Palestinians. However, they were less ready for personal relationships with Jews compared to Israeli Muslims and Christians. Scholars attribute this trend to cultural differences between Jews and Druze. Druze politicians in Israel include Ayoob Kara, who represented Likud in the Knesset; Majalli Wahabi of Kadima, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset; and Said Nafa of the Arab party Balad.
Christians
thumb|250px|[[Catholic Mass in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Christian Arabs are one of the most educated ethnoreligious groups in Israel. There are 135,000 or more Christian Arabs in Israel (and more than 39,000 non-Arab Christians). As of 2014 the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was the largest Christian community in Israel, where about 60% of Israeli Christians belonged to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, while around 30% of Israeli Christians belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.
Nazareth has the largest Christian Arab population, followed by Haifa. The Christian Arab communities in Nazareth and Haifa tend to be wealthier and better educated compare to other Arabs elsewhere in Israel. Arab Christians also live in a number of other localities in the Galilee; such as Abu Snan, Arraba, Bi'ina, Deir Hanna, I'billin, Jadeidi-Makr, Kafr Kanna, Mazra'a, Muqeible, Ras al-Ein, Reineh, Sakhnin, Shefa-Amr, Tur'an and Yafa an-Naseriyye. localities such as Eilabun, Jish, Kafr Yasif and Rameh are predominantly Christians. Nearly all the population of Fassuta and Mi'ilya are Melkite Christians. Some Druze villages, such as Daliyat al-Karmel, Ein Qiniyye, Hurfeish, Isfiya, Kisra-Sumei, Maghar, Majdal Shams and Peki'in have small Christian Arab populations. Notable Christian figures in science and high tech include Hossam Haick who has a number of contributions in multidisciplinary fields such as nanotechnology, nanosensors and molecular electronics, and Johny Srouji who is Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies.
Among Arab Christians in Israel, some emphasize pan-Arabism, whilst a small minority enlists in the Israel Defense Forces. Since September 2014 Christian families or clans who have either Aramaic/Assyrian or Maronite cultural heritage are considered an ethnicity separate from Israeli Arabs and can register themselves as Arameans. This recognition comes after about seven years of activity by the Aramean Christian Foundation in Israel, which rather than sticking to an Arab identity, wishes to assimilate into an Israeli lifestyle. Aram is led by IDF Major Shadi Khalloul Risho and the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, headed by Father Gabriel Naddaf of the Greek-Orthodox Church and Major Ihab Shlayan. The move was condemned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which described it as an attempt to divide the Palestinian minority in Israel. Other pro-Zionist advocates supporting similar ideas received extensive coverage in Israeli state sponsored media and Jewish news outlets to severe criticisms from their co-religionists (see Yoseph Haddad).
Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Statistically, Christian Arabs in Israel have the highest rates of educational attainment among all religious communities, according to a data by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010, 63% of Israeli Christian Arabs have had college or postgraduate education, the highest of any religious and ethno-religious group. Despite the fact that Arab Christians only represent 2% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17% of the country's university students, and for 14% of its college students. There are more Christians who have attained a bachelor's degree or higher academic degrees than the median Israeli population. and the percentage of Arab Christian women who are receiving higher education is also higher than that of other groups. In 2012 Christian Arabs had the highest rates of success at matriculation examinations, In 2016, Arab Christians had the highest rates of success at matriculation examinations, namely 73.9%, both in comparison to Muslim and Druze Israelis (41% and 51.9% respectively), and to the students from the different branches of the Hebrew (majority Jewish) education system considered as one group (55.1%).
In terms of their socio-economic situation, Arab Christians are more similar to the Jewish population than to the Muslim Arab population. They have the lowest incidence of poverty and the lowest percentage of unemployment, at 4.9%, compared to 6.5% among Jewish men and women. They have also the highest median household income among Arab citizens of Israel and second highest median household income among the Israeli ethno-religious groups. Also Arab Christians have a high presentation in science and in the white collar professions. In Israel Arab Christians are portrayed as a hard working and upper middle class educated ethno-religious minority. According to study the majority of Christians in Israel (68.2 per cent) are employed in the service sector, i.e. banks, insurance companies, schools, tourism, hospitals etc. A 2011 Maariv article described the Christian Arab sector as "the most successful in the education system", an opinion supported by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics and others who point out that Christian Arabs fared best in terms of education in comparison to any other group receiving an education in Israel.
Lebanese people
There are 3,500 Lebanese people in Israel, most of them are former members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and their families. The SLA was a Christian-dominated militia allied with the Israel Defense Forces during the South Lebanon conflict until Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 that ended the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. They are registered by the Ministry of Interior as "Lebanese" and hold Israeli citizenship.]]
In 2006, the official number of Arab residents in Israel was 1,413,500 people, about 20% of Israel's population. This figure includes 209,000 Arabs (14% of the Israeli Arab population) in East Jerusalem, also counted in the Palestinian statistics, although 98% of East Jerusalem Palestinians have either Israeli residency or Israeli citizenship. In 2012, the official number of Arab residents in Israel increased to 1,617,000 people, about 21% of Israel's population. The Arab population in 2023 was estimated at 2,065,000 people, representing 21% of the country's population. Around 8.4% (approximately 102,000 inhabitants) of Israeli Arabs live in officially mixed Jewish-Arab cities (excluding Arab residents in East Jerusalem), including Haifa, Lod, Ramle, Jaffa-Tel Aviv, Acre, Nof HaGalil, and Ma'alot Tarshiha.
thumb|[[Jaffa, which currently has 16,000 Arab residents, mixed of Muslims and Christians.]]
thumb|Old City of [[Acre, Israel|Acre, an area where Arabs make up 95% of the residents. In total there are 122 primarily if not entirely Arab localities in Israel, 89 of them having populations over two thousand. The seven townships as well as the Abu Basma Regional Council that have been constructed by the government for the Bedouin population of the Negev, are the only Arab localities to have been established since 1948, and together with the local council of Abu Ghosh, some 19% of the country's entire Arab population.
14% of Arab citizens live in the Haifa District predominantly in the Wadi Ara region. Here is the largest Muslim city, Umm al-Fahm, with a population of . Baqa-Jatt is the second largest Arab population center in the district. The city of Haifa has an Arab population of 10%, much of it in the Wadi Nisnas, Abbas and Halissa neighborhoods. Halisa and Kababir are largely Muslim. and Tel Aviv-Yafo, 4%. The city, Givat Tantur, was never constructed even after 10 years.
Major Arab localities
thumb|[[Nazareth, which is a mixed ancient city of Muslims and Christians, is the largest Arab city in Israel.]]
thumb|[[Umm al-Fahm is the third largest Arab city in Israel.]]
thumb|[[Baqa al-Gharbiyye is the eighth largest Arab city in Israel.]]
Arabs make up the majority of the population of the "heart of the Galilee" and of the areas along the Green Line including the Wadi Ara region. Bedouin Arabs make up the majority of the northeastern section of the Negev.
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|+Significant population centers (2014)
|-
!Locality!!Population!!District
|-
|Nazareth
|74,600
|North
|-
|Rahat
|60,400
|South
|-
|Umm al-Fahm
|51,400
|Haifa
|-
|Tayibe
|40,200
|Center
|-
|Shefa-'Amr
|39,200
|North
|-
|Tamra
|31,700
|North
|-
|Sakhnin
|28,600
|North
|-
|Baqa al-Gharbiyye
|27,500
|Haifa
|-
|Tira
|24,400
|Center
|-
|Ar'ara
|23,600
|Haifa
|-
|Arraba
|23,500
|North
|-
|Kafr Qasim
|21,400
|Center
|-
|Maghar
|21,300
|North
|-
|Qalansawe
|21,000
|Center
|-
|Kafr Kanna
|20,800
|North
|-
|colspan="3"|<small>Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics</small>
|}
Perceived demographic threat
The phrase demographic threat (or demographic bomb) is used within the Israeli political sphere to describe the growth of Israel's Arab citizenry as constituting a threat to its maintenance of its status as a Jewish state with a Jewish demographic majority. In the northern part of Israel the percentage of the population that is Jewish is declining. The increasing population of Arabs within Israel, and the majority status they hold in two major geographic regions – the Galilee and the Triangle – has become a growing point of open political contention in recent years. Among Arabs, Muslims have the highest birth rate, followed by Druze, and then Christians.
Israeli historian Benny Morris stated in 2004 that, while he strongly opposes expulsion of Israeli Arabs, in case of an "apocalyptic" scenario where Israel comes under total attack with non-conventional weapons and comes under existential threat, an expulsion might be the only option. He compared the Israeli Arabs to a "time bomb" and "a potential fifth column" in both demographic and security terms and said they are liable to undermine the state in time of war.
Several politicians have viewed the Arabs in Israel as a security and demographic threat.
The phrase "demographic bomb" was famously used by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2003 when he noted that, if the percentage of Arab citizens rises above its current level of about 20 percent, Israel will not be able to maintain a Jewish demographic majority. Netanyahu's comments were criticized as racist by Arab Knesset members and a range of civil rights and human rights organizations, such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Even earlier allusions to the "demographic threat" can be found in an internal Israeli government document drafted in 1976 known as the Koenig Memorandum, which laid out a plan for reducing the number and influence of Arab citizens of Israel in the Galilee region.
In 2003, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv published an article entitled "Special Report: Polygamy is a Security Threat", detailing a report put forth by the Director of the Population Administration at the time, Herzl Gedj; the report described polygamy in the Bedouin sector a "security threat" and advocated means of reducing the birth rate in the Arab sector. The Population Administration is a department of the Demographic Council, whose purpose, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, is: "...to increase the Jewish birthrate by encouraging women to have more children using government grants, housing benefits, and other incentives". In 2008 the minister of the interior appointed Yaakov Ganot as new head of the Population Administration, which according to Haaretz is "probably the most important appointment an interior minister can make".
A January 2006 study rejects the "demographic time bomb" threat based on statistical data that shows Jewish births have increased while Arab births have begun to drop. The study noted shortcomings in earlier demographic predictions (for example, in the 1960s, predictions suggested that Arabs would be the majority in 1990). The study also demonstrated that Christian Arab and Druze birth rates were actually below those of Jewish birth rates in Israel. The study used data from a Gallup poll to demonstrate that the desired family size for Arabs in Israel and Jewish Israelis were the same. The study's population forecast for 2025 predicted that Arabs would comprise only 25% of the Israeli population. Nevertheless, the Bedouin population, with its high birth rates, continues to be perceived as a threat to a Jewish demographic majority in the south, and a number of development plans, such as the Blueprint Negev, address this concern.
A study showed that in 2010, Jewish birthrates rose by 31% and 19,000 diaspora Jews immigrated to Israel, while the Arab birthrate fell by 2%.