Israel’s Arab minority – “Israeli-Palestinians” to some – is misunderstood abroad and underestimated at home. And they now have demands.
A few days ago, on a Dutch podcast, I was asked whether I thought Palestinians would ever gain equal rights. I began answering about the need for Israelis and Palestinians to separate, and for Israel to not mix together with the West Bank — and then realized the interviewer was actually referring to Israel’s Arab citizens. I told him they have equal rights on paper but he insisted that they “aren’t allowed to walk on certain streets.” I tried to correct this, but was advised with European politeness and inflexible certainty that we do not need to agree on everything.
This illustrates, yet again, how deeply entrenched is the image of Israel as a non-egalitarian society. The idea is not exactly wrong — the US is not so egalitarian either viewed from a certain perspective. But in Israel things are moving on the ground in ways that may surprise, and the coming election is key. The interviewer would have struggled, for example, to comprehend the scene in Tel Aviv last week: Tens of thousands of Arab citizens, alongside many Jews, demonstrating not for their Palestinian brethren in Gaza but rather for their own security.
The background is that the number of murders among Arabs doubled immediately after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government took office, with a record 250 killed last year — 80 percent of the national homicide total (while the 2 million Arabs are 20 percent of the population). What Arabs are demanding, in effect, is that the Jewish state deploy police more forcefully and effectively to protect them from Arab criminals. There is no sympathy in the sector for the rampant crime gangs (as, sadly, many Palestinians defend terrorists). That is somehow impressive, and the beginnings of something promising.
I occasionally participate in events of Arab civil society, mainly through the organization “Bokra” (which also runs a news site of the same name). Both are run by Ghada Zoabi, a determined woman whose focus is on equality, understanding, and Jewish–Arab cooperation. For Israeli Jews, there was always a suspicion that Israeli Arabs don’t want to be part of the country, not really. But I can say this: look closely and you will see foundational assumptions beginning to shatter.
The key is understanding that Israel was envisioned as a nation state for the Jewish people, not the Jewish religion, which is the original source of confusion for many. This is not in itself racist or bigoted or any such thing — Portugal and Romania and Japan and Egypt are all such countries, and all have minorities. The question is how these minorities view themselves, and whether they are disadvantaged in the country’s politics, assuming the country is democratic.
Here is where things get complicated for Israel, because the Arab citizens share an ethnic identity with the main population in surrounding countries that have been hostile (at best) to the country. A big issue was that some began to identify as “Palestinian” — which makes sense in a way, but less so if you actually know (as campus protestors in the West obviously do not) that the term was not widely applied to Arabs of the Holy Land before the 1960s.
So here’s how the landscape is shifting.
Since 1977, Israeli politics operated within a system of two fairly rigid blocs. On one side stood the center, the left, and the Arab parties; on the other, Likud, the far right, and the religious and Haredi parties. Whichever bloc reached 61 seats determined who’d be prime minister — either the Likud leader or the leader of the other bloc (once from Labor, and now … it’s complicated). The winner did not always form a coalition exclusively with members of their bloc. But the bloc determined who’d be prime minister.
Just as no right-wing leader ever ruled without his bloc winning with the support of the ultra-Orthodox, victories on the other side usually happened with the help of the Arabs. The center-left more or less assumed that Israel’s Arabs were in its pocket: even if they were not formal coalition partners, they would provide passive support, like a loyal concubine unfit for marriage but not looking elsewhere. It’s a fact: without the Arabs, Yitzhak Rabin would not have reached a position in 1992 where he could entice Shas to join his government; they gave him 61 — and stayed outside the coalition.
This arrangement suited everyone, because Arabs, too, were not eager to bear responsibility for the West Bank occupation and for operations against Palestinians and other Arabs. But now it is beginning to falter.
Partly this is because Netanyahu has viciously delegitimized Arab politicians (understanding that without them things get tough for the opposition to him) — and the opposition, fearing the loss of soft-right voters, went along. Now they constantly talk about achieving a majority without the Arabs. Newspapers and pollsters accelerate the process by no longer presenting charts with two blocs but with three: Right, Opposition, and Arabs.
Changes are also taking place among the Arabs that could detach them from their traditional bloc. The reasons are varied. They’re genuinely angry at opposition leaders who project toward them mainly contempt, arrogance, and even alienation. In addition, Arab society tends toward religion and conservatism, which often find their home on the right (for a similar reason, more Hispanics than before—though still a minority—recently voted Republican in the U.S.).
Perhaps the most interesting development relates to the Palestinian issue — but not in the way Jews tend to think. The old paradigm assumed that liberal Israel was more friendly toward Palestinians — less racist and more concerned about the injustices of the occupation. This was true, but that camp, as a whole, has grown somewhat despairing about peace, especially after October 7. Like the population at large.
If there is still a market for opposing Jewish settlements and finding some path to an agreement with the Palestinians, it is based on the demographic argument and the necessity of separation — not peace. The message to potential right-wing voters is: If you foolishly vote Right, you will saddle the Jewish state with too many Arabs by perpetuating our presence in the West Bank. (To be precise, Israel plus the West Bank would be almost 40% Arab – and with Gaza, majority Arab). That fundamentally nationalist message — warning of a binational state — is correct. But it does not exactly sound pleasant to Arab ears.
I once told an interviewer at “Bokra” that if I were an anti-Zionist Arab citizen of Israel, I would absolutely vote for the Right — in order to undermine the foundations of the Jewish state. The interviewer smiled, because he understood what eludes many right-wing voters. Tragic-comic, this situation, I must say.
So don’t be too surprised if, in the end, an Arab party goes with the Right (or with a right-wing leader) because of some package of promises. The chances of this would already be not bad — were it not for the fact that in 2022 Netanyahu built such a dreadful coalition, which so blatantly abandoned the sector, with a minister disastrously in charge of “internal security” who is such a red flag — that it’s simply impossible.
The wily Netanyahu may still try to neutralize this with creative maneuvers. More likely, he will do his best to try to disqualify Arab candidates and suppress turnout in the sector through the devious trickery at which he excels. Either way, count on this: if in a future scenario he needs Arab support and can get it, he won’t hesitate and will have no shame. On the Arab street, thus would be met with skepticism — but not fatal rejection, and here and there sympathy. That’s how much the center-left has angered and disappointed them.
In addition, Arab citizens of Israel are simply no longer a monolith. Yes, there are certainly still many who are hostile to the state, and many more who are simply disappointed and despairing. Better to embrace them. I also know Arabs who genuinely identify with the Right on “security” grounds — they want a strong leader and a strong state. A growing sub-sector has emerged, especially in mixed cities, that is culturally quite “Israeli.”
The trend in Arab politics is for the four existing parties to run again as a “Joint List.” The assumption is that this will both maximize turnout and prevent wasted votes (because of Balad, nearly 3 percent of ballots were thrown away last time, and together with a similar situation in Meretz, this handed victory to Netanyahu. The list is expected to win 15 seats or more, and even if it splits after the election, some of its components will want to participate in government. If the government is formed by the opposition, support among Arabs would be enormous.
That is the deeper meaning of Saturday’s demonstration. Despite the horrific war in Gaza, a significant portion of the sector simply wants to be Israeli. What is missing, for now, is a hand extended from the other side. To the Dutch interviewer, this misunderstanding was not surprising—it merely confirmed his views. All of this is a great shame—because the Jewish people know what it means to live as a minority, because Israel promised equality in the Declaration of Independence, and because a “light unto the nations” begins at home.
