Seventy percent of Israel’s Arabs, or some 1.5 million citizens, do not see “Israeli” as being their primary or even secondary identity, according to a survey published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
The poll, which asked respondents to self-identify, said that only 3% of Arabs define themselves as Israeli citizens first, with 27% saying that their citizenship of the Jewish state defined their secondary identity.
The majority of respondents (56%) said they primarily define their identity as Arab, followed by 25% who defined themselves as Muslim first.
Three percent gave their main identity as Palestinian, while 11% said they felt Palestinian second, the study found, adding that the reliability of the latter statistic was relatively low.
Since the start of the Swords of Iron war on Oct. 7, 2023, there has been growing radicalization among segments of the country’s Arab minority.
Israeli Security officials have investigated more than 80 cases involving Arab citizens. There have reportedly been 26 cases of Israeli Arabs swearing allegiance to Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) detained over 170 citizens for questioning in cases involving national security in 2024, according to Hebrew reports.
In the 17 months since Hamas launched its terrorist invasion from Gaza, at least 15 Jews have been murdered by Arabs with Israeli citizenship or legal residency status. The figure includes Arabs of eastern Jerusalem, who hold legal residency status and are able to apply for a passport.
A poll conducted in 2023 by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions found that one third of Arab citizens disagreed with the statement that Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre “does not reflect Arab society, the Palestinian people and the Islamic nation.”
A June 2024 survey found that some 14.7% of Arab Israelis believe that Hamas should govern Gaza after the war, in direct opposition to one of Jerusalem’s key war aims. That represents approximately 308,700 Israeli citizens out of an Arab Israeli population of around 2.1 million.
