Arab citizens of Israel

The Arab citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis or Israeli Arabs) are the country's largest ethnic minority. They are colloquially referred to in Arabic as either 48-Arabs (عرب ٤٨ ‘Arab Thamāniya wa-Arba‘īn) or 48-Palestinians (فلسطينيو ٤٨ Filasṭīniyyū Thamāniya wa-Arba‘īn), denoting the fact that they have remained in Israeli territory since the Green Line was agreed upon between Israel and the Arab countries as part of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. According to several sources, the majority of Arabs in Israel now prefer to be identified as Palestinian citizens of Israel. International media outlets often use the term "Arab-Israeli" or "Israeli-Arab" to distinguish Israel's Arab citizens from the Palestinian Arabs residing in the Israeli-occupied territories. They are formerly, or are descended from, those Arabs who belonged to the British Mandate for Palestine through Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925. Speakers of both Arabic and Hebrew, they self-identify in a wide range of intersectional civic (Israeli or "in Israel"), national (Arab, Palestinian, Israeli), and religious (Muslim, Christian, Druze) identities.

Following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, the Arabs who remained within Israel came under Israeli citizenship law, whereas those who were in the Jordanian-annexed West Bank came under Jordanian citizenship law. Those who were in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip did not come under Egyptian citizenship law and were instead bound by the All-Palestine Protectorate, which had been created by Egypt during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. This three-way split for Palestinian Arabs' citizenship remained in place until the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories. In 1988, Jordan renounced the 1950 sovereignty claim that it had laid to the West Bank, effectively rendering over 750,000 of the territory's Palestinian residents stateless. Through the Jerusalem Law of 1980 and the Golan Heights Law of 1981, Israel has granted citizenship eligibility to Palestinians in East Jerusalem and to Syrians and other Arabs in the Golan Heights; this status has not been extended to non-Jerusalemite Arabs in the West Bank—that is, those who live in what Israel governs as the Judea and Samaria Area. As a result of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the stateless Arab residents in the Palestinian territories eventually became recognized as Palestinian citizens and have been issued the Palestinian Authority passport since 1995.

The traditional vernacular of most Arab citizens of Israel is Levantine Arabic, including Lebanese Arabic in northern Israel, Palestinian Arabic in central Israel, and Bedouin Arabic across the Negev. Because the modern Arabic dialects of Israel's Arabs have absorbed many Hebrew loanwords and phrases, it is sometimes called the Israeli Arabic dialect. More recently, there have been reports indicating that Arab Israelis are also increasingly feeling a sense of Israeli identity and are showing a desire for integration and shared future with mainstream Israeli society. By religious affiliation, the majority of Arab Israelis are Muslims, but there are significant Christian and Druze minorities, among others.

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. The majority of these Arab citizens identify themselves as Arab or Palestinian by nationality and as Israeli by citizenship. 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. In 2017, a survey reported by The Jerusalem Post showed that 60% of Arab Israelis viewed the country favourably, with this figure represented by 49% of Muslim Arabs, 61% of Christian Arabs, and 94% of Druze Arabs. 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.

Under Israeli law, Arab residents of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have the right to become Israeli citizens, are entitled to municipal services, and have municipal voting rights. In tandem, citizenship acquisition is scarce: only 5% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem were Israeli citizens in 2022. Originally, the lack of applications for citizenship was largely due to Palestinian society's disapproval of naturalization as complicity with Israel's occupation. After the Second Intifada, this taboo began to fade, but the Israeli government re-configured the process to make it more difficult, approving only 34% of new Palestinian applications and giving a plethora of reasons for rejection. Non-citizen Palestinians cannot vote in Israel's legislative elections and must get a laissez-passer to travel abroad; many jobs are closed to them and Israel can revoke their residency status, whereby they may lose their health insurance and their right to enter Jerusalem.