Israel’s Arab Citizens, Security and an Unfinished Promise

Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Election, Israeli Arabs Divided Loyalty, Security: What to Do?

Israel’s Declaration of Independence made a promise. The new state would be Jewish. It would also, in its own words, offer “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” It invited Arab residents to help build the country as equal citizens.

Seventy-eight years later, that promise remains unfinished. The October 27 election has made the gap impossible to ignore.

Arab parties won 19 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. Neither major bloc has a governing majority. For a discussion of the coalition arithmetic and how Arab political participation could strengthen Israel’s security, see my earlier post: Israel’s Arab Vote: More Than a Kingmaker. This article takes a different angle. It asks a harder question: what does it actually mean to fulfil the promise made in 1948, and is Israel prepared to try?

The problem is not just political.

Arab citizens make up about one-fifth of Israel’s population. They vote, pay taxes, work in hospitals and universities, and serve in some IDF units. Many Druze and Bedouin serve in combat roles. Yet surveys consistently show that Arab citizens feel less secure, receive fewer services, and face more discrimination than Jewish citizens.

Organised crime is tearing apart Arab towns. Hundreds of Arab citizens are murdered each year, mostly by criminal gangs using illegal weapons. The state’s response has been inadequate. A five-year development program worth NIS 30 billion approved in 2021 had spent only NIS 4.9 billion of its monitored allocation by the end of 2024. Promises were made. The delivery fell well short. The funding still represents an opportunity – if there is political will alongside better implementation.

This matters to everyone, not only Arab communities. A state that cannot protect one-fifth of its citizens has a security problem, not merely an equality problem.

What October 7 changed, and what it didn’t

October 7 was a catastrophe. The murders, rapes and kidnappings by Hamas were the worst atrocities in Israel’s history. The trauma is real and ongoing. It has made many Jewish Israelis less willing to trust, less open to risk, and more focused on physical security above all else.

That reaction is completely understandable, but it does not address the underlying question. The events of October 7 were carried out by Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation that controls Gaza. Arab citizens of Israel are not Hamas. The vast majority condemned the attacks. A 2025 Israel Democracy Index survey found that 70 per cent of Arab respondents believed Palestinian identity could coexist with loyalty to Israel, while only 16 per cent of Jewish respondents agreed. That gap in perception is a serious problem in itself.

Dual Loyalty

The situation is more complicated than it might appear from outside. Many Arab-Palestinian Israeli citizens hold a genuine loyalty to Israel while also carrying deep grief for Palestinian relatives and connections in Gaza.

They may have cousins or childhood friends among those killed or displaced. They watch Arabic-language social media that carries images, accounts and arguments very different from those circulating in Hebrew. They are exposed daily to content that blames Israel for civilian deaths, that frames every Israeli military action as a war crime, and that speaks directly to their cultural and family identity.

Fear, Actions and Reactions

Jewish Israelis who observe this are understandably alarmed. The concern is not irrational. Yet the response matters enormously. Arab citizens who feel treated as suspects rather than as members of the state are pushed further toward those social media currents, not away from them.

Positive engagement, real inclusion, and tangible investment in Arab communities create a counterweight. They give Arab-Palestinian Israeli citizens a concrete stake in Israel’s future and a reason to resist the pull of external narratives. Exclusion and suspicion do the opposite.
October 7 did not create the tension between Jewish national identity and equal Arab citizenship. It made ignoring that tension more costly.

The security objection, taken seriously

Some respected voices, including former National Security Council chief Meir Ben-Shabbat, have asked whether a government that depends on Arab party support could make difficult security decisions freely. It is a fair question. Could military decisions about Hamas, Hezbollah or the West Bank become hostage to coalition arithmetic?

The answer is: possibly yes. That risk is real. Arab parties hold different positions on Zionism, Palestinian statehood and Israeli military operations. Some of those positions directly conflict with Israeli security policy. Any agreement involving Arab parties would need to address these differences honestly, not paper them over.

But the alternative carries its own risks. Permanent exclusion of Arab citizens from meaningful political influence breeds alienation, resentment and a weakened sense of shared fate.

Security risks ignored by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who hold Jewish nationalist positions on settlements and annexation, have exerted substantial influence over Israeli policy in recent years. This is despite the serious warning from Israel’s security organizations such as Commanders for Israel’s Security and the Institute for National Security Studies.

The test should be the actual content of policy, not the ethnicity of the parties holding leverage.

The latest statements from Arab-party representatives also clarify an important point. Supporting a government from outside the cabinet is different from joining it. Ra’am has remained open to coalition membership. The Joint List has offered parliamentary support without seeking ministries. These are distinct arrangements with different obligations and risks.

What ‘Jewish and democratic’ actually requires

Israel’s Basic Laws describe the state as both Jewish and democratic. The 2018 Nation-State Law reaffirmed Jewish national self-determination. Other laws protect important civil rights. But there is no single constitutional settlement that resolves how these two commitments fit together when they pull in opposite directions.

The Declaration of Independence said that Arab inhabitants were invited to participate in building the state as equal citizens. That was not a guarantee of sameness. It was a commitment to full civic belonging alongside a Jewish national home. Integration does not mean assimilation. Arab citizens should not be required to abandon Palestinian identity, language, religion or culture to belong to Israeli civic life. Jewish citizens should not be asked to abandon Jewish national identity either. These commitments can coexist. They have to.

What a real commitment would look like

Fulfilling the promise of 1948 does not require a grand gesture. It requires consistent, measurable action in areas that affect daily life.

It means properly funding and delivering what has already been promised. The NIS 30 billion development program is a start. Delivering it properly is the test. It means serious, well-resourced policing in Arab towns, combined with genuine community trust and independent oversight. It means fairer access to housing, employment and education. These are not charity. They are the basic conditions of equal citizenship.

It also means honest public conversation. Jewish and Arab citizens need to understand what they actually share and where they genuinely disagree. What does safety mean to each community? What does loyalty mean? What kind of country do people want their children to grow up in? These conversations will not produce instant agreement. They can produce better understanding, which is a foundation for almost everything else.

The Bank of Israel’s 2025 report estimated the cost of the war at roughly NIS 350 billion over 2023 to 2026. Resources are tight. That makes careful targeting more important, not less. Investment in safety, employment and education in Arab communities pays returns in productivity, social stability and shared confidence in the state. It is a security investment as much as a social one.

The question the election actually poses

The coalition numbers are shifting, and no agreement has been reached. But the election has raised a question that will not go away when the government is finally formed.

Can Israel sustain both its Jewish national character and genuine equal citizenship for Arab Israelis? Not in theory. In practice. After October 7. During a war. With limited budgets. In the face of real security threats and genuine political disagreement.

The honest answer is: not yet. But it is still possible.

In 1948, when Israel declared its independence, it was already engaged in what would become the War of Independence. Its promise of equality was not just ethical; an Arab population content with its rights is a peaceful partner in security.

What is impossible is to continue treating equal citizenship as optional. A democratic state cannot indefinitely promise equality to one-fifth of its population and then consistently deliver far less. That is not a critique from the outside. It is a statement about what Israel’s own founding documents require and what is required for its internal security and resilience.

The promise made in 1948 was not a rhetorical flourish. It was a commitment. Seventy-eight years later, and after everything that October 7 brought with it, the question is not whether to honour that commitment. The question is how, and whether Israel has the courage to start.

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Sources and further reading

Times of Israel: Arab parties and coalition discussions
Israel Democracy Institute: The Israeli Democracy Index 2025
My earlier, related post: Israel’s Arab Vote: More Than a Kingmaker