The Israeli Arabs, or 1948 Palestinians, are those Arabs who remained inside the borders of what would become Israel after 1948, when most Arabs fled the country in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (see also "Nakba"). They make up roughly 20% of Israel's population. They sometimes consider themselves Palestinian, sometimes Israeli, and sometimes both. They are sometimes taken to include Druze and Circassians, and sometimes taken to exclude them; within Israeli Arabs, the Bedouin form a distinct subgroup, as do the Palestinian Christians. The noted Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, though since exiled, originally belonged to this group; other well-known Israeli Arabs include the film director Elie Suleiman and the politician Azmi Bishara .
Israeli Arabs are considered to be full citizens of the State of Israel. There are a number of Israeli Arabs sitting as members of the Knesset (Parliament), and an Arab Justice presides in the Supreme Court. To some extent Israeli Arabs face discrimination as indviduals, in part as a result of inequality in the allocation of governmental resources. The same government, however, also adopted affirmative action policies in recruiting Israeli Arabs to the civil service.
Apart from the Druze and Circassians, they are not required to serve in the IDF, although some, notably among the Bedouin, do so.
Some of them became internal refugees in 1948 (see Palestinian refugees.)
Last updated: 05-23-2005 01:01:38
