Survey finds Arab Israelis show growing sense of ‘shared destiny’ since outbreak of war

Study shows combating violent crime is number one community priority, notes groundbreaking impact of Arab party’s inclusion in previous Bennett-Lapid government

Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel

Members of the Arab community protest against the violence in their community, outside the Knesset on November 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Members of the Arab community protest against the violence in their community, outside the Knesset on November 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A new Tel Aviv University study has revealed “encouraging data regarding coexistence in Israel,” with 57.8% of Arab Israelis saying they “believe that the ongoing war has fostered a sense of shared destiny between Arabs and Jews in Israel,” the university said Wednesday.

The announcement noted that a June 2024 survey had found only 51.6% of Arab respondents felt the same. And a similar study conducted in November 2023, just a month after the October 7, 2023, attacks, showed that “the majority of the Arab public [69.8%] said the war had harmed solidarity between Arabs and Jews.”

And so “the current figure represents a statistically significant increase in this metric,” the release noted.

The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken captive, including several Arab Israelis.

The results also showed a huge spike, up to 49.7% as compared to just 17.2% last year, in the number of Arab Israelis who think “the most realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders,” the report stated.

There was also a corresponding decline, from 55.6% in May 2023 to 27.1% in December 2024, in the number of Arab Israelis who said there “is no political solution in sight.”

Hostage Farhan al-Qadi being rescued from the Gaza Strip on an IDF helicopter, August 27, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

“Only a small portion of the Arab public believed that the most realistic solution is a two-state solution” before October 2023, a period when “the majority thought there was no political solution in sight,” but after more than a year of war, “the two-state solution has become a more realistic option in the eyes of the Arab public compared to other alternatives,” the report stated.

The survey was conducted from December 1-8 by telephone among a representative sample of 500 adult Arab citizens of Israel, with a sample error of ±4.38 percent. The study was overseen by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at the Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center.

Survey results showing changing attitudes among Arab Israelis regarding a political solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (Courtesy Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation)

The survey report highlighted a major public issue of the Arab Israeli community: tackling the ongoing epidemic of crime and violence in their communities.

A full 66.5% of respondents said “crime and violence” was “the most important issue for the Arab public in Israel,” a majority that overshadowed “all other issues: resolving the Palestinian problem (10.9%), regulating planning and construction in Arab communities (10.7%), the economic situation, employment, and poverty (4.9%), education and higher education (3.9%), and even preparing Arab communities for emergencies and war (3%),” the report found.

Hundreds of Arab Israelis have been killed in criminal attacks in recent years.

Israeli authorities have largely failed to stem the wave of violent crime engulfing the Arab community in Israel, with many accusing police of largely ignoring the violence. Experts say the wave has been largely fueled by organized criminal groups, and sustained by decades of official neglect and discrimination by the state.

Demonstrators protest against the violence in the Arab Israeli community in Tel Aviv, on September 28, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

A “weak sense of personal security,” largely caused by “the high incidence of violence in Arab communities,” but also by the war, was reported by 65.8% of the respondents, but nonetheless a majority, 65.1%, reported “a relatively good economic situation.”

Only 9% of Arab Israeli respondents said that “their Palestinian identity is the dominant component of their identity,” with 33.9% noting Israeli citizenship, 29.2% citing religious affiliation and 26.9% their Arab identity as the “dominant elements” in their personal identity.

Just 6.7% “think Hamas should continue governing the Gaza Strip after the war,” while 20.7% favored the Palestinian Authority, 20.1% a multinational force, 17.9% Israel and 15.8% “local Gazan entities.”

More than half of the respondents, 53.4%, said “a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia could signal a positive regional development,” and almost half, 49.2%, said that “resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not be a precondition for such an agreement.”

A majority of Arab Israeli respondents, 71.8%, “support the inclusion of an Arab party in the Israeli government after the next elections,” with some 47.8% supporting Arab parties joining “any government, not just a center-left coalition.”

“An analysis of trends based on surveys conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Program in recent years reveals that the current survey recorded the highest level of support among the Arab public in recent years for the inclusion of an Arab party in the coalition, as well as the lowest level of opposition to such a move,” the report noted.

The report’s authors credited this shift to the participation of the Ra’am political party in the 2021 Bennett-Lapid government, “which was considered a groundbreaking development in Arab politics at the time,” which “has now become a broadly accepted norm among the overwhelming majority of the Arab public.”

Ra’am leader MK Mansour Abbas leads a discussion and a vote on a bill to dissolve the Knesset, June 29, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

“It appears… that under the dark shadow cast by the war over all citizens of Israel, both Arabs and Jews, meaningful bright spots are emerging, that could redefine the rules of the game in the post-war era,” said Dr. Arik Rudnitzky, project manager at the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation, in announcing the results.

“The upheavals and turbulence in the Middle East in recent months,” including Israel’s multi-front war and also the collapse of the al-Assad regime in Syria, “have boosted the Arab citizens’ appreciation for their Israeli citizenship,” he said.

The survey results, Rudnitzky said, are “a clear statement from Arab citizens, signaling to both the authorities and the Jewish majority that they will willingly collaborate in the rebuilding of Israeli society and politics in the post-war era.”

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