Israeli Arab Muslims

At the end of 2020, the Muslim population in Israel numbered approximately 1.673 million, a figure that includes Muslim Arabs living in East Jerusalem, most of whom hold permanent resident status rather than Israeli citizenship.[5] Accounting for this distinction, one analysis estimated the number of Muslim citizens of Israel at approximately 1.3 million at that time.[5] By the end of 2023, a figure citing Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics placed the Muslim population at 1.782 million, or 18.1 percent of the country's total population — a growth of roughly 35,000 during that year, representing a 2 percent annual rate.[1] The population skews young: 31.9 percent were between the ages of 0 and 14, while only 4.9 percent were 65 or older.[1]

Using 2019 Central Bureau of Statistics data, an academic encyclopedia entry gives the Muslim population as just over 1.6 million within an Arab population of about 1.9 million, with Muslims comprising approximately 82 percent of that Arab total.[4] Approximately 83 percent of Israeli Arabs are Muslim, while roughly three-fourths of Israel's Arab population is described as Sunni Muslim.[2][3] These figures reflect different methodologies and base years and should be read as estimates rather than a single authoritative count.

Geographically, about 69 percent of Israeli Muslims lived in northern Israel, 20 percent in and around Jerusalem, and 11 percent in the south.[4] A related breakdown places approximately 52 percent in northern Israel, 20 percent in the Triangle, 18 percent in the Negev, and 8 percent in mixed cities.[2] Communities are present in the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev, as well as in mixed cities including Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramla, and Lod.[4]

Israel's Arab population is not religiously homogeneous. It includes Muslims, Druze — who maintain a distinct ethnic identity and strong affiliation with the Israeli state — and Christian Arabs.[5] Circassians are Sunni Muslims but are not of Arab nationality, placing them outside an Arab-Muslim category when Arab identity is the defining criterion.[5] Bedouins are counted as part of both the Arab and Muslim Arab populations, though the Central Bureau of Statistics has no fully reliable figure for the Bedouin population as a whole; a rough estimate places the total at around 370,000, with approximately 279,000 in the southern region as of January 2021.[5] The overwhelming majority of Israel's Muslims are Arabs, and 86 percent of Israeli Muslims identified as Sunni; smaller communities identified as Shia, Ahmadi, Sufi, or declined religious identification altogether.[4]

Arab, Palestinian, Muslim, and Israeli are not mutually exclusive identities, and several prominent Israeli Arab Muslims have articulated layered self-descriptions that reflect this complexity. Mansour Abbas, the Ra'am party leader, has stated: "I think of myself as an Arab, a Palestinian, a Muslim, and a citizen of the Israeli state."[6] In a separate 2021 statement, he described himself as "a proud Arab Muslim, a citizen of the State of Israel"[7] and called for Arab-Jewish cooperation across political lines.[8]

Lucy Aharish, a prominent journalist, has described her own identity in the sequence "Israeli, woman, Arab Muslim" — a formulation that places civic identity first.[9] Among the broader community, preferred terminology varies: some use "Israeli Arabs" or "Arab Israelis," while others prefer terms that emphasize Palestinian identity.[3] Some Arab citizens of Israel avoid religious identification altogether.[4] These varying self-descriptions reflect genuine differences in how individuals navigate overlapping civic, national, and religious identities — not a single unified community voice.

Israeli Arab Muslims have been represented in the Knesset and cabinet for decades, with a number of individuals reaching historic milestones in Israeli political life.

Nawaf Massalha, born in Kfar Kara in 1943, became the first Muslim to hold a ministerial position in the Israeli Cabinet.[10] Elected to the Knesset in 1988, he served as Deputy Speaker from 1988 to 1992 and again from 1996 to 1999, as Deputy Minister of Health from 1992 to 1996, and as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from August 1999 until losing his Knesset seat after the 2003 elections.[10]

Raleb Majadele, born in 1953 in Baka el-Garbia, became the first Muslim Arab to hold a full ministerial post.[11] He entered the Knesset in June 2004, was appointed minister without portfolio in January 2007, and became Minister of Science, Culture and Sports in March 2007, serving in that capacity until 2009.[11]

Mansour Abbas, a dentist from Maghar in the Galilee, has been a prominent Arab Muslim political figure in recent Israeli politics. Born in 1974, he studied dentistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later political science at the University of Haifa, becoming Ra'am's secretary-general in 2007 and its chairman before the 2019 elections.[12] In the 2021 elections, Ra'am ran independently after breaking from the Joint List and retained four Knesset seats.[13] In June 2021, Ra'am joined the Bennett–Lapid governing coalition — the first independent Arab party to serve as a formal coalition partner in an Israeli government.[12]

Abbas's approach, rooted in his membership in the Islamic Movement's southern branch with its emphasis on religious and social priorities over nationalist goals, prioritized advancing Arab civic needs through direct participation in governance.[13] At the end of 2021, the Knesset had nine Muslim members.[14] In the 25th Knesset following the 2022 elections, Ra'am won five seats; its members included Abbas, Walid Taha, Walid Al-Huashla, Iman Khatib-Yasin, and Yasser Hujairat, a genetics PhD who had headed a research directorate at Ziv Medical Center and served as head of Bir al-Maksur's local council.[15]

Hanin Zoabi, born on May 23, 1969 into a Muslim family in Nazareth, studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Haifa and earned a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[16] Before entering politics she taught communications and led the I'lam Media Center for Palestinian Arabs in Israel from 2003 to 2008.[16] She joined Balad in 2001 and won a Knesset seat in 2009, becoming the first Arab woman elected as a member of a predominantly Arab party.[16] She served for ten years and did not run again in 2019.[16]

Ayman Odeh, born in Haifa in 1975 to a secular Muslim family, is a lawyer and leader of Hadash.[17] As a Knesset member, he focused on advancing rights for Israeli Arabs, advocated a two-state solution, opposed demolitions of unrecognized Bedouin villages, argued for recognition of Arab villages destroyed in 1948, and promoted greater Arab representation in the civil service.[17] He also served on Haifa City Council.[17]

Arab Muslims have reached several landmark positions in Israel's judicial and civil service institutions. Abdel Rahman Zuabi, a secular Muslim born in Sulam in 1932, was the first Arab graduate of the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, later part of Tel Aviv University.[18] After serving for 20 years as a judge on the Nazareth District Court, he became the first Arab to sit on Israel's Supreme Court in 1999, at the age of 66, filling a nine-month vacancy.[18] His appointment came 17 years after the government had first discussed naming an Arab to the court.[18]

In 2022, Khaled Kabub, an Arab/Palestinian citizen of Israel, became the first permanently appointed Muslim justice of Israel's 15-member Supreme Court.[19][20] This is a distinct achievement from Zuabi's: Zuabi's was a temporary appointment filling a vacancy, while Kabub's is described as the first permanent appointment of a Muslim to the court.[18]

Oscar Abu-Razek, a Muslim Israeli Arab, was appointed director general of Israel's Ministry of the Interior — identified at the time as the first Arab to hold such a senior position in a government ministry.[21] Ali Yahya, also identified as Muslim, became the first Israeli Arab diplomat when he was appointed ambassador to Finland in 1995.[2]

Amos Yarkoni, born Abd al-Majid Khader in 1921 in Na'ura near Afula, was a member of the Bedouin al-Mazarib tribe who remained Muslim after adopting a Hebrew name.[22] He enlisted in the IDF in 1948 and became the first Bedouin to complete a squad commanders' course.[22] Graduating with distinction from the officers' course in 1953, he commanded a camel-mounted unit that pursued infiltrators and smugglers along Israel's borders before joining and eventually commanding the Shaked Reconnaissance Unit — becoming the first Bedouin to lead an elite IDF unit and reach a senior IDF rank.[22]

Yarkoni's service came at considerable personal cost: he lost a hand in a 1955 clash near Ashkelon and was wounded in the leg during a 1964 ambush operation.[22] A former Shaked commander described him as "the father of tracking and pursuit doctrine" and credited him with developing a method in which one squad tracked footprints while another moved ahead to intercept.[22] He was discharged in 1969 as a lieutenant colonel and subsequently headed the Minorities Unit and served as a liaison to the Bedouin community in the Housing Ministry.[22]

Lucy Aharish grew up in Dimona.[9] As a young girl, she was the only Arab Muslim in her Israeli school.[23] She became Israel's first Arab news presenter when she began her television career at Channel 10 in 2007.[9] She later worked as a Palestinian affairs reporter and hosted programs in English and Hebrew.[9] She graduated from Hebrew University and the Koteret School and became the first Arab to present news on prime-time television in Israel.[23] She hosted a daily news show on Channel 13 from 2023 and has been recognized for her work promoting pluralism; she was selected to light a torch at Israel's Independence Day ceremony, described as a historic honor.[9][23]

Iyad Shalabi, who grew up Muslim in Shfaram, won the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021, finishing in a time of 2:28.4.[24] Born deaf and paralyzed in his lower body after an accident at age 13, Shalabi became the first Israeli Arab to win a medal at an Olympic or Paralympic event.[24]

Sayed Abu Farchi is an Arab-Muslim footballer who has represented Israel's national team.[25] In a match against Austria, he scored Israel's equalizer in the 55th minute before being sent off after receiving a second yellow card following a celebration whose meaning was disputed by different observers.[25]

Nof Atamna-Ismaeel became the first Muslim Arab to win Israel's MasterChef.[26] The Sapir Journal notes that she sought to bring Jews and Arabs together through food and made a documentary titled Breaking Bread.[26]

Jamal Warraqi is a Muslim Israeli Arab and volunteer first responder with Zaka who was among the first rescuers to reach Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, 2023.[27] Describing the violence he witnessed, he stated that what he saw "has nothing to do with Islam."[27]

The phrase "Israeli Arab Muslim" encompasses overlapping civic, ethnic, and religious categories that are not always clearly delineated in official statistics or public discourse. Official population data sometimes includes East Jerusalem Muslim residents who are not Israeli citizens alongside Muslim citizens, making raw totals difficult to compare across sources.[5] The category "Arab" does not capture all Muslim citizens — Circassians, for example, are Sunni Muslims but are not Arab, and would not appear on a list defined by Arab identity.[5] Conversely, Arab identity does not automatically imply Muslim religious practice, since Christian Arabs and secular Arabs are also part of the Arab citizen community.[5]

The labels "Israeli Arab," "Arab Israeli," and "Palestinian Arab" are not interchangeable for all individuals, and preferred terminology varies within the community itself.[3] Sources consulted for this article use different proportions for the Muslim share of Israel's Arab population — approximately 83 percent[2], roughly three-fourths[3], and approximately 82 percent in an academic encyclopedia entry citing 2019 data.[4] Any listing of notable Israeli Arab Muslims is, by its nature, selective rather than comprehensive, and some individuals documented in sources are identified by religion without explicit Arab identification, or vice versa.