Triangle (Israel)

The Triangle is one of the principal geographical concentrations of Arab citizens of Israel, alongside northern Israel and the Negev.[4] Its towns and villages lie near the Green Line, but the geographical scope attached to the name varies: a broad definition covers natural regions in the Hadera sub-district of Haifa District and the Sharon and Petah Tikva sub-districts of the Central District.[1][2] A narrower definition used for a wastewater survey covered Arab villages east of a line connecting Kfar Saba and Hadera.[5]

Descriptions distinguish northern and southern parts of the Triangle.[6] The northern Triangle is also identified with Wadi Ara; communities named in that context include Umm al-Fahm, Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Ar’ara, Kafr Qara, and Jatt.[7] The southern Triangle includes Tayibe, Tira, Jaljulia, Kafr Qasim, and Qalansawe.[8] The term “Little Triangle” also appears in narrower descriptions: one historical account places it between Et Tira and Et Taiyiba, while a 2021 description identifies Tira, Tayibe, and Qalansawe as its three cities.[9][10]

In a 2017 commentary, Tikvah Ideas described the Triangle through three corners—Umm al-Fahm, Baqa al-Gharbiya, and Taibe—and placed Wadi Ara at its heart.[11] These geographical descriptions are not necessarily identical to the narrower lists of communities used in proposals to redraw Israel’s borders.[2]

The Triangle’s incorporation into Israel followed the 1949 Armistice Agreements.[2] Accounts of the aftermath of the War of Independence place approximately 30,000 Arabs in the Little Triangle or Wadi Ara and describe its incorporation through agreement with Jordan.[12] An encyclopedia account describes the Little Triangle as a narrow strip extending from the Jezreel Valley to Kafr Qassem, whose population was added to Israel through armistice-line adjustments.[13] A historical account of Wadi Ara cites a 1950 description of 25 Arab villages with about 30,000 inhabitants incorporated following the armistice agreement with Jordan.[14]

After independence, the Little Triangle formed part of a system of three areas governed by Israel’s Ministry of Defense.[9] Military-government rules restricted movement: across the Arab localities covered by the system, 93 of 104 villages were designated closed areas whose residents needed military permits to leave.[9] A measure under the 1949 Defense (Emergency) Regulations, renewed annually until 1972, enabled the designation of security zones within a protected area; the Triangle was designated a security zone under this historical regime.[9]

On June 25, 1952, about 40 residents of Kafr Ara, including women and children, walked toward the border to meet relatives.[14] Shots were fired when the group was approximately 200–250 meters from an army ambush, killing two people and wounding five.[14] A committee investigating the incident found that the prohibition on crossing the ceasefire line was known locally, while witnesses disagreed about whether soldiers had warned the group to halt.[14]

The armistice boundary also divided individual communities.[15] In Bartaa, in the northern Triangle near Umm al-Fahm, the line ran along the wadi through the village: one half became part of Israel, with its residents holding Israeli citizenship, while the other remained in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[15] The latter half came under Palestinian Authority administration in the mid-1990s.[15] A 2020 account described Bartaa as a village of approximately 4,500 people.[15]

Territorial-exchange proposals subsequently brought the Triangle into discussions about a future Palestinian state.[16] A demographic study considered a scenario in which Triangle territory and population could be transferred to the Palestinian Authority or a hypothetical Palestinian state in exchange for areas of the West Bank with Jewish populations.[16] That discussion also considered possible changes to citizenship and political rights; it described a proposed scenario rather than an implemented arrangement.[16] In 2014, Avigdor Liberman advanced a proposal involving an exchange of territory and populations that included Triangle communities.[17]

The U.S. administration’s 2020 “Peace to Prosperity” plan proposed that, subject to agreement between the parties, Israel’s borders could be redrawn so that designated Triangle communities became part of a Palestinian state.[18] Its list named Kafr Qara, Ar’ara, Baha al-Gharbiyye, Umm al Fahm, Qalansawe, Tayibe, Kafr Qasim, Tira, Kafr Bara, and Jaljulia.[18] The proposal concerned a change in the communities’ political status rather than the physical relocation of their residents.[19] Under the plan, residents’ civil rights would be subject to the applicable laws and judicial rulings of the relevant authorities.[18]

The proposal drew opposition from residents and political representatives.[3][19] Hundreds of Triangle residents protested over the possibility that their citizenship could change.[3] Senior Israeli officials subsequently said the communities would not be included in any border revision.[3]

At the end of 2000, approximately 207,000 Arabs lived in the area popularly known as the Triangle.[16] That demographic definition included parts of the Alexander Mountain and Hadera natural regions in Haifa District, together with the Eastern Sharon, Southern Sharon, and Petah Tikvah natural regions in Central District.[16] The same study counted Triangle residents and Arabs in eastern Jerusalem together at 417,000—about one-third of Israel’s Arab population at the time—living on slightly more than 1 percent of Israel’s territory, excluding the West Bank and Gaza.[16]

For the end of 2013, the Triangle’s Arab population was counted at 293,800, or 21.3 percent of the national Arab population of 1,378,200 tabulated in the same study.[2] An earlier report published in 1997 placed the Triangle’s share at 22 percent, compared with 45 percent in the Galilee.[20] An undated regional summary gives an approximate share of 20 percent of Israel’s Arab citizens.[4] These are dated figures or undated summaries, not current population estimates.[2][4]

Population descriptions published in 2020 used different totals and geographical scopes. One report described 14 localities with more than 260,000 Arab Israeli residents, while another put the region’s population above 300,000.[15][21] A separate INSS analysis estimated approximately 250,000 Arab citizens in the towns and villages affected by the U.S. plan’s proposed transfer option.[22] The broad regional count and the narrower community list in that proposal are not necessarily interchangeable.[2][22] The two larger 2020 reports do not explain the difference between their estimates.[15][21]

Individual localities also illustrate population growth and urbanization.[9] Et Taiyiba’s population rose from 5,100 in 1950 to 19,000 in 1986, an example of the wider shift toward more urbanized Arab localities.[9] Tira had approximately 27,000 residents, most of them Muslim, in a 2021 description.[10] For 2019, the fertility rate reported for Arab women in the Triangle was 2.69 births per woman, compared with 2.36 in the Northern District, 2.61 in Haifa District, and 5.26 among Negev Bedouin women.[4]

Electoral figures show a marked increase in participation between the 2013 and 2015 elections.[2] Turnout in the Triangle rose from 57.6 percent to 69.1 percent, and the Joint List received 94.0 percent of votes in the region in 2015.[2] The rise in turnout was especially pronounced in the Triangle and Jerusalem areas and was linked to the Joint List’s participation.[2]

Quarry work was an important setting for employment disputes in the Southern Triangle between 1949 and 1952.[23] Quarry owners often preferred cheaper, unorganized Palestinian workers over employment-policy aims of creating jobs for Jewish immigrants.[23] Research on these quarries examines harsh working conditions, discrimination, exploitation, and labor mobilization, linking worker organization to a shift from a racial wage gap toward wage standardization.[23]

Infrastructure and development have also been subjects of regional research and public petitions.[5][7] A wastewater-treatment survey covered 10 settlements in the Triangle’s most populated region and identified a lack of clear policy for waste treatment in rural areas, particularly in the Arab sector.[5] In a 2020 petition concerning national-priority status, representatives of northern Triangle communities alleged that limited development space, growing density, and inadequate employment and industrial areas contributed to infrastructure and transport problems.[7]

Everyday commercial and social contact crosses communal boundaries.[11] A 2017 Tikvah Ideas commentary described Jews and Arabs mixing at Wadi Ara bus stops, Arabic and Hebrew being heard in Pardes Hanna’s shopping center, and Jewish customers shopping in Arab-owned stores in Baqa al-Gharbiya and Barta’a.[11] Coexistence tours to Arab towns and cities began in Umm al-Fahm in 2006 with the stated aim of changing Jewish visitors’ image of the region.[24]

Wadi Ara is a roughly 20-kilometer-long valley between the Menashe Heights and the Amir range, with the Iron Stream running along most of its length.[25] It connects the coastal plain with the Jezreel Valley, and Route 65 follows its course.[25] Communities along the valley include Ma’ale Iron, Umm al-Fahm, Basma, Ar’ara, Ara, and Kafr Qara.[25] A 2018 account placed Wadi Ara approximately 35 kilometers southeast of Haifa.[24]

The principal dispute surrounding territorial-exchange proposals concerns whether populated Israeli communities should be placed under Palestinian sovereignty and what that would mean for their residents’ citizenship.[3][16] Critics among Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews characterized the 2020 proposal as an attempted “transfer” of Israeli citizens, even though it did not require residents to leave their homes.[19] Opposition was also reported among Arab municipal and regional leaders, while one account of land-swap proposals reported that only 10 percent of residents were willing to move to a Palestinian state.[26]

The historical rationale attached to the 2020 plan also prompted disagreement.[19] The plan presented the communities as initially designated for Jordanian control during the 1949 negotiations but retained by Israel for military reasons that had since diminished.[18] An alternative interpretation emphasizes bargaining with King Abdullah, with Wadi Ara retained by Israel while Tulkarem and Qalqilya remained on the Transjordanian side.[19] These competing explanations concern the interpretation of the armistice negotiations; the incorporation of the Triangle into Israel under the 1949 agreements is common to the accounts.[2][19]