What are political differences between Israelis and Arabs?

Answer 1

Palestinians Arabs like Syrian Arabs, Lebanese Arabs etc... were Arabized during the 7th century during the Islamic conquest of the area. Therefore it can be said that although all Arabs share the same Islamic culture history and heritage they also have their own distinctive history culture and heritage. In the case of the Palestinians the history of the prophets, the Greeks and Romans is also their history. Their culture is therefore slighly different from say the Syrian Arabs or Lebanese Arabs etc...

Answer 2

Arabs are people of the Middle East that are united by a common language: Arabic, and a common history: the Islamic Caliphates. Arabs are not necessarily of the same ethnic stock and in many cases are of mixed heritage due to intermarriage between the Arabs coming up from the Arabian Peninsula and indigenous Semites and Berbers. Not all Arabs are Muslim, but all Arabs have (in their history) spent time under an Islamic government.

Israelis are a national group, which is to say that they are a group of people who all have a certain citizenship. This is similar to the term "American" since a person is defined as being American by having a certain citizenship, not by race, religion, ideology, political aspirations, or creed. The term Israeli is just that. There are Jewish Israelis from as varied places as India, Ethiopia, Russia, Morocco, and the United States (among nearly 50 other nations) who form the majority of the country's population. Arab Israelis are both Christian and Muslim are a sizable minority. Additionally, there are guest-workers and refugees in Israel from Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Being Arab and being Israeli are not based on the same criteria and are not the same thing in the slightest. Additionally, 20% of all Israelis are Arab, which means that the terms are not mutually exclusive. It just so happens that both groups of people live in the Middle East, that's it.

Answer 3

Arabs are people of the Middle East that are united by a common language: Arabic, and a common history: the Islamic Caliphates. Arabs are not necessarily of the same ethnic stock and in many cases are of mixed heritage due to intermarriage between the Arabs coming up from the Arabian Peninsula and indigenous Semites and Berbers. Not all Arabs are Muslim, but all Arabs have (in their history) spent time under an Islamic government.

Israelis are a national group, which is to say that they are a group of people who all have a certain citizenship. This is similar to the term "American" since a person is defined as being American by having a certain citizenship, not by race, religion, ideology, political aspirations, or creed. The term Israeli is just that. There are Jewish Israelis from as varied places as India, Ethiopia, Russia, Morocco, and the United States (among nearly 50 other nations), Arab Israelis who are both Christian and Muslim. There are also guest-workers and refugees in Israel from Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Being Arab and being Israeli are not based on the same criteria and are not the same thing in the slightest. Additionally, 20% of all Israelis are Arab, which means that the terms are not mutually exclusive. It just so happens that both groups of people live in the Middle East, that's it.

Answer 4

The answer to this question depends on what the question is driving at. If it is asking what are the different styles of government between the Israelis and the Arabs, please see the answer below. If this is asking what the different perspectives on the Arab-Israeli Conflict are in Israel and the Arab Countries, see the Related Questions below to see the Israeli and Arab Perspectives.

Section 1: Governmental Styles

As concerns the Israelis, politically, Israel is a parliamentary democracy where individuals have freedom of speech, the right to assemble and protest, protection from unwanted searches and seizures, and numerous other protections that all Western Countries have. It is so similar to other Western countries, that it is part of the West Europe and Others Group in the United Nations Security Council.

As concerns the Arabs, an ethnicity occupying numerous countries with numerous jurisdictions and numerous legal codes cannot be lumped together as one regime. As concerns Arab regimes in the most general sense, there are a few noticeable patterns.

Note: Since many Arab regimes are undergoing massive internal changes due to the Arab Spring, this answer may become dated very quickly.

1) Illiberal Democracies: Many Arab Nations were Liberal Democracies on paper with guaranteed voting rights, freedoms of speech and religion, constitutions that bind the authority of the Executive. In nearly every Arab regime that this describes (like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mubarak's Egypt, ben Ali's Tunisia) these paper rights and limitations did not exist. These rulers used an apparent mechanism of democracy to perpetuate a Dictatorship.

2) Absolute Kingdoms, Sultanates, and Emirates: There is no difference between a Kingdom and Sultanate except that the rulers have different names (King vs. Sultan). An Emirate is similar to a Kingdom, but takes up less space (i.e. Principality). The Arab World has an impressive number of Absolute Monarchs (such as those who rule various Emirates like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, those who rule Kingdoms like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and those who rule Sultanates like Oman). These monarchs control their people through direct edicts and typically run a nepotistic government.

3) Constitutional Monarchies: There are some Kingdoms (like Jordan and Morocco) where the King is constrained by a Constitution and requires a Parliament to pass laws. However, the strength of these Parliaments is often minimal and the politicians are typically considered untrustworthy (while the King is well-received).

4) Military Juntas: Algeria and Qadhafi's Libya were organized as Military-Run Governments with the leaders officially styling themselves as Presidents but being perceived as Caudillos. As opposed to the leaders of Illiberal Democracies, even the Constitutions of their countries (which are useless) do not legitimate them in the way that Illiberal Democratic Dictators are legitimated on paper.

5) Compromised Government: In Situations with various powerful ethnic groups like Lebanon (with its Maronite, Shiite, and Sunni communities) and Iraq with its (Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurd communities) there are democracies which guarantee certain positions in the government to a certain ethnic group so that one group cannot dictate policies for all the other groups. This often results in fights over census taking as that might lessen a particular group's strength and actual group on group violence to intimidate voters of one ethnic group to vote for a candidate that also supports whatever objective would help the perpetrator who are a different ethnicity. This results in very fragile agreements.

6) Real Democracy: If current Tunisia continues to behave the way it did in the previous election by the time the next election comes, the Arab World will have added "Modern Functional Democracy" to its list. (It is also possible, but much less likely that Egypt, Libya, Palestine, and/or Syria may join this list.)

Answer 5

Israelis are the primarily Jewish inhabitants and citizens of the State of Israel (20-25% of whom are not Jewish), which is an independent sovereign nation in the territory once occupied by the Mandate of Palestine. Most Israelis are immigrants to the state or descended of individuals who immigrated to the region within the last 100 years ... much as the USA is. The Jewish claim for a State is rooted in the historical Jewish Kingdoms in the Middle East around 2000 years ago.

Palestinians are the endemic Arab Muslim (and some Christian) populations that used to live in the Mandate of Palestine when that territory existed. They currently have two de facto states of Gaza and the West Bank although neither of these is proper or should be long-lasting. Most Palestinians trace their ancestry back to around 800 years ago, but many have fled the territories in the wake of the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948-9.

Answer 6

It depends on what Israelis, and what Arabs you are talking about. Its not a secret to the world at large, the Palestinians are dirt poor. So poor, even subsaharan African countries give them money. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Israeli Arabs, many of which live in the posh neighborhoods of Herzliya, a place with such an unbelievable living standard and quality of life, that particular area of Israel, is beautiful and expensive enough to make the Swiss jealous, and they do not easily feel envy. Of course, any Swiss jealousy, begins and ends in Herzliya; outside Herzliya many neighborhoods, particularly misrahi and ethiopian Jewish, are poor.

Israeli Arabs, believe it or not, most in fact have a living standard much higher than many Misrahi Jews. Your "typical Arab Israeli," probably holds a master's degree that he or she earned in Cambridge, the University of Padua, Stanford, Oxford, Edinburgh, or M.I.T., even, going that far. He probably holds a PhD as well, from Stanford, and has a salary, exceeding one million American dollars a year.

A Palestinian factory worker, who has to cross the border will get 20 dollars for the month.

Answer:The person who posted above lives in Idaho.

I've lived here in Israel for several decades, so I'm going to correct some of what is written above:

1) Most (not all) of the Palestinians are poor, because (so far) they have chosen struggle rather than peace. I'm not judging them for that right now; perhaps they're holding out for better terms. But as long as they choose to continue their struggle against Israel, they will not enjoy the relative prosperity of their Israeli Arab counterparts.

2) Herzliya isn't "an area of Israel." It's a town, and not a particularly large one (its population is 88,000). Its posh section has just 10,000 residents. Since there are 1.57 million Israeli Arabs, it doesn't make sense to say that "many of [them] live in the posh neighborhoods of Herzliya."

3) The average income in Herzliya is around $24,000/year. Nothing special about that. The average income in the tiny neighborhood of Herzliya Pituah (0.5 km2) is high (I couldn't find statistics), but so is the average income in Switzerland (which is $100,000 U.S. dollars/year). The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report currently ranks Switzerland's economy as the most competitive in the world; and it is one of the richest also. So take your pick.

4) While there is room for improvement, the financial status of the Mizrahi and Ethiopian Israelis is vastly better than it was in their countries of birth.

5) While many Israeli Arabs attend Israeli universities (I live near one), only a small percentage of them go abroad to college.

6) There are just 10,000 Israeli millionaires, so the "typical Arab Israeli" (of whom there are 1.57 million) is not a millionaire (though their standard of living is higher than their counterparts in the majority of Islamic countries).

7) Palestinian factory workers don't earn just $20/month. They earn more than that every day (I know some of them personally).

Answer 7

Answer 1

Israelis are citizens of Israel and are not necessarily Jewish. Jews are people who practice the Jewish faith and are not necessarily Israeli. A similar dichotomy could be made between Irish and Catholic.

Answer 2

• Not all the Jews are Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews.
• Jews are followers of Jewish religion and can be of any nationality as Americans, French, German, Moroccans, Egyptian, ... etc.
• Israelis are people of the nationality of Israel. They can be Jews or not Jews.