At the annual Tel Aviv Summit held on 12.05.2026 at Tel Aviv University, we were pleased to present the findings of our latest survey among Arab citizens of Israel.
This year’s summit focused on the future of Israel and addressed the geopolitical changes in the Middle East, the ongoing security challenges of Israel, alongside with the core issues of the Israeli democracy prior to the upcoming elections.
Under the title “Integration and Influence – The Vision of Arab Citizens in Israel”, Dr. Arik Rudnitzky of the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University presented several of the survey’s key findings, which led to a further discussion at the summit on this important component of the Israeli society.
● 77.2% of the respondents support the inclusion of an Arab party in the coalition to be formed after the next Knesset elections, and 63.7% believe in Arab-Jewish political partnership: 43.3% support joining any government that is formed, while 33.9% support joining a center-left government.
● Half of the respondents (53.3%) stated that their feeling of belonging to the State is strong overall. In contrast, 44.5% reported that it is weak. At the same time, most respondents (75.8%) support allowing Arab high school graduates to volunteer for national civic service not related to security.
● 76.9% report a weak feeling of personal security and that their mood is low, mainly due to the high level of violence in Arab society and fears of renewed war in the region. However, most respondents (68.3%) report that their overall economic situation is good.
● Most of the respondents positively view a political agreement with Lebanon (69.5%) and normalization with Saudi Arabia (67.4%) but most of them (64.4%) also condition this on resolving the Palestinian issue
● The most prominent component of an Arab citizen’s personal identity is their Arab identity (33.3%). Other components include Israeli citizenship (27.7%), religious affiliation (24.5%), and Palestinian identity (13.5%).
