Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Agranat, Foreign Minister Moshe Arens, Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, and
important fi gures in media, music, academia, sports, and religion. A large portion of the im-
migrants are religious Jews, who mostly live in Jerusalem. Several towns, notably Ra'anana
and Beit Shemesh, also have concentrations of English-speakers. Immigrants from the United
States constitute a disproportionately high number of settlers in the territories captured
in 1967.
Motivated by idealism and coming from countries where nongovernmental organizations
are common, the Anglo-Saxons are also often involved in social-welfare, reform, and environ-
mental groups. They have also played a leading role in Reform and Conservative Jewish circles,
which account for the majority of Jews in North America but a small minority in Israel. As
activists, U.S. immigrants are frequently found in right-wing (as with Jewish Defense League
leader Meir Kahane) and left-wing organizations.
Arabs
When the State of Israel became independent in 1948, about 150,000 Arabs found themselves
living within its borders and classifi ed as citizens. Today, more than 1.2 million Arabs are citi-
zens of Israel—20 percent of the total population. Over 90 percent of the Arabs are Muslim;
fewer than 10 percent are Christian. Since statehood, the percentage of Muslims has increased,
and the percentage of Christians has decreased; their relative numbers at the end of the 1950s
were 70 percent and 21 percent. With the immigration of Jews from the Middle East and North
Africa, the percentage of Arabs in the overall population decreased to just 11 percent in the
1950s, but their much higher birthrate increased their numbers, which were further boosted by
the annexation of east Jerusalem in 1967, as well as by a small number of immigrants (account-
ing for 3 percent of the increase), mainly for purposes of family reunifi cation.
Israeli Arabs have a natural growth rate of approximately 2.6 percent per year, as of 2009.
The birthrate is much higher among Muslim Arabs than among Christian Arabs, but overall,
the Arab birthrate is falling signifi cantly. In 2000, the birthrate among Israeli Arabs was 3.8,
compared with 2.8 percent in neighboring Syria and Jordan and 2.1 percent in Egypt. Nearly
a decade later, in 2008, the average number of people in an Arab family was 4.8, compared to
3.5 for Jews.
The more than 110 Arab municipalities scattered throughout the country, including nine
cities, thirty-three rural villages, and thirteen Druze towns, are home to about 70 percent of Is-
rael's Arabs. An additional 24 percent of Arabs live in the “mixed” cities of the Jerusalem area.
In Jerusalem proper, Arabs make up over 30 percent of the population, and in Acre, Ramla,
Lod, and Ma'alot-Tarshisha, about 20 percent. In Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Nazareth Illit, Arabs are
less than 10 percent of the population. Another 1 percent of Israel's Arabs live in predominantly
Jewish cities, and the remainder, mostly Bedouin, live in unrecognized villages in the southern
part of the country.
Most Arab localities are homogeneous, with eighty-one of them being 90 percent or more
Muslim. Overall, about 46 percent of Israeli Arabs live in the north, another 18 percent in the
Jerusalem area, 15 percent in Haifa, and 1 percent in the Tel Aviv area; the rest are split between
the center and the south. The majority are Sunni Muslims, who live mainly in Jerusalem, the
