Introduction
Since 1948, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had a profound impact on the political orientation of the Arab minority and on the relations between Jews and Arabs within Israel, as well as on Israeli government policies vis-à-vis the Arab citizens. The reunion with the Palestinian people in the wake of the 1967 War intensified the Israeli-Arabs' dilemma of identity between their national sentiment as Palestinian-Arabs and their unique status as citizens of Israel.
The interaction between the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian issue continues up to the present, but over the past two decades, it has taken a different form. Owing to profound changes in the Palestinian arena since the passing of Yasser Arafat in 2004, the connection of the Arabs in Israel to the Palestinian leadership has weakened, while their national affiliation with the Palestinian people remained strong. In the recurring violent clashes between Israel and Hamas over the past two decades, and especially in the summer of 2014 and May 2021, Arab citizens in Israel voiced harsh criticism against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, while emphasizing their national identification with their Palestinian brethren in the Gaza Strip.
Reactions of the Arab public in Israel
The reaction of the Arab public to the current war differs greatly from those in the past. Arab society was caught in complete shock by the horrific events of October 7. The initial reactions were very similar to those of the Jewish public, when many Arab citizens expressed their sincere sorrow and grief for over 1,200 Israeli individuals murdered by Hamas’ militants. At the same time, Arab society perceived a "state of emergency", especially following the statements of Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who warned of "Guardian of the Walls 2", i.e., another round of violent events among Arab citizens, similar to those of May 2021. During the first month of fighting, the country witnessed a "voluntary segregation" as Arab citizens, fearing acts of revenge by extremist Jewish elements, voluntarily confined themselves in their towns. Public and commercial activities in Arab localities almost completely stopped, and a high sense of tension was felt in the public sphere.
There were a few cases of Arab individuals who glorified and expressed sympathy for the October 7 events on their social profiles, but these were rare incidents that were dealt with harshly by the Israeli authorities. The common responses were those expressing solidarity with the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, not with Hamas. Many Arab citizens have family relatives in the Gaza Strip, and their main concern is for the well-being and safety of their relatives. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation in November 2023, about one-half of the Arab public (47%) feel that the Israeli response to the attack by Hamas on October 7 is justified, while 44% do not feel that way. This is yet another evidence of the dilemma of identity experienced by Arab citizens in the shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At the same time, Arab citizens have expressed solidarity with the Israeli society, and especially with the direct victims of the events in the Jewish communities in the Gaza Envelope. In Rahat, the largest Arab city in Israel with 79,000 inhabitants, all Bedouin, a joint Arab-Jewish "operations room" was opened to supply food packages for needy families, Jewish and Bedouin, who suffered from the October 7 terror attack. Some Arab teenagers even volunteered to help reconstruct Jewish kibbutzim that were severely damaged during the attack.
Moreover, according to the above-mentioned poll, one-half of the Arab public (49.5%) feel that Hamas' actions on October 7 do not contribute to the solution of the Palestinian issue, and 56.8% believe that Hamas' militants intentionally targeted civilians in the Israeli communities of the Western Negev. These reactions not only convey the extent of criticism directed by the general public at Hamas but also the fact that for many in the Arab society, Hamas' actions do not reflect the true nature of the Palestinian issue as a moral and humanitarian issue concerning the weak side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the survey’s findings, those who think that Hamas' actions did contribute to the solution of the Palestinian issue include mainly voters of the Hadash party, which is the main proponent of the two-state solution in Israeli Arab politics. Their position should not be interpreted as justification for Hamas' actions in the name of the Palestinian issue, but rather their hope that the two-state solution, which stands at the core of the Palestinian issue, will be put back on the agenda.
Positions of the Arab political leadership
Israeli Arab political leaders unanimously condemned Hamas' actions on October 7, but each party leader chose to highlight certain aspects, reflecting his party's platform. At the opening meeting of the Knesset's winter session in mid-November, Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Hadash party, delivered a speech in front of the house plenum. He described what happened on October 7 as "a massacre that deserves all condemnation, not just from the political standpoint, but mainly from the moral and humanitarian one", adding that "the damned occupation does not justify harming innocent people." At the same time, Odeh reiterated his party's support for the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that "the Jews are a nation entitled to the right to self-determination, which they have realized, but the Palestinian people has not yet realized its right. Anyone seeking a true and strategic security should strive to put an end to the conflict: One state alongside the other, living in peace."
Sami Abu Shehadeh, chairman of the Palestinian-nationalist Balad party, wrote a lengthy op-ed in response to the October 7 events. In line with his party's ideological worldview, he opened by criticizing the Zionist approach which ignores the national connection between Arab citizens of Israel and the rest of the Palestinian people:
Zionism lied to its supporters and denied the existence of a Palestinian nation and its basic rights in its homeland. One of the central and important elements of the Zionist lie is the invention of the term 'Israeli Arabs'. This concept redefined the Palestinians who make up about 20 percent of the citizens of the State of Israel within the Green Line, and supposedly excluded them from belonging to the rest of their Palestinian people. […] But despite the Zionist project's efforts to make them forget, the Palestinians insist on their memory and remind Zionism time and again of what it has been trying to erase: There is one Palestinian nation who lives in all of the territories of Mandatory Palestine.
At the same time, Abu Shehadeh considered the October 7 events "the most serious acts and crimes committed by Hamas against the civilian population in Israel. Any harm to innocent lives, their bodies, their property, and their souls cannot be accepted in any human society." He concluded by saying that "the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to fight against the occupation, the blockade and the apartheid regime cannot justify any harm to the civilian population."
The position of Mansour Abbas, chairman of the Islamist United Arab List (Ra'am), stands out. Ra'am is the political branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. Hamas and the Islamic movement are two Palestinian offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood established in Egypt in 1929. The two movements share similar social and religious values. Politically however, the Islamic movement stands in complete contrast to Hamas: While the Islamic Movement recognizes the State of Israel and accepts the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hamas does not recognize Israel nor does it accept a two-state solution as a permanent settlement to the conflict.
In several public statements, Abbas vehemently condemned the October 7 massacre, saying that "any action that is taken against innocent people — against women, children, elderly — is inhumane and it goes against the values of Islam as well." He went even further by calling upon the Palestinian militant factions to put down their weapons and join forces with the Palestinian Authority to build a Palestinian state in a peaceful solution alongside the state of Israel. When his party's member, MK Iman Khatib Yassin, ignored the murdering of women and children in the Jewish kibbutzim in the Gaza Envelope during an interview to the Knesset TV channel, Abbas publicly urged her to resign from the Knesset.
Back to the two-state solution
The year 2023 marked the 30th anniversary of signing the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. While initial reactions in Arab society praised this historical milestone at the time, over the past three decades the Arab narrative on the Oslo Accords has become more critical. Some political figures, identified ideologically with the nationalists, have criticized Oslo as the root of all the evil experienced by Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, claiming that the accords failed to realize the establishment of a Palestinian state, and also failed to bring equality for Arab citizens within Israel.
The general Arab public, for its part, had gradually lost faith in the two-state paradigm as a realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Only 23.7% in November 2021 and 17.2% in May 2023 thought that it was the most realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to several polls carried out by the Konrad Adenauer Program. According to the May 2023 poll, about one-half of the Arab public (55.6%) felt that there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and 22.3% believed that the solution should be one Palestinian-Jewish state from the Sea to the River.
The October 7 events brought about a profound shift in the position of the Arab public. According to the November 2023 poll, one-half of the Arab public (52.2%) now believe that the most realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, one-quarter (25.5%) still do not believe that there is a negotiated solution on the horizon, and only 14.4% think that the solution should be one Palestinian-Jewish state. Taking into account that the November poll was carried out at the height of the Israeli military response in the Gaza Strip and against the backdrop of the rising number of Palestinian casualties, this shift represents the increasing understanding among Arab citizens that the current situation must change, and that there is an urgent need to resolve the conflict through a solution that will secure the lives of their Palestinian brethren.

Conclusion
The current war between Israel and Hamas constitutes a major negative development in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as far as Israel’s Arab citizens are concerned. Against the backdrop of the October 7 Hamas atrocities, the criticism directed at Hamas reaches such an extent that many in the Arab public now believe that Hamas' actions on October 7 do not contribute to the solution of the Palestinian issue, as these actions stand in sharp contrast with moral, human, and even religious values on which the Palestinian issue is based, in their opinion.
The war also intensified the dilemma of identity experienced by Arab citizens. Many in the Arab public express solidarity in words and deeds with the large Israeli society, and especially with the Jewish communities in the Gaza Envelope who were the direct victims of the October 7 events. At the same time, the main concern of the Arab citizens goes to their Palestinian brethren in the Gaza Strip, especially as the war continues and they are exposed to the harsh sights and news from the military confrontation in Gaza. The increasing support for the two-state solution derives from their concern for the well-being of the other parts of the Palestinian people, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The discourse of Arab citizens on the current war should also be understood against the backdrop of the May 2021 events, when the country witnessed violent clashes between Arab and Jewish citizens, especially in mixed cities where Jews and Arabs have been living side by side for decades. The events of May 2021 within Israel, which coincided with the previous large-scale violent confrontation between Israel and Hamas, have had a profound negative impact on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. The political and social circumstances of October 2023 differ greatly from those of May 2021. Yet, many Arab citizens continue to feel that they are caught between the hammer and the anvil. While they express solidarity with victims of the current war on both sides of the Green Line, the common feeling in the Arab public is that they are the ones who will pay the price for the current conflict, even after the fighting is over.
*This article is part of The Struggle for Stability: Arab Reactions to the Hamas-Israel War.
**For a full version of this article that includes source citations, please see the original publication file.
***The articles in this collection were written in January 2024 and prepared for publication in early March, before the most recent developments regarding Iran and Israel.