75% of Arab citizens in Israel are in favor of volunteering for non-defense civilian service - poll

Thanks to a new study conducted by Tel Aviv University in conjunction with the Kadar Foundation, we are learning more about the Arab population of Israel. The data was collected from a sample size of 500 Arab Israelis through a telephone survey conducted in the Arabic language.

The study covered everything, from political parties to voluntary civil service. 

When discussing the mood of the Arab public, a majority of the participants, 76.9%, indicated a weak sense of personal security. The main reason for this was the increase in violence in Arab communities as well as the fear of a new war breaking out in the region. It should be noted that the number of people murdered in Arab society under these circumstances has already reached 100 since the beginning of 2026.

Additionally, a slight majority of the Arab public (59.4%) believe the current state of relations between Arabs and Jews is not good. The negative assessment of the state of relations between the two groups increases with the level of education: those with an academic education (bachelor's degree, 62.3%; master's and doctoral degrees, 70.7%) express more criticism than those with an elementary education (51.8%) or a secondary education (55.1%) on this issue. Despite the pessimistic assessment of the quality of these relations, the majority of respondents (63.7%) indicated that in principle they believe in an Arab-Jewish political partnership, while 35.6% said that they do not believe in it.

On the economic front, it appears that the situation of Arab citizens is quite good: 68.3% of survey participants reported that their economic situation is good overall. This rate is slightly lower than that measured in the previous survey (73.4%, November 2025).

Regarding a sense of belonging to the country and the issue of civil service, it seems that the Arab community wants ways to participate more in Israeli society. 

Currently there is a split between feelings of belonging, with only 53.3% indicating that their sense of belonging to the country is currently strong and 44.5% indicating that their sense of belonging, is weak. Differences were found in this question according to socio-demographic variables (religion, age, and level of education) and according to political variables. For example, the proportion of Druze who reported a strong sense of belonging to the country (81.7%) is considerably higher than the proportion of Muslims (50.5%) and Christians (53.3%).

However, the majority of survey participants (75.8%) support giving Arab 12th grade graduates the opportunity to volunteer for non-military civil service on behalf of the state. 46.9% of them even expressed strong support. Only 23.2% of respondents expressed opposition to the idea.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and political agreements with Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, a majority of the Arab public believe in some sort of resolution. About 69.5% and 67.4% believe in a normalization agreement with Lebanon and with Saudi Arabia, respectively. At the same time, 64.4% are convinced that resolving the Palestinian issue should be a precondition for these agreements. 

Speaking of which, 46.4% believe that the realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two states based on the 1967 lines, while only 18.7% believe that the realistic solution is one state, from the sea to the river, shared by Israelis and Palestinians. In contrast, 21.4% of respondents believe that there is no solution to the conflict.

Finally, when it comes to identity, the study found that the most prominent component of Arab citizens' personal identity is Arab identity (33.3%), with only 27.7% saying Israeli citizenship, and an even smaller portion (13.5%) saying Palestinian identity.