I’ve heard the term Arab Israelis before. But I never really thought too much about it. I found it strange that some Arabs would willingly become Israeli citizens given the government’s admitted “segregational” policies.

But what I find even more surprising is that Arab Israelis make up about 20% of the Israeli population. This does not include the vast majority of Paliestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

When I first heard that statistic, I thought, surely these guys must be mostly Christian Arabs.

I was dead wrong. Over 80% of all Arab Israelis are Sunni Muslims!

What the hell gives?

I don’t fully understand the Israeli political machine (and I have no interest in learning it) but how does Netanyahu receive enough votes from a population that is 16% Sunni Muslim Arab?

Do you know how much we American Muslims could do if we made up 16% of the U.S. population? As it is, we barely make up 2% of the population.

Have Arab Israelis become so ingrained in appearing “Israeli” that they do their best not to ruffle any feathers or appear hostile to the Israeli government?

Or is there more to the equation that I don’t understand? Does the Israeli government or populace stifle the voices of the Arab Israelis?

I don’t know, but I find this situation rather fascinating and perplexing. Especially as we look out towards the future.

I’ve already read a quote from King Abdullah of Jordan that the Arab Israeli population will make up half the country soon. Given how low the Jewish Israeli birth-rate is, and how high the Arab and Palestinian birth-rate is, I can easily believe that.

Israel and several Christian and Jewish organizations work hard to bring in Jewish immigrants from other nations to Israel. I’ve seen so many Christian Evangelist groups trying to raise money to bring poor Russian and European Jews to Israel. (Funny, they don’t bother trying to help black, Ethiopian Jews migrate to Israel.)

The worldwide Jewish population is rather small. There’s only but so many Jews that are willing to migrate to Israel.

Let’s crunch some numbers real quick:

The non-Israeli Palestinian population in the West Bank is about 2.4 million.

The population in Gaza is about 1.5 million.

The population in all of Israel is 7.4 million, 16% of which is Arab Muslim. So that’s 1.2 million Arab Muslim Israeli citizens.

In total, that’s 5.1 million Arab Muslims compared to 6.2 million Israelis.

I know Israel will never give all Palestinians full Israel citizenship. That would be suicide for Israel. But it is only a matter of time before the Muslim population becomes the majority.

Will people like Netanyahu still be chosen Prime Minister? Will this state still be able to wage open war against the people of Gaza like they did earlier this year?

Who knows? But it will be interesting to find out.