“apartheid”

Israel is the opposite of an apartheid regime. It is a multicultural liberal democracy with a legal system that upholds equal rights for all citizens.

• Israel is a diverse society of people from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. Their rights are equal and protected by law.
   

• Israel’s founding document states that Israel, “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”
   

• 25% of Israel’s citizens are not Jewish and have always had equal voting and political rights. Arab citizens of Israel were elected to the first Knesset (parliament) in 1949 and have won as many as 17 seats in a single election.
   

• From 2021-2022, Israel’s government included and relied on the support of Ra’am, an Arab party representing religious Muslim Arab citizens of Israel. This government allocated $16 billion to increasing the security and prosperity of its Arab citizens.
   

• In 2015 Arab-Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran oversaw Israel’s national elections, as head of the central elections committee.
   

• Adv. Mariam Kabaha became Israel's national Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner in 2015, and is now the highest-ranking Arab woman in civil service.
   

• Israeli Druze, Bedouins, and Arabs fight in the Israeli Defense Forces and have attained ranks as high as Major General. In 2016, Colonel Dr. Badar Tarif became the first Druze officer to be appointed as the head of the IDF Medical Corps.
   

• Israel’s Arab citizens tend to have a complicated relationship with the country. In polls. Most have said they face discrimination in Israeli society, but also believe Israel treats them equally under the law and would prefer to live in Israel than under a Palestinian government.