Are Christian Arabs the New Israeli Jews? Reflections on the Educational Level of Arab Christians in Israel

In 1949, a year after the establishment of the state of Israel, Christian Arabs consisted of 2.9% of the population in the newly born Israel, and 21.25% of all Arabs living in it.1 In 2010 the rate of Christian Arabs decreased to just 1.8% ² of the Israeli population, and only ~9.5% of all Arabs holding an Israeli ID³ (Statistics, Israel, 2012, Table 2.2). The tendency of decrease in the rate of Christians in Israel is clear when examining the rate of first grade children in comparison to that of the general population: In the 2010/11 school year Christian Arabs consisted only of about 1.6% of first grade students (Statistics, Israel, 2009, table 8.24) in comparison to their 1.8% rate in the population.