[chimeracoder]

> Israeli Arabs

Nitpick: 'Israeli Arabs' aren't necessary non-Jewish; there are a number of Arab Jews throughout the middle east, and some of them are in Israel.

(Your point still stands, but people are unaware of the above often enough that I feel it's worth pointing out, because it emphasizes that the region is not as black-and-white as poltiics sometimes seem.)

[_delirium]

The term "Israeli Arabs" in particular is something of a term of art, meaning roughly: people with Israeli citizenship who primarily identify themselves as Arabs. Jews originating in the Arab countries (the Mizrahi Jews) tend not to consider themselves Israeli Arabs, or be counted as such in censuses. Since Israel identifies itself as "the Jewish state", they identify with the majority Jewish population instead.

Whether Mizrahi Jews are Arabs in a more general sense ("Arab Jews") is a more complex question with more disagreement. My sense is that most don't identify as Arabs, at least not anymore, though a minority do. But they definitely don't, in general, identify with the term "Israeli Arab", which denotes a distinct socio-cultural group.

(It's probably worth noting, though, that many people who are counted as Israeli Arabs in that sense don't identify with the term either: a substantial number prefer other terms that incorporate a specifically Palestinian identity, such as "Palestinian citizen of Israel".)