Some Arabs have been very successful within Israeli society: one of Israel’s Supreme Court justices is Arab, and he also headed the committee that supervised the recent elections. But he also refuses to sing the national anthem. The judge who sentenced former Israeli president Moshe Katzav to prison for rape is Arab and there are numerous Arabs serving in Israel’s diplomatic corps. Israel’s Arabs are also not that different from some of its Jews: they are one of the poorest segments of Israel’s society and share this affliction with the ultra-Orthodox. But, like the ultra-Orthodox, this is partly self-inflicted: for cultural reasons, Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men are present in the workforce in depleted numbers, and both groups tend to have large families. This means, though, that the two groups are also politically aligned in certain ways, hence the Middle Eastern ultra-Orthodox Shas party attracts some Arab voters. But so, for that matter, does Netanyahu: it was reported that one Bedouin village, for example, gave the prime minister 77 per cent of its vote — a higher margin than he secured even in some Jewish nationalistic strongholds. Really, this should not be all that surprising, since there are after all Arab parliamentarians in almost every party. Not only are they present in the far-left Meretz, Labour and the Likud, but even the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which caters predominantly to the Russian population and is among the most distrustful of the Arab population, has an Arab parliamentarian. The hawkish Jewish Home too, the base of which is the settler community, had at least one Arab (a woman) run in its primaries. The circumstances of the Israeli Arabs are not, therefore, as gloomy as is often suggested — and certainly do not substantiate the harsher condemnations of “apartheid” that have been thrown at the Jewish state recently.

Yet there is no question that significant elements of the Arab community pose fundamental challenges to Israel and its Jewish identity. Many Israeli Arabs identify with their brethren in Gaza and the West Bank and are sympathetic to Israel’s foes. Yet for all the Arab antagonism towards Israel, poll after poll reveals their preference to live in Israel rather than in a future Palestinian state. Regardless, their latent animus is not academic, as Israel is already besieged on all four sides: in the west, it faces Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza; across the border in the south lies Islamic State-linked Wilayat Sinai; in the east, the sclerotic autocrats of the PLO rule the West Bank; and in the north the Iranian proxy Hezbollah and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra vie for dominion, with Islamic State lurking not far behind. A violent Arab fifth column within Israel in addition is therefore an unwelcome prospect — but it remains a serious one. There are periodic riots in some Israeli Arab communities, for a variety of reasons, most notoriously on the annual “Land Day” on 30 March. And last summer, some Arab residents of Jerusalem took to running over their fellow Jewish Jerusalemites as they waited at tram stops.

This defiant (some might say seditious) sentiment also finds diluted expression in Israeli Arabs’ democratic preferences. Despite some support for Zionist parties, most Arabs vote for the anti-Zionist Arab parties — parties whose animosity toward their state has no parallel in the Western world. Although the main Arab political movements — the Communists (who also incorporate some Jews), the nationalists and the Islamists — disagree on what they would like to see replace the Jewish state, the aspiration to eradicate its Jewish identity, and potentially destroy it entirely, is common to them all. A nationalist parliamentarian was suspended last year for expressing thinly disguised approval for the murder of three Jewish teenagers by Hamas; another went into self-imposed exile several years ago to escape charges of aiding the enemy Hezbollah during its war with Israel in 2006. An Islamist leader, meanwhile, was recently sentenced to 11 months in prison for incitement to violence and racism. With feelings like these, it is no surprise that Arabs are not conscripted into the IDF (although a good number do volunteer).