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Record-breaking Arab volunteers to the IDF
- Zach
- Nov 3, 2022
- 2 min read
Both Christian and Muslim Arabs have joined the Israeli Defense Force this year, and the opportunities to improve the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict are clear
By Jake Austin, 29 June 2021
“This is my country and it’s my duty to protect its borders” stated Sargeant Yosef Saluta in 2017. “When I told my family I wanted to serve, they backed me up.” Saluta is one of hundreds of Muslim Arabs from the outskirts of Israel that has joined the IDF in recent years. The growth has been exponential, with the number of Arab volunteers topping 1000 in the past 12 months. Saluta and the men he serves with stand as living examples that the current conflict can never be boiled down to Jew vs Muslim, or Arab vs Israeli.
Arab Israelis consist of roughly one-fifth of the nation’s population, but are underrepresented in the Knesset (Parliament) and often overlooked by the global view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Saluta and other recruits hail from more remote regions such as the Galilee, Qalansuwa, and even the northern Golan Heights. The Israeli defense has also reported applications from people in so-called “enemy states” in the region, applications that were all rejected due to intelligence concerns.
The Israeli government has begun to fund programs that will take thousands of potential Arab applicants and finance their early training in both defense and the Hebrew language. The IDF hopes to use these recruits to better engage with their home communities, often remote compared to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. These men will know the intricacies of their home communities better and will be able to serve those communities better than an ethnic Israeli born and raised in Tel Aviv.
Army service is mandatory for Jews, but optional for Arabs. This status quo over the years could have contributed to a tribalist, us vs them mindset within the homogenous IDF. While ethnic Israelis and Arabs all share the same practical rights under the current system, only Jews have the “right to self determination” after a controversial 2018 bill that also stripped Arabic as an official language. Selective enforcement in some divided areas have led many to accuse the Jewish state of prioritizing one class of citizen over the other. Muslim and Christian Arabs have claimed to have much less leeway buying a house, taking out a loan, and treatment in local courts. In the worst case, these Arab recruits to the IDF will be used as token minorities with little institutional change.
How does Palestine come into the mix? Inclusion in the IDF decision making process, especially of Arab Muslims in this case, can help reframe the issue as pure national security rather than ethic tension exercised through national security. Israel is a very diverse place, and faces a very diverse set of problems. Men like Sgt. Saluta could assist. It will be interesting to see if any IDF higher ups in the coming years are ethnically Arab, and how the IDF’s culture may shift from this sudden influx.
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