Arab Society in Israel Program

This is a joint program of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Shared Society and the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions.

IDI's program on Arab society aims at mitigating the tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority and create a shared, inclusive society. The program seeks to address the social, cultural, economic and legal barriers to the integration of Israel's Arab citizens into Israeli society and its economy. On the basis of its in-depth research, the program team devises and promotes policy recommendations, and works closely with government decision-makers to ensure their adoption and implementation.

Among other initiatives, the program publishes an Annual Statistical Report which provides comprehensive and detailed data on the situation of the Arab Israeli population in a broad range of life arenas, along with an in-depth survey of the relationship between Arab and Jewish citizens, and focuses on issues such as developing a model of shared workspaces for Israeli employers, advancing the inclusion of Arab citizens in government decision-making, and upgrading the quality of employment among Arab workers. The program team organizes forums for dialogue and debate between Jews and Arabs, and Arabs and state institutions.

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    Dr. Khader Sawaed

    Head

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    khaders@idi.org.il

    Khader Sawaed is the head of the Arab Society Program in Israel at the Israel Democracy Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Haifa, where his dissertation examined the impact of stateness components on democratization processes, focusing on Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring.

    In the past, he served as a Research Fellow at the Mitvim Institute, a Neubauer Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and a Visiting Researcher at the Leonard Davis Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2017, he was awarded the Chaim Herzog Prize for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy by Ben-Gurion University.

    Alongside his research career, Sawaed taught civics for 22 years, served as a pedagogical instructor, and held the position of middle school principal for four years. He is a graduate of the Avney Rosha Institute for School Leadership.

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    Dr. Fahima Abbas

    Senior Researcher

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    fahima@idi.org.il

    Dr. Abbas received her PhD in Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2016. Her research focuses on the integration of the minority middle class into majority urban spaces, with an emphasis on metropolitan areas and divided cities, spatial inequality, migration, and commuting. As part of her postdoctoral research at the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, she examined the participation of the Jerusalem middle class in the Israeli economy. In her recent studies, Dr. Abbas explored access to housing and employment among Palestinian women in Israel, analyzing how residential space, social class, and marital status influence their opportunities for housing and employment.

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    Dr. Ofir Hadad

    Researcher

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    ofirh@idi.org.il

    Dr. Ofir Hadad is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, where he also coordinates programs for research students from diverse populations, and he teaches in the Department of Political Science and in the Conflict Research, Management and Resolution program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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    Dr. Muhammed Khalaily

    Researcher

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    MohammedK@idi.org.il

    Holds a PhD from the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa on the subject: "The role and survival of primordial structures in modern politics: A Neo-Institutional Analysis of Clan Continuity in Arab Politics in Israel".

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    Dr. Arik Rudnitzky

    Researcher

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    arikr@idi.org.il

    Dr. Rudnitzky has been researching Arab Israeli issues for almost two decades. His fields of expertise cover political, national and social developments in Israel's Arab society; Jewish-Arab relations; and government policies on Arabs in Israel.

    Rudnitzky holds PhD degree from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University, as well as MA (magna cum laude) and BA degrees in Middle Eastern History from the Faculty of Humanities and an MBA degree from the Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University.

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    Duna Ghanayem

    Research Assistant

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    dunag@idi.org.il

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    Mirvat Abu Hadoba-Frieh

    Researcher, Project of Community Safety in the City of Rahat

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    Mirvathf@idi.org.il

    Mirvat Abu Hadoba-Frieh is a researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on political awareness among national minorities, with particular emphasis on Arab society in Israel and the Kurdish minority in Turkey.