New Study Shows Economic Disparity Among Israeli Arabs

A study presented at a Jerusalem conference by an Israeli Arab Legal Rights group casts new light on the economic disparity between Israel’s Jewish and Arab populations. According to the study, 54.6 percent of Israel’s Arab population, including 64.3% of Arab children, lived below the poverty line in 2006. Israeli Arabs living in the southern Negev region of the country are in even worse shape, with 76.6% living below the poverty line, including 81.9% of the children there. The study’s authors pointed to an extremely low representation of Israeli Arabs employed by state institutions.