Problems of Palestinians in Israel: Land, Work, Education

The Palestinian Arab community under Israeli rule since 1948 resides mainly in rural villages and a few pre-urban townships. In 1974, there were in Israel 105 non-Jewish [i.e., Arab] settlements, of which two were defined as towns, 27 as regional councils, and 46 as local councils, while 30 villages had no municipal status. Parenthetically it should be noted that, whereas only 0.1 percent of the Jewish population in pre-1967 Israel [7 settlements in all] had not been granted municipal status by the Ministry of Interior, 20 percent of the non-Jewish population in pre-1967 Israel lacked such status. In 1974, 41.7 percent of the Palestinian Arab population lived in rural villages proper (as compared to 9.3 percent of the Jewish population). In the same year, 35.5 percent of the said population lived in towns (as compared to 75 percent of the Jewish population), and 22.9 percent lived in proto-urban townships (compared to 15.2 percent of the Jewish population).

Adnan Abed Elrazik is a Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Bethlehem University in Social Work and Social Welfare. 

Riyad Amin is a Ph.D. candidate in Biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Lecturer in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Bir Zeit University. 

Uri Davis is a Lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford (England), currently on a two year research leave of absence in Israel.