Israeli Arabs

A recent poll conducted among Israeli Arabs by the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem as reported on IBA News had an interesting result, that 62% would prefer to remain Israeli citizens rather than transfer to a future Palestinian State. Only 18% said that they would prefer to transfer their citizenship to a Palestinian State and 20% did not know or did not care. In a similar poll conducted by the Israel Inst. for Democracy last year reported in Ha'aretz a similarly high proportion of Israeli Arabs (75%) supported retaining a democratic and Jewish State. This shows that the majority of Israeli Arabs are satisfied with their citizenship in Israel, where they have human rights, freedom of speech, representation and assembly and all the protections of a democratic society, rather than risk being controlled by a chaotic and terrorist-infested Palestinian State that might look like the current PA.
I have a few personal experiences that are consistent with this outcome. Several years ago I asked 3 Israeli Arab Masters students in the Hebrew University (two Christians and one Muslim), and all three said they had no desire to join a Palestinian State. The foreman (named Mohammed) of the Israeli Arab crew doing the renovations in the building where my studio is located, looks, acts and sounds like an Israeli (his Hebrew is certainly better than mine). A female graduate student at the HU who comes from a village near here told of her struggle to achieve independence as a woman from her family/culture (ironically she would certainly not be allowed such freedom in an independent Palestinian State, that most liberals support).
One reason why the Israeli Arabs, including those in East Jerusalem who hold Israeli id's but are not full citizens, prefer to remain within Israel, is that they receive generous state welfare payments for unemployment, retirement and health benefits (note that the majority of them do not pay their taxes or municipal rates). They know full well that they will lose these benefits if they were to transfer or be transferred to a Palestinain State. So the irony is that transfer of the 1.5 million Arabs living in Israel would result in their impoverishment and their loss of human rights that they now have. In any negotiated peace deal, if it ever is possible, the rights of these Arabs to choose to remain as Israeli citizens should be respected. However, those whose choice is not to remain Israeli citizens must also be respected. If they don't want to remain Israeli citizens then let them be transferred to the supposed Palestinian State. This is a fair way of dealing with the demographic issue in Israel.