How many high court israeli arab judges are there in Israel
Executive summary
As of the reporting in these sources, there is one Arab justice serving on Israel’s Supreme Court (High Court of Justice): Justice Khaled Kabub, sworn in in May 2022 and identified as the court’s first Muslim justice [1] [2]. The Supreme Court is a 15‑member court, so Arab representation on the High Court remains a single seat amid broader debates about judicial diversity [3] [4].
1. Current count: one Arab justice on the High Court
Contemporary reporting and legal commentary identify a single Arab justice on Israel’s Supreme Court: Khaled Kabub, sworn in 2022, and described explicitly as the court’s first Muslim justice and the lone Arab member of the bench in multiple analyses [1] [2] [4] [5]. The court itself is made up of 15 justices, which places that single Arab justice at one out of fifteen seats [3].
2. Who occupies that seat: Khaled Kabub and his significance
Khaled Kabub’s appointment was widely reported as historically significant because previous Arab justices on the court were Christians, and Kabub became the first permanent Muslim member when sworn in May 2022 [1] [2]. Press coverage highlights his judicial background and frames the appointment as both symbolic and substantive within debates over the court’s composition [1] [2].
3. Historical context: sparse and incremental inclusion
Arab presence on the Supreme Court has been rare and gradual: Abdel Rahman Zuabi served on a fixed nine‑month appointment in 1999 and Salim Joubran later became the first Arab to receive a permanent appointment, serving until his retirement in 2017 [6] [7]. Analysts and the Israel Democracy Institute document decades in which Arab representation on the benches—especially the High Court—was minimal, with only intermittent breakthroughs over recent decades [8] [9].
4. Representation gap: judges vs. population
Commentators note a stark mismatch between the Arab share of the population (roughly 20–21%) and their share of the judiciary and the Supreme Court specifically; several analyses and media outlets point out there is only one Arab justice despite Arabs constituting about a fifth of Israel’s population [4] [5]. More broadly, Arab judges make up a small fraction of all judges in Israel—studies cited by Haaretz and the Israel Democracy Institute put that figure in the single digits (around 7.7% historically for the judiciary as a whole) [10] [11].
5. Why the count matters: politics, trust and judicial selection
The small number of Arab justices is central to debates about inclusion, trust in institutions, and the Judicial Selection Committee’s politics; sources explain that appointments require political consensus and that demographic and political balances on the committee influence who reaches the High Court [9]. Political fights over judiciary reform and appointment rules have featured concerns that reducing judicial independence or changing selection mechanisms could disproportionately affect minority protections and perceptions of fairness for Arab citizens [8] [4].
6. Limits of the available reporting and what cannot be confirmed here
The sources used provide clear statements that, at the time of their reporting (through 2023 and contextual pieces into 2024), there is one Arab justice—Khaled Kabub—on the 15‑member Supreme Court and offer background on earlier Arab appointees [3] [1] [2] [7] [6]. These sources do not supply a dynamic roster dated to a specific day beyond those reports, so any rapid subsequent changes (resignations, new appointments after the cited pieces) are not covered here and cannot be confirmed from the provided material (p1_s1; [12] shows the court’s site but does not provide a dated roster snippet in these sources).