Arabic has always been an official language in Israel. This is actually a holdover from the British Mandate. The British Mandate originally designated English, Hebrew, and Arabic as the official languages of the "British Mandate for Palestine". Following the expiration of the Mandate and creation of Israel, which still had 150,000 Palestinian Arab citizens (and would take in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab-speaking countries in the next 3 years alone), Israel chose to continue following certain aspects of the British Mandate's system. Specifically, the 1922 King's Order in Council, Section 82, stated that all official notices had to use English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and in 1939 it was amended to note that English would always prevail when there was a discrepancy. In 1948, the newly declared state of Israel passed the Law and Administration Ordinance, which declared that English no longer needed to be used on all official notices, but did not alter the status of Arabic. This combines with Chapter 4, Section 11, which states that laws that were in force prior would continue to be used, until changed either in that ordinance (i.e. the status of English) or in future laws. This has never been overturned, and has been reaffirmed numerous times in Israeli Supreme Court decisions, as establishing Hebrew and Arabic as official languages under the law.