Nazareth is a city within the State of Israel. Virtually all of its residents are Israeli citizens bearing Israeli identification cards and registered in the Israeli Ministry of Interior (maybe except for foreign workers and other rare occasions). They pay taxes to the Israeli Tax Authority and are all secured by the Israeli National Insurance Institute. In the last elections in March 2020, 60% of Nazareth eligible population exercised their right and voted in the Israeli parliamentary elections.
Nazareth has 77,000 residents, which is 0.8% of Israel’s entire population. But at least three of the 120 members of the Israeli parliament hail from Nazareth, meaning that 2.5% of Israel’s parliament is represented by people from Nazareth.
Nazareth is a political center both for the Arab-speaking population of northern Israel and for the state as a whole. The government institutions of the Israeli northern district are located in Nazareth, as well as the northern headquarters of the Israeli police and the northern headquarters of the Israeli Home Front Command.
Nazareth is internationally recognized as an integral part of the sovereign state of Israel as it is within the green line, the armistice line drawn in 1949. There is no legal dispute on Israel’s sovereignty over Nazareth.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization has officially agreed in the past to respect Israeli sovereignty within the green line and therefore the legal representative of the Palestinian people according to international law recognizes Nazareth as part of Israel.