If you are like me, and most Americans – and dare I say, most Westerners as well – you never knew about the major Arab subculture in South America.
And that’s just Chile. Argentina and Brazil have more!
Europe has about 6+ million Arabs [many Euro-Muslims are not Arab] in a continent of 746 Million people, and yet we hear nothing but panic.
Egads! Eurabia! The Arabs are coming! The Arabs are coming!
What if I were to tell you that South America alone has 25+ Million Arabs, most of whom are assimilated, Christians, and getting along quite well in their respective countries.
WHAT?!
Yes! It is true. What did South America do that was so right; and what can we learn from them.
Each country in South America has a different profile. All they share is a common Latin language; and even that shows heavy dialectal differences.
Likewise, the Arabs among the Latins show some considerable differences.
Country
Numbers of Arabs
% of Population
Ethnic Makeup of Arabs (N/A to Suriname)
Religious Makeup of Arabs (not of total population)
Many are assimilated
and probably unaware of Arab ancestry
99+% Christian
Only ~15,000 Muslims
Surimame
81,0008
~ 13.9%
Indonesian, Asians, Arabs, Africans Muslims, not necessarily Arabs
Not Applicable
Uruguay
50-70,000
~ 2%
Mostly Lebanese.
Almost all Christian
Venezuela
~1,600,000
~ 5%
A mix of everything.
Almost all Christian
1Numbers vary. Fearab Argentina claims 4 million / 10%. Others claim less. But there is a large amount of intermarriage now. 9% is a good estimate. 2Numbers vary, but the estimate of Lebanese-Brazilians alone is 7 Million, so 12 – 15 million for all Arabs is a conservative estimate. In 2017, the president of Brazil was Michel Temer, who is of Christian Lebanese descent. 3Very rough estimate. Doubled number of Lebanese. The key was that many arrived as Eastern Christian, but the Maronites are affiliated with Roman Catholicism. So those who arrived as Eastern Christian were probably not Lebanese. 4Many arrived as Eastern Christians, but became Roman Catholic 5Wikipedia reports varying figures. From 20,000 (official) to 97,500 (private figures). However given the tendency of Lebanese Maronites to not identify as Arabs, and given their incredible tendency to assimilate rapidly, the higher numbers are probably more reasonable. Most, however, would be intermarried with other ethnics, which might explain why they do not show up on official figures. Ecuador has had 3 presidents with Lebanese ancestry, so we have to assume the higher figures were more accurate. What is clear is that they still constitute less than 1% of the population. To produce 3 presidents shows their elite status. 6Though small, El Salvador has had a president of Palestinian ancestry. Antonio Saca. His opponent, Schafik Handal, in the election was also Palestinian. Even more amazing, Saca, the winner, is a devout Evangelical. The present (2025) president of El Salvador is another Palestinian: Nayib Bukele. 7Former President Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé’s mother was Palestinian born. 8Suriname is 13.9% Muslim; however, it is not clear how much of these are Arabs, or the relic Islam of black slaves or the descendents of Javanese/Indonesian/Asian laborers. I used the Muslim figure. Suriname was populated by peoples from the former Dutch empire, and the Arabs in the country may be minimal. The country also is: 48.4% Christian, 22.3% Hindu, with various indigineous religions as well. Guyana and Suriname are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
What must be remembered, however, is that Suriname and the Guyanas have very small populations. In total, not even equal to a good size Latin America city. Their Muslims are usually not even Arab, but often descended from Indonesians or Asians brought over the the colonial powers.
NOTE: The data can be tricky to collect.
As a rule, if you just look for Arab-Argentine or Arab-Brazilian in Wikipedia or another source, the population numbers cited will sometimes be low, and quite often less than Lebanese-Argentine or Lebanese-Brazilian. There is a history to this. The persecution of Lebanese Maronite Catholics by Muslims made the Lebanese-Christians consider themselves as Phoenician Westerners, NOT Arabs. Hence, Lebanese Maronites often refuse to be classified with other Arabs, and so demographic statistics for Arabs can be woefully underestimated.
One often gets ridiculous statistics for Argentina and the USA where there are more Lebanese listed than Arabs, which is an impossibility, as Lebanese are a subset of Arabs in general. The subset cannot be greater than the whole.
A good rule of thumb is to roughly double the amount of Lebanese – maybe add 10% on top of that. When you keep that in mind, and do some cross-checking, the numbers often make sense.
For example: Doubling the number of Lebanese-Argentines and adding 10% comes close to the 3.5 – 4 million Arab-Argentines claimed by Fearab Argentina.
A) Lebanese-Argentine figures are 1.5 Million according to Wikipedia.
B) Double that to get 3 Million
C) Add 10% to that, and one gets 3.3 Million, which is close to the high estimate of 3.5 Million Arab-Argentines in Wikipedia. Note: that Wikipedia gives a low estimate of 1.3 Million Arab-Argentines. The low estimate is ridiculous since Wikipedia lists 1.5 Million Lebanese-Argentines alone.
Mexico is another classic example. 45% of the Arabs in Mexico are Lebanese. Double that 45% figure and you get 90%. Add 10% to the 90%, and you get 100% of the Arabs. The rule is generally true, with the exceptions of Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras where Palestinians are high in percentage numbers.
For my discussion about the difficulty caused by Maronite misidentification: (Click Here)
RELIGION: Do not trust Wikipedia’s statistics for Islam. The imams often rely on dated statistics. For ex:
The imams of Argentina claimed 3 million Muslims.
The census claims only 400-700,000 Muslims.
The number of Christian Arabs is over 3,000,000.
The reality is that less than 20,000 Muslims are practicing. The rest will intermarry into Christianity over time.
The media goes to imams for statistics and we get exaggerated news reports of creeping Islam in Latin America; but the reports lack substance.
The number of practicing Muslims in South America is rather small, in spite of media exaggerations.
The numbers of Muslims is changing, but South America is also in the midst of a major Evangelical Revival which is sweeping up tens of millions, so do not be confused if the news reports many more Muslims in Brazil. In the same period of time there are probably 10 Million more Pentecostal Christians. Traditional Islam has no experience of competing against Western Evangelical Christianity, and may not be able to compete against it.
May 8, 2017 – Edited: Had to update some figures.
May 22, 2017 – Edited: Adjustments. November 23, 2017 – Edited: Rewrites. August 28, 2019 – Updated number of Muslims in Ecuador, and adjusted overall numbers for Ecuador. September 2, 2020 – Updated a number. May 3, 2021 – Edited: Updated Brazilian numbers. May 4, 2021 – Edited: Updated Bolivian numbers. October 4, 2023 – Edited: Added Peruvian numbers. November 22, 2024 – Edited: Added categories. January 17, 2025 – Edited: Added more info.
Posted on YouTube: September 2, 2011
The opening two minutes, you have to pay if you want to see more
La Calera is a city in the center of Chile, where Palestinians are a major part of the population. They recently accepted a lot of Palestinian immigrants who were stranded without papers between Iraq and Syria. These people had been stuck in a no man’s land for 4 years.
Many nations accepted a portion of them. But Chile, which already has a large in influential Palestinian population made it almost a national celebration.
The video is from a documentary about their recent arrival in Chile and the problems they faced.
One chief problem is this: These new immigrants are Muslim, while Palestinian-Chileans (Chilestinos) are over 99% Christians. Even the charities which help them will be Catholic or Eastern Christian.
But this is a good starting point to see just how powerful, respectable, and influential that the Palestinians in Chile are. Many are now third and fourth generation Chilean. Most are middle class. Many are elite.
When Chile accepted these immigrants it was national news in Chile. National news.
This is a list of the top four countries to take them in:
USA: 1,125 Palestinian refugees from Iraq (almost all from al Waleed camp). Canada: 198 Palestinian refugees from Iraq. Brazil: 117 Palestinian refugees from Iraq (from Ruweished camp). Chile: 116 Palestinian refugees from Iraq.
(Source)
Note: Actually, the USA took in 1350, according to this CS Monitor Article (Source)
Also, other sources list 117 refugees to Chile, which considering that Chile has ONLY 17 million people is a large amount of refugees. More per capita than the USA; but Chile actually respects Palestinians, now.
The US took in 10x as many as Chile did. But We Americans have have 20x the population of Chile. So Chile – relatively speaking – took in twice as much as we did.
Did you even know about this? I bet you were never informed that America took in Palestinian refugees. Of course not; it was mostly kept quiet.
But the Chileans celebrated this.
Can you imagine this happening in the USA?
Well, we accepted about 10 times as many of these stranded Palestinians, but you never heard about it.
In Chile, Palestinians are accepted. They got clout. The Palestinian community is elite.
Chile’s President greeted them.
Did George Bush greet the Palestinians to America?
May 12, 2017 – Edited: Had to remove a dead video. January 2, 2024 – Edited: Made minor improvements. January 21, 2025 – Edited: Moved to post format.
Recoleta is a well-to-do commune in Chile. Can you imagine this happening in the USA?
The mayor of well-to-do town accepting Palestinian refugees with a ceremony and holding up a child’s drawing of a Chilean and Palestinian flag?!
The Palestinians have clout in Chile.
What must be made aware is this: Until very recently, the vast majority of Arabs in Chile (over 99%) were Christian. They fit in very well. It is not clear yet how well the newer group of Palestinians (who are Muslim) will assimilate. They come from the same region/homeland, but there is a religious divide.
