Slight tangent, but how would I go about refuting the haredim that use Arabs as shabbat goy?
You can only refute them by stating that it is imprudent to do so. Religiously, there is nothing that states an Arab cannot work as a Shabbos Goy.
Furthermore, with the situation in Israel being as it is, that there are many secular Jews who don't care about these things. That being said, many Rabbis support hiring Arabs as a Shabbat Goy because it is a paying job, which results in JEwish Israelis lying and saying that they are Goys to get the job.
Between facilitating a Jew breaking the Shabbas, or hiring an Arab, I would rather hire an Arab.
But you may not realize that the "Arab" is really an Israeli (Mizrahi) Jew pretending to be one.
In any case, it does seem incredible that halacha would allow hiring shabbos goyim. Think about in this thread, we said how (or so it seems) a goy could not voluntarily give a Jew a ride in the car on Shabbath without being asked..... but we could hire him ahead of time with the prestigious title of shabbos goy, to drive us around as a chauffuer? Something aint right here.
It is very easy to make sure that someone is an Arab if you are hiring him as a Shabbos Goy, ie. If he lives in an Arab village, speaks Arabic with a Palestinian accent, has a family that is known, etc.
It is much harder to make sure that a Romanian who just moved to Israel in the last couple of years is not Jewish.
As for your take on the Shabbes goy, the confusion on the parts of people in this thread stems from the fact that the Hilchot governing the idea of a Shabbes Goy are very complicated, and one must be a Torah scholar, or receive advice from a Torah scholar on how to follow halacha properly.
That being said, I cannot answer your question, and I think it is best to talk to a knowledgabe Rabbi about this.
