The excluded citizenship identity: Palestinian/Arab Israeli young people negotiating their political identities

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which Arab/Palestinian high school students in Israel negotiate their civic and national identities. The paper draws upon qualitative data that included semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with 20 students in an Arab Muslim high school. It focuses on the ways in which they make sense of the notion of citizenship and negotiate their position as Arab/Palestinian Muslim citizens in a Jewish state. The paper attempts to go beyond common conceptualisations of political identities of the Arab/Palestinian minority in Israel. It suggests that Arab/Palestinian students are aware of the politics of citizenship in Israel and draw upon different discourses of citizenship and meanings of inclusion in defining their belongings.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• political identity
• inclusion
• exclusion

Acknowledgements

The present article is partly based on the author’s doctoral dissertation. The author would like to thank the 20 students who were willing to share their time and thoughts. The author is immensely grateful to Professor Madeleine Arnot for her supportive guidance and useful criticism.

Notes

1. The use of the term ‘Palestinian citizens’ is controversial. It is often used by scholars who see themselves as critical sociologists (myself included), signifying the acknowledgment of the right of the Arab/Palestinian citizens in Israel to be recognised as a national minority (Rosenhenk 1998). Yet, some of my interviewees felt unease with such identification, and preferred to identify themselves as Arab. Being committed to the principle of voice‐giving I decided to use the somewhat ‘clumsy’ term ‘Palestinian/Arab Israelis’.

2. The wider study included three case studies: secular Jews, Zionist‐religious Jews, and Palestinian/Arab Israelis.

3. The state education system is divided into Jewish and Arab schools. The majority of Palestinian/Arab schoolchildren attend separate schools. The Arab schools suffer from a disproportionate level of state investments (Geraby and Levy 2000) and from a limited autonomy as regards the content of its curricula.

4. The 1948 Arabs is an expression used to describe the Palestinians who remained after the 1948 war in the territory of the state of Israel and received Israeli citizenship.

5. Cream’s Arabs is a denomination used by Palestinians in the occupied territory and the diasporas to mock the Palestinian citizens of Israel and to refer to their westernised lifestyle.