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Abstract
This article examines the challenge Israel faces from its Palestinian minority in light of the publication of the ‘Future Vision Documents’, a series of seminal documents written by leaders of the Palestinian community in Israel in which they demand that Israel abandon its Jewish identity and recognize its Palestinian citizens as an indigenous national minority with collective rights. The article also assesses the implications of this challenge for the two-state solution to the Palestinian problem.
Notes
1. This figure excludes Arab permanent residents of Israel who do not hold Israeli citizenship; specifically, Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and Israeli Druze living in the Golan Heights.
2. In numerous surveys of the Palestinian minority in Israel conducted over many years, the majority consistently define themselves as Palestinians, rather than as ‘Israeli Arabs’ or even ‘Palestinian Israelis’. Although the state and Israeli-Jewish society continues to use the label ‘Arabs’ in reference to Palestinian citizens of Israel, this article generally uses the term ‘Palestinian’ since this more accurately represents the self-identity of the Palestinian minority in Israel.
3. See for instance Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
4. See the annual reports on Arab–Jewish equality produced by the Israeli non-governmental organization Sikkuy: The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel, http://www.sikkuy.org.il/english/home.html.
5. Joel S. Migdal, Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 179.
6. For instance, nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews saw Palestinian Israelis as a security threat in 2001, and over 70% did so in 2002. Nadim Rouhana and Nimer Sultany, “Redrawing the Boundaries of Citizenship: Israel's New Hegemony,” Journal of Palestine Studies 33, no. 1 (2003): 15. Most recently, in the September 2010 Peace Index poll conducted by Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann, a majority (64.5%) of Israeli Jews thought that Arab citizens have a negative attitude toward the state and only a quarter of the Israeli Jewish public believed that the Arabs felt themselves to be Israelis. Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann, “Peace Index – September, 2010,” Israel Democracy Institute, http://www.idi.org.il/ResearchAndPrograms/peace_index/Documents/%202010/Peace%20Index-September-trans.pdf (accessed December 24, 2010).
7. Eli Rekhess, “The Evolvement of an Arab-Palestinian National Minority in Israel,” Israel Studies 12, no. 3 (2007): 1–28.
8. Dan Rabinowitz and Khawla Abu Baker, The Stand Tall Generation: The Palestinian Citizens of Israel Today [In Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter, 2002).
9. Amal Jamal, “Strategies of Minority Struggle for Equality in Ethnic States: Arab Politics in Israel,” Citizenship Studies 11, no. 3 (2007): 263–82. For instance, Azmi Bishara, leader of the Palestinian nationalist political party Balad, ran for prime minister in the 1999 election, the first ever Palestinian candidate to do so (he withdrew his candidacy just before the election). The centrepiece of his election campaign was his demand that Israel become a ‘state for all its citizens’, rather than a Jewish state.
10. The National Committee for the Heads of Arab Local Authorities in Israel, The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel (Nazareth: Al Woroud, 2006).
11. Yousef Jabareen, An Equal Constitution for All? On a Constitution and Collective Rights for Arab Citizens in Israel (Haifa: Mossawa Center: The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, 2007), http://www.mossawacenter.org/files/files/File/An%20Equal%20Constitution%20For%20All.pdf (accessed December 24, 2010).
12. Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, The Democratic Constitution (Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 2007), http://www.adalah.org/eng/democratic_constitution-e.pdf (accessed December 24, 2010).
13. Mada al-Carmel: The Center for Applied Social Research, The Haifa Declaration (Mada al-Carmel: The Center for Applied Social Research, 2007), http://www.mada-research.org/archive/haifaenglish.pdf (accessed December 24, 2010).
14. Elie Rekhess, “No Balm in Galilee,” Jerusalem Post, November 27, 2007.
15. The Oslo Accords are officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements.
16. Eli Rekhess, “The Arabs of Israel After Oslo: Localization of the National Struggle,” Israel Studies 7, no. 3 (2002): 175–98.
17. Twelve of the protesters killed by the police were Palestinian citizens of Israel; one was a Palestinian from Gaza.
18. In a public opinion survey of Israeli Jews carried out in their aftermath, 74% said that Palestinian Israeli behaviour during the first week of the ‘second Intifada’ amounted to treason. Rouhana and Sultany, “Redrawing the Boundaries,” 9.
19. The extent of this alienation and the impact of the events of October 2000 upon it were revealed in a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute, which showed that in February 2001 only 21% of Palestinian Israelis felt proud to be an Israeli, whereas the year before (in April 2000) this number was 55%. Asher Arian, Shlomit Barnea and Parzit Ben-Nun, The 2004 Israeli Democracy Index (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2004), 30.
20. Quoted in International Crisis Group, Identity Crisis: Israel and its Arab Citizens, International Crisis Group, ICG Middle East Report no. 25 (March 4 2004): 9.
21. “The Official Summation of the Or Commission Report,” Ha'aretz, September 2, 2003; James Bennet, “Police Used Excessive Force on Israeli Arabs, Panel Says,” New York Times, 2 September 2003.
22. Elie Rekhess, “Israel and its Arab Citizens – Taking Stock,” Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, October 16, 2007, http://tau.ac.il/dayancenter/Israel%20and%20its%20Arab%20Citizens.pdf (accessed December 24, 2010).
23. “Appendix: The Kineret Declaration,” Azure (Summer 2002). vol. 13, pp. 20–26.
24. David Hazony, “Miracle on the Sea of Galilee,” Azure, vol. 13 (Summer 2002), pp. 13–19.
25. For the details of this see, Uzi Benziman, Who Does This Country Belong To? [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2006).
26. Amal Jamal, “The Political Ethos of Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Critical Reading in the Future Vision Documents,” Israel Studies Forum 23, no. 2 (2008): 3–28.
27. In 2002, these figures were 53% and 31%, respectively. Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2004), 30.
28. In January 2002, for example, huge posters declaring ‘Only transfer will bring peace’ appeared around the country. Sari Makover, “Danger: No Border Ahead,” Ma'ariv, February 21, 2002.
29. The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 5.
30. Mada al-Carmel: The Center for Applied Social Research, The Haifa Declaration.
31. As'ad Ghanem, “The Palestinian Arabs in Israel and their Relation to the State of Israel,” in The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 9.
32. The Haifa Declaration, 11–12.
33. The Democratic Constitution, 4.
34. The Democratic Constitution refers to the ‘injustice’ of the Nakba perpetrated by Israel (p. 4).
35. No mention is made anywhere of the attack against the fledgling Jewish state by five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq).
36. The Haifa Declaration, 12.
37. The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 5; The Haifa Declaration, 12; The Democratic Constitution, 5, 7.
38. The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 5.
39. The Haifa Declaration, 13.
40. Yousef Jabbarin, “The Legal Status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” in The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 12.
41. Yousef Jabbarin, “The Legal Status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” in The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, 13.
42. Yousef Jabbarin, “The Legal Status of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” in The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel
43. Ghanem, “The Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” 9.
44. Ghanem, “The Palestinian Arabs in Israel,”, 10.
45. The Haifa Declaration, 16.
46. The Democratic Constitution, 3.
47. The Haifa Declaration, 14.
48. The Democratic Constitution also calls for allowing the return of the ‘present absentees’ to their villages and for them to receive compensation from the state (p. 14).
49. See, for instance, The Democratic Constitution, 5, 14.
50. Ghanem, “The Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” 11.
51. The Democratic Constitution, 14.
52. Ghanem, “The Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” 11.
53. The Haifa Declaration, 16.
54. The Democratic Constitution, 9–10.
55. According to a public opinion poll conducted among the Arab public in December 2006–January 2007 by the Yafa Institute (commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish–Arab Cooperation), a majority of the Arab public agreed with the demands of the ‘Future Vision’ document, although only 16% of respondents had actually heard of it. Only 14% of respondents said they thought Israel should remain a Jewish and democratic state in its current format; 25% wanted a Jewish and democratic state that guarantees full equality to its Arab citizens; while 57% said they wanted a change in the character and definition of the state. Elie Rekhess, ed., The Arabs in Israel Update Series, The Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish–Arab Cooperation (February 7, 2007), 7–9. Similarly, in the 2004 Index of Arab–Jewish Relations conducted by Professor Sammy Smooha, nearly all the Arabs who were questioned thought that: ‘The state should grant Arab citizens the authority of self-rule over their religious, educational and cultural institutions’ and that ‘the state should recognize a top body that Arab citizens will choose to represent them’. S. Smooha, Index of Arab–Jewish Relations in Israel 2004 (Haifa: The Jewish–Arab Center, University of Haifa; Jerusalem: The Citizens' Accord Forum between Jews and Arabs in Israel; Tel Aviv: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2005), 52.
56. See, for example, Yossef Lapid, “A State within a State,” Ma'ariv, December 6 2006; Avraham Tal, “This Means War,” Ha'aretz, December 9, 2006; Amnon Rubinstein, “And the Left is Silent,” Ma'ariv, January 5, 2007; Ze'ev Schiff, ‘Self-Inflicted Injury’, Ha'aretz, January 26, 26, 2007; Uzi Benziman, “Azmi Bishara as an Example,” Ha'aretz, April 11, 2007; Evelyn Gordon, “‘Kassaming’ Coexistence,” Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2007.
57. Eetta Prince-Gibson, “Land (Swap) for Peace?,” Jerusalem Post, November 8, 2007; Ilene Prusher, “Israelis Ponder a Land Swap,” Christian Science Monitor, 5 April, 2006.
58. The idea has, however, been privately raised by Israeli officials on numerous occasions during the final status negotiations conducted by the Olmert government and the Palestinian Authority following the American-sponsored Annapolis summit in November 2007 (according to a Palestinian participant in these negotiations in an off-the-record conversation with the author).
59. In one opinion poll, three in four Israeli Jews supported the idea. “Israeli Jews favour ‘Palestine’ for Arabs,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency News, April 1, 2008. In a more detailed survey of Israeli-Jewish public opinion carried out in 2007, 30% of Israeli Jews were in favour of the transfer of as many Arab communities as possible, another 17% were in favour of transferring a small number of communities, and 27% were in favour on condition that it would be undertaken with the consent of the Arab residents of those communities. Only a quarter of Israeli Jews were opposed to any kind of transfer. Yehuda Ben Meir and Dafna Shaked, The People Speak: Israeli Public Opinion on National Security 2005–2007, The Institute for National Security Studies Memorandum No. 90 (May 2007): 81.
60. Numerous surveys have indicated a strong reluctance on the part of Palestinian citizens of Israel to join a future Palestinian state, even if they did not need to leave their homes and land.
61. This point was made by some Palestinian public figures in Israel at a conference marking the one-year anniversary of the publication of the ‘Future Vision’ document. See Yoav Stern, “Israeli Arab leaders: A Palestinian State is Not the Solution for Us,” Ha'aretz, December 4, 2007.