Theorizing half-statelessness: a case study of the Nation-State Law in Israel

ABSTRACT

In 2018, the state of Israeli citizenship completed a long-anticipated transformation. The passage of the Nation-State Law represented a formal and substantial reordering of the Israeli political sphere and the long-held contention that it prioritized democratic citizenship. Redefining the Israeli state in exclusively ethnic terms, the new law places its Palestinian citizenry in a precarious position, neither fully stateless, nor fully citizen, and in a state which dangerously approaches ‘inhuman.’ Drawing on the works of Jewish humanist philosopher, Hannah Arendt, we further develop the conceptual category to which she alludes in The Human Condition and Origins of Totalitarianism – ‘half-statelessness.’ Applying Arendt’s arguments to the Palestinian case, we deepen previous analyses of the new Basic Law and citizenship studies more broadly, demonstrating how Israeli citizenship’s continuous evolution has reached its legislative apex and produced a phenomenon which transcends the typical prototypes of citizen and state and effectively de-humanizes its Palestinian citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• Half-Statelessness
• dehumanization
• Israel
• Palestinian Citizens
• Nation-State Law

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For the purpose of this discussion, it is important to note that Israel’s ‘constitution’ is not a single written body of laws, but a collection of ‘Basic Laws’ which are individually enacted by the Knesset, or Israeli parliament.

2. See for example, the Basic Laws entitled, ‘Knesset’; ‘Lands of Israel’; ‘The Israel Defense Forces’; ‘The Economy’; ‘The Government’; and ‘Referendum’. https://www.knesset.gov.il/description/heb/heb_mimshal_yesod2.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amal Jamal

Amal Jamal is faculty member of the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs and the head of the Walter Lebach Institute for the Study of Jewish-Arab Coexistence at Tel Aviv University. His book Reconstruction the Civic: Palestinian Civil Activism in Israel is forthcoming in June 2020 with State University of New York Press.

Anna Kensicki

Anna Kensicki is doctoral student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) - University of London. Her article (with Prof. Jamal) “A Theory of Critical Junctures of Democratization: A Comparative Examination of Constitution Making in Egypt and Tunisia“ was published in Law and Ethics of Human Rights in 2016.