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INTERNATIONAL Palestinians in the occupied territories but also its own Palestinian minority. A1. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, As Palestinians in organized ral- REPORT ON ISRAEL’S ARAB MINORITY lies in solidarity with Gazans and West AND THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT, Bankers, Israeli Jews grew ever more NAZARETH/JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH/ suspicious of their loyalty. Palestinian BRUSSELS, 14 MARCH 2012 (EXCERPTS). citizens’ trust in the state plummeted af- ter Israeli security forces killed thirteen The International Crisis Group’s of their own during protests in Octo- (ICG) 119th Middle East Report, titled ber 2000. A rapid succession of con- “Back to Basics: Israel’s Arab Minor- frontations—the 2006 war in Lebanon; ity and the Israeli-Palestinian Con!ict,” 2008–2009 Gaza war; and 2010 bloody runs to 45 pages. The excerpts below are Israeli raid on the aid !otilla to Gaza— from the Executive Summary and Sec- further deepened mistrust, galvaniz- tion III, “Palestinians in Israel and the ing the perception among Israeli Jews Peace Process.” Not included are long that Palestinian citizens had embraced background sections covering the de- their sworn adversaries. Among Arabs, teriorating situation of the Palestinian it reinforced the sense that they had no citizens of Israel since the second inti- place in Israel. Several have been ar- fada broke out in September 2000, and rested on charges of abetting terrorist a mapping of the political trends, move- activity. Meanwhile, the crisis of the Pal- ments, parties, and other political actors estinian national movement—divided, within the Arab minority. The extensive adrift, and in search of a new strategy— footnotes have been eliminated to save has opened up political space for Israel’s space. The full report can be found on Arab minority. the ICG’s website at http://www. As a consequence, Palestinian citi- crisisgroup.org. zens began to look outside—to sur- rounding Arab states and the wider Executive Summary international community—for moral . . . For over six decades, Israel’s sustenance and political leverage. They Palestinian citizens have had a unique have come to emphasize their Palestin- experience: they are a Palestinian na- ian identity and increasingly dissociate tional minority in a Jewish state locked themselves from formal Israeli politics. in con!ict with its Arab neighbors but The result has been steadily declining they also constitute an Israeli minority Arab turnout for national elections and, enjoying the bene"ts of citizenship in among those who still bother to vote, a a state that prizes democracy. This has shift from Jewish Zionist to Arab par- translated into ambivalent relations with ties. Palestinians invest more energy in both the state of Israel and Palestinians political activity taking place beyond in the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond. the reach of of"cial institutions. Un- They feel solidarity with their brethren surprisingly, Shaykh Raed Salah—the elsewhere, yet many Arabs study in Is- leader of the northern branch of the Is- raeli universities, work side-by-side with lamic Movement in Israel, which refuses Jews, and speak Hebrew !uently—a de- to engage with the country’s political gree of familiarity that has only made institutions—has become the highest- the discrimination and alienation from pro"le Arab politician. which they suffer seem more acute and Yet Palestinian citizens’ con!icting demands for equality more insistent. experiences has meant that such re- Since 2000, a series of dramatic actions go hand-in-hand with others: events have both poisoned Jewish-Arab continual demands for achieving their relations in Israel and reinvigorated its rights within Israel; persistent criticism Palestinian minority. The collapse of of Israel’s democratic shortcomings; and the peace process and ensuing intifada the absence of any visible interest or harmed Israel’s relations with not only willingness to relocate to an eventual

Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XLI, No. 4 (Summer 2012), pp. 185–202, ISSN: 0377-919X; electronic ISSN: 1533-8614. © 2012 by the Institute for Palestine Studies. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: jps.2012.XLI.4.185.

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Palestinian state. They undoubtedly feel would be swapped for some of the so- deeply Palestinian. But they also take called West Bank settlement blocks. their Israeli citizenship seriously. Alarmed that they could twice pay Simultaneous Arab marginalization the price for a two-state settlement— and revitalization also has manifested through acquiescence in their state’s itself in initial efforts by its leader- “Jewishness” and through forcible loss ship to de"ne the community’s politi- of their citizenship—Israel’s Palestin- cal aspirations. The so-called “Vision ian minority is making it ever clearer Documents” advocate full Jewish-Arab that peace deal or no peace deal, there equality, adamantly reject the notion will be no end to Palestinian claims un- of a Jewish state, and call instead for a til their demands also are met. To which “binational state”—in essence, challeng- Israel’s response is: Why pay the hefty ing Israel’s current self-de"nition. This, price of an agreement with the PLO if it for many Jews, is tantamount to a dec- leaves behind an open wound right in laration of war. our heart? For its part, Israel’s Jewish majority— It was not meant to be so. Origi- confronted by an internal minority de- nally, the notion was that progress in veloping alliances outside the state and the peace process would help improve seeming to display solidarity with its Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. Instead, foes—has grown ever more suspicious simultaneous deterioration on both of a community it views as a potential fronts has turned a presumably virtuous "fth column. It has shunned Palestin- circle into a dreadfully vicious one. Nei- ians, enacted legislation to strengthen ther the State of Israel nor its Arab mi- the state’s Jewish identity, and sought to nority will be willing to reach a historic ban certain Arab parties and parliamen- understanding before the Israeli-Palestinian tarians. Today, what for most Palestin- con!ict has been settled; and settling that ian citizens is a principled struggle for con!ict will be near-impossible with- equal rights is perceived by many Is- out addressing the question of Israel’s raeli Jews as a dangerous denial of Jew- nature—which itself cannot be done ish nationhood. What for most Jews is without the acquiescence of Israel’s Arab akin to complicity with their enemies is citizens. viewed by Palestinian citizens as an ex- For now, this downward spiral has pression of af"nity for their brethren. resulted in relatively few violent con- This is taking place against the back- frontations. For the most part, Israel’s drop of a peace process in which very Palestinians fear an escalation could little is happening—and what is hap- erode their civil rights and further jeop- pening only makes matters worse. ardize their status in the state. But the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in- frequency of clashes is rising. Should sists that the Palestine Liberation Orga- current trends continue unabated, lo- nization (PLO) accept Israel as a Jewish calized intercommunal violence should nation-state in the context of a "nal sta- come as no surprise. tus agreement. That request resonates It will not be easy to sort this out, widely with Israel’s Jews but raises all not with a frozen peace process, not sorts of red !ags for its Palestinian citi- with deepening Jewish-Arab antagonism zens, who have vigorously pressed the and mutual fears. But some things are PLO to reject it. They might not have clear. First, that there are long overdue a veto, yet President Mahmoud Abbas measures Israel should take to begin cannot easily dismiss their views on to address its Arab minority’s demands such matters and has shown no incli- for equal rights, regardless of the con- nation to do so. All of which has only !ict with its neighbors, as well as steps elevated the centrality of the demand, Palestinian citizens can take to lessen making it all the more important for Is- Jewish fears. Second, that although ob- rael’s government and all the more un- stacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace are acceptable to its Palestinian minority. legion, a signi"cant one involves the Add to this the idea, !oated by For- dispute over Israel’s identity. Third, eign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s party, that this obstacle cannot be overcome of “populated land swaps,” under which to any party’s satisfaction—not to the certain Arab-majority areas of Israel PLO’s, which cannot afford to ignore an

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important Palestinian constituency; not Israel] in order to allow the peace pro- to Israel’s, which insists on ending all cess to move forward. Palestinian claims—without buy-in from The positive mood, however, quickly Israel’s Arab citizens. soured. Netanyahu’s "rst government . . . (1996–1999) walked back some of the changes Rabin had introduced. The III. Palestinians in Israel and the northern Islamic Movement retreated Peace Process into the wider Islamic world, whereas The Oslo accords, by essentially ex- Azmi Bishara and his Balad Party ad- cluding Israel’s Arab minority from opted an uncompromising citizenship the peace process, limited Palestinian discourse. While Ehud Barak’s 1999 claims inside Israel to the refugee ques- election initially raised hopes, he had tion. Over the past several years, this in- turned his back even before the 2000 creasingly has been challenged by actors Camp David negotiation on some Israeli on all sides, who argue that the Israeli- groups—including Palestinian citizens— Palestinian con!ict cannot be fully or who had elected him. But it was the sustainably settled unless issues per- second intifada, of course, that did the taining to the con!ict’s origins—the cre- most damage to communal relations in ation of the state of Israel, its character Israel, polarizing Jews and Arabs to a and identity, and the fate of Palestinians degree unprecedented since the Israeli in both the diaspora and Israel—also government imposed a highly restric- are addressed. Indeed, such views more tive control regime on its Arab citizens and more are espoused by both Jew- known as the “Military Government” ish and Arab segments of the Israeli from 1949 to 1966. body politic, albeit for starkly different As Israel’s Palestinian minority reasons, giving rise to odd bedfellows. looked to the world and the Arab region A member of the Islamic Movement’s for succor, Jews looked inward. The inti- northern branch said he “completely fada brought to power the Israeli Right, agrees with Avigdor Lieberman and the under which the country moved to for- Israeli right” in this regard: “It’s not like tify itself, both in terms of physical se- we agree on anything else. But unlike curity and its Jewish identity. Likud and the Israeli left, Lieberman has under- its coalition partners have placed con- stood that the Israeli-Palestinian con!ict siderably more weight on the character is primarily related to 1948, not 1967.” of the state than the Left. It is no coin- cidence that it was under Prime Minis- A. Palestinian Citizens and the ter Ariel Sharon that Israel made its "rst Israeli-Palestinian Con!ict public, of"cial demand in this regard, After the Oslo accords were signed in in the form of a reservation in its accep- 1993, many Palestinians in Israel hoped tance of the Quartet’s road map. that they could ride the PLO’s coattails. Under the joint pressures of a failed During their “golden era,” the Arab peace process and growing emphasis on leadership was encouraged by its inte- Israel’s Jewish character, the “patience” gration—albeit nascent and !eeting— of which Tibi had spoken evaporated. into parliamentary politics under Prime Not only did it become clear to Palestin- Minister Yitzhak Rabin. No less than ian citizens that no independent state their brethren in the West Bank and would be established soon, but were Gaza, they expected a “peace divi- one to be, they felt they would be left dend,” as Knesset member Ahmed Tibi in a state inhospitable to them. Some explained: groups, such as Hadash and the United In the 1990s, we put our hopes Arab List, remain committed to joint in the peace process and had faith it Jewish-Arab cooperation and continue would generate a wider reconciliation. to echo Fatah’s two-state political vi- This, the argument went, would have sion; Balad and the northern Islamic lowered security pressure on our com- Movement, by contrast, have adopted munity since the intensity of the Israeli- an approach that in some respects ac- Palestinian con!ict would have receded. cords more closely with Hamas’s more So we showed patience and held back confrontational style. In the case of the our struggle for equal rights [inside northern Islamic Movement, Hamas

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offers direct ideological inspiration; individuals—perhaps the most promi- Balad, for its part, emphasizes identity nent example is Ahmed Tibi, who has politics, communal development, and served as adviser to Arafat and Abbas— self-reliance. All Arab parties, however, but for some West Bankers, the political are united in their rejection of a Jewish agendas of Palestinian citizens them- nation-state and their unwillingness to selves are models to learn from and defer to the PLO on the matter. emulate. A Palestinian businessman and Today they are making their own activist commented: demands of Israel; their agenda re!ects 1948 Arabs have shown more strate- a belief that their problems have be- gic thinking in the Vision Documents come theirs and theirs alone and that than Palestinian national institutions only they can protect and promote have shown in the last 25 years. Soon, their interests. . . . As a result, the Arab the last gasps of the old negotiating par- minority today feels that it has been adigm will expire, and in the huge vac- “dragged” into the diplomatic process, uum that appears, everyone will look to if only to protect itself. They stress that 1948 Palestinians for leadership. They they will not end their claims—be they understand what discrimination really recognition of the community’s national means from the inside. For them, it’s rights, individual equality, or acknowl- not whether Israel should exist or not. edgment by Israel of its responsibility The diaspora tends to have fruitless de- for what happened in 1948—until they bates about this question, but it misses are satis"ed. . . . the point. The point is that Israel does Disillusioned with Israeli politics, exist, and the question is how to make Palestinian citizens increasingly are it a proper country. 1948 Arabs can pro- making the trek to the West Bank. Many vide the leadership and the transitional do this for economic and social reasons: thinking as the national movement weekend shopping, holiday vacations, moves into a new stage. They have a Ramallah’s nightlife. For others, their deeper understanding of coexistence, or agenda is rooted in politics. There has what it will take to get to coexistence, been a noticeable trend in recent years than we do. We live in a bubble. of the Palestinian minority’s young in- Interest of this sort in Ramallah has tellectuals and political activists migrat- grown over the past several years, but ing to Ramallah and , so long as the current leadership of where they work in Palestinian national the Palestinian national movement re- political institutions and civil society mains what it is, it is unlikely that Pal- organizations. While some of this has estinian citizens will transcend the still been driven by the lure of "nancial re- marginal, if expanding, role that they wards and greater prestige, for others currently play. Indeed, not everyone there is a sense of common cause with is happy with what cross-fertilization those who have seen their own peace might yield, particularly should it wind agenda evaporate. This still young and up challenging a two-state agenda. At inchoate alliance has its origins less a recent conference in Ramallah, a par- in deliberate strategy than in a sense ticipant sharply challenged a speaker of mutual fragility, with each seeking for promoting a joint national struggle support from their brethren across the across the Green Line. “You are pulling Green Line to reinvigorate their us back 50 years,” she said, “and under- struggle. . . . mining the international legitimacy on In comparison with Israel, the West which the Palestinian struggle is based. Bank is an Arab hinterland (as they If we start talking about the occupation are prohibited from traveling to Gaza) of 1948, forget it, we’re "nished.” that offers the prospect of cooperation with Palestinian forces more power- B. Israel’s Jewish Character ful than their own. Similarly, for some Over the past decade, the contest West Bank elites, the appeal of a joint over the identity of the State of Israel national front has grown as diplomatic has intensi"ed. At one level, Israeli prospects have waned. The PLO and Jews deliberate the kind of character Palestinian Authority (PA) have long their state should have, with differences interacted with Palestinian citizens as about the relationship between religion

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and state and—to the extent that the the position of Palestinian citizens of two are intertwined—whether Orthodox Israel. Members of Israel’s Arab com- Judaism should retain its centrality. In munity are, if anything, more adamantly parallel, Israel’s Jews and Arabs dispute opposed to recognizing the state’s Jew- the extent to which Israel should main- ish character, although as seen above, tain its Jewish character and, more spe- they have been more !exible regarding ci"cally, how its character affects Arab alternatives that Israelis view as falling rights. The latter debate has seen sharp short, such as the Haifa Declaration’s escalation. Alienated, Palestinian citi- acceptance of national self-determina- zens increasingly are advocating Israel’s tion for Israeli Jews. transformation into a binational state; In Arab eyes, agreeing to a Jewish resentful, Jewish citizens have insisted state could imply endorsement of vari- all the more on the state’s Jewish iden- ous manifestations of unequal status: tity. The dual trends are mutually rein- approving the legitimacy of unrestricted forcing: the more Palestinians challenge Jewish migration into Israel while the notion of a Jewish nation-state, the maintaining restrictions on Palestinian more they exacerbate Jewish fears and Arab migration; retroactively justifying the more Israel’s Jewish citizens insist large-scale land con"scation under the on it; the more Israeli Jews insist on Absentee Property Law; downgrading such a state and legislative initiatives as an of"cial language; and con- target those who oppose it, the more doning restrictions that prevent Pales- Palestinians reject it. tinian citizens from bringing a spouse It is in this context, at least in part, from the West Bank or Gaza into Israel. that one should understand Prime Min- At a symbolic level, Palestinians in Is- ister Netanyahu’s insistence on Pales- rael believe recognition under virtu- tinian acceptance of Israel as a “Jewish ally any guise would constitute an act state”—or rather, as “the nation-state of of communal self-negation, potentially the Jewish people,” which government stripping their presence in Israel of le- of"cials consider more accurate because gitimacy and heightening their political it clari"es that the aim is not to en- vulnerability. shrine a Jewish theocracy, but rather to Indeed, PLO endorsement of Israel secure the right of the national majority as a Jewish state, or Jewish nation-state, to determine the character of its state. would face "erce opposition from large At times, this demand has been pre- segments of Israel’s Palestinian com- sented as an indispensable component munity. Tellingly, PLO Secretary Gen- of any putative agreement, at others as eral Yasser Abed Rabbo’s October 2010 a quid pro quo for possible Israeli con- statement suggesting the organization cessions. Although some have branded eventually might recognize Israel as a the demand a “cynical ploy”—a means Jewish state provoked an outcry from used by his government to ensure there the Arab community. . . . will be no progress in talks—it reso- The interests and rhetoric of Palestin- nates deeply with Israeli Jews and re- ian citizens of Israel and of refugees in !ects Netanyahu’s deeply held belief the West Bank, Gaza, and the diaspora that the question of Palestinian recogni- increasingly coincide with respect to the tion of the Jewish character of the state symbolic dimensions of recognizing Is- lies at the core of the con!ict. . . . rael as a Jewish state. Palestinian Israeli The PLO has resisted repeated Israeli attorney Hassan Jabareen’s assertion and U.S. requests to advance such rec- that doing so would be “to declare their ognition. Although there is some prece- surrender, meaning to waive their group dent for acceptance of Israel as a Jewish dignity by negating their historical nar- state—including, implicitly, the 1988 rative and national identity” was largely Palestinian Declaration of Indepen- echoed by Palestinian refugee Ahmad dence, as well as statements by Palestin- Khalidi, who wrote: “For us to adopt ian leaders—the PLO has hardened its the Zionist narrative would mean that opposition as the issue has come to the the homes that our forefathers built, the fore. A PLO of"cial dismissed the possi- land that they tilled for centuries, and bility, arguing it would prejudice nego- the sanctuaries they built and prayed tiations over refugees and compromise at were not really ours at all and that

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our defense of them was morally !awed with the Palestinians as a solution for and wrongful: we had no right to any of communities divided by the Green Line. these to begin with.” Palestinian citizens themselves, in- It is not surprising, then, that Pales- cluding the leadership, privately express tinian citizens have stepped in to cham- great concern that Israel is contemplat- pion their brethren in the diaspora. In ing not only populated land exchanges the process, the Arab struggle for rights but also forced expulsion, called “trans- inside Israel has been aligned with the fer” by Israeli Jews. The Arab minority refugees’ "ght for return and restitution, points to a popular Israeli discourse in forming what a former Hadash local which its growth rate is presented as councilor hoped would be a “block- a “demographic time bomb”; polls that ing majority.” A Balad of"cial said, “If have consistently demonstrated majority the Palestinian leadership thinks it can support among Israeli Jews for schemes sell out more than a million Palestin- to “encourage emigration” by Arab citi- ians in Israel and millions more refu- zens; and a secret national drill by Is- gees by recognizing Israel’s Jewishness, rael’s security forces in October 2010 it is seriously misreading the situation. that simulated riots and mass arrests They can do it, but it will explode in in the event of a peace agreement with their—and Israel’s—faces.” This united the Palestinians that included populated front, an analyst asserted, cannot be land swaps. It fears drastic measures ignored: “Abbas cannot just say and might be adopted, including expulsions, do as he pleases. The refugees and the were the circumstances propitious, such Palestinians in Israel have very similar as during a regional war. concerns, and neither side will accept a At the root of these fears sits the de-nationalization of their problem.” open wound that is the Nakba, which Palestinian citizens perceive not just as C. Populated Land Swaps an historical event—the displacement Over the past decade, some Israelis that occurred in 1948—but also as an have proposed that the territorial swaps ongoing process of dispossession. Mir- contemplated in a "nal status agreement roring the Jewish insecurity generated in order to include settlements in Israel by the Palestinian refusal to recognize also should include Arab-populated Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinians areas of Israel, thereby altering the de- note that Israel has yet to acknowledge mographic balance and ensuring a more or make amends for their signal na- solid Jewish majority. Such a land ex- tional catastrophe, which, they say, en- change would involve transferring the hances the likelihood it could happen Arab , situated next to the north- again. . . . ern West Bank, to the future Palestinian Although the PLO has accepted the state. Formally, it has been championed principle of land swaps in the frame- chie!y by Israel Beiteinu, Israel’s third- work of a "nal settlement, it insists on largest party, and its leader, Foreign exchanging settlements for uninhab- Minister Lieberman; it has not been ad- ited swathes of Israeli land adjacent to opted by any other major party and has the 1967 lines. The strongest objections been sharply dismissed even by some come from those who are citizens of on the Right. Israel. Many worry that their political, Still, a Kadima of"cial cautioned economic, and social situation would be against disregarding the idea as mar- inferior to that which they enjoy today. ginal or irrelevant: “Lieberman ex- Others object on principle, emphasizing presses what many Israelis think but are that they take their Israeli citizenship not willing to articulate in public.” Some seriously and that they are not reject- Likud Knesset members and ministers, ing the state but rather demanding that as well as former of"cials in Netan- it treat them fairly. Still others note yahu’s of"ce, have endorsed it. Former that the proposal would relocate them Prime Ministers Barak and Sharon did to a polity with which they lack af"n- not discount the option, and Tzipi Livni, ity after many years of geographical leader of the centrist Kadima party, ap- and cultural separation. Merely raising pears to have proposed limited popu- the idea, Raed Salah said, delegitimizes lated land exchanges during peace talks the Arab presence in Israel: “This is a

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debate in which the people concerned are not even being consulted. The Is- raeli establishment is treating us like merchandise, not human beings, as something that can be brought to the marketplace and traded off against something else.” All major Arab political movements and civil society organizations in Israel, including the High Follow-Up Commit- tee, take a similarly hostile view. They argue that populated land swaps would be “tantamount to a second Nakba” and weaken the vitality and social cohesion of the Arab community in Israel. Several Arab Knesset members maintained that the issue represents “a red line” for the community and that eventual implemen- tation would be resisted “with all pos- sible means.”

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