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Home , Ahmad Tibi, Benny Gantz, Sami Abu Shehadeh

The Conundrum of Israeli-Arab Citizenship by Mordechai Nisan

ssued in the midst of a sustained attempt by the IPalestinian Arabs to destroy it at birth, ’s 1948 declaration of independence urged them “to participate in the upbuilding of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and perma- nent institutions.”1 The invitation to these inveterate foes to be

fellow citizens was based on the Photo: Frank Scherschel belief that once their aggression Golda Meir (center) congratulates Moshe Sharett after had been defeated, they would signing Israel’s declaration of independence, May 14, 1948, as David Ben-Gurion (left) looks on. Israel promised resign themselves to a minority its Arab citizens “full and equal citizenship.” But many status in the nascent . Israeli Arabs openly challenge the principles underpinning Seventy-two years on, the Israel’s existence. fulfillment of this assumption seems as remote as ever. Not only has Arab integration in Israeli society not led to general acceptance of the legitimacy of Jewish statehood, but the more affluent and more established the Arab population has become, the stronger its Palestinian identification to the point of openly challenging the fundamental principles underpinning Israel’s existence.

1 “The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel,” Provisional Government of Israel, , Official Gazette, no. 1, May 14, 1948.

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This seemingly unbridgeable gulf between eight in 1992 to fifteen in 2020, confirming Israel’s Arabs and Jews raises the need for the general trend of Arab progress and a profound redefinition of the concept of participation in Israel’s public life. citizenship in a way that would satisfy the These major advances notwithstanding, Arabs’ national identification and protect opinion polls, despite their fallibility, offer a their civil and religious rights without en- more complex picture. Since the late 1970s, abling them to undo Israel’s Jewish national and all the more so after the launch of the character. Oslo “peace process” in 1993, Israeli Arabs have increasingly self-identified as Pales- tinians and revealed their emotional and Israel’s Arab Citizens and ideological distance from the Jewish state. A Their Political Leadership survey from May 2001 found that 46 percent Since Israel’s establishment, its Arab of Arabs rejected Israel’s Jewish identity, citizenry has grown twelvefold—from while a 2006 survey claimed that 56 percent 156,000 people in 1949 to just over 1.9 of the Arabs were not proud of their Israeli million in 2019 although its relative size has citizenship with twice as many of the remained virtually unchanged (growing from respondents feeling greater attachment to the 5 18 to 21 percent of the total population).2 In Palestinian people than to Israel. A 2012 line with the declaration of independence’s survey by Sami Smooha of Haifa University commitment to “complete equality of social found that 70 percent rejected Israel’s right to and political rights to all its inhabitants maintain a Jewish majority, preferring a 6 irrespective of religion, race, or sex,” the binational state over a Jewish one, which the official, state-financed language Israel Democracy Institute corroborated in educational system promoted both literacy 2017, reporting that 67 percent opposed 7 and the communal identity and cohesion of Israel’s Jewish character. A recent survey the Arab minority. Some 16 percent of the from 2020 shows a growing Arab acceptance total university population is Arab.3 Arabs of their “Israeli” identity and a decline in constitute 38 percent of the pharmacists in their “Palestinian” identification; yet this Israel, a third of the doctors, and 20 percent finding is compromised and complicated by of the nurses.4 The number of Arab members of the jumped from two in 1949 to

5 Asher Arian, “Israeli Public Opinion on National Security,” Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2 “Population, by Religion,” Population: Statistical , memo. no. 60, Aug. 2001, Abstract of Israel 2019, no. 70, Israel Central p. 19; Uzi Arad and Gad Alon, “Patriotism and Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Jerusalem, Sept. 26, Israel’s National Security Survey 2006,” Institute 2019. for Policy and Strategy, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, “Key Findings.” 3 “Students in Universities, in Academic Colleges and in Academic Colleges of Education among 6 Sami Smooha, Lo Shovrim Et ha-Kelim: Madad Persons Aged 18-29, by Sex, Age, Population Yahasei Arvim-Yehudim be-Israel 2012 (Haifa: Group and Degree,” Population: Statistical Haifa University, 2013), p. 14. Abstract of Israel 2019, no. 70, ICBS, Sept. 26, 7 2019. Tamar Hermann, Or Anabi, William Cubbison, Ella Heller, and Fadi Omar, A Conditional Partnership: 4 (Jerusalem), Aug. 24, 2015; Jews and Arabs (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Israel21c (San Francisco), Oct. 31, 2018. Institute, 2017), p. 64.

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the majority denying the existence of a Jewish Temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, and by implication—the millenarian Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel.8 When on March 9, 2020, Blue and White party leader promised to form a “patriotic government,” Knesset member (MK) censured this use of words as “unfortunate.”9 Israel clearly does not inspire patriotic feelings among its Arab citizens though most of them have indicated over the years that they would rather be in Israel—with its educational opportunities, social benefits, personal and political liberties, and material advances— than elsewhere.10 A personal utilitarian con- Knesset member was sideration coexists with an Arab nationalist suspected of passing security information to conviction. Hezbollah during the 2006 war and fled Israel to avoid prosecution. Many Israeli Arab students and politicians are as a Arabs do not exhibit patriotic feelings rule stridently anti-Israel. University cam- toward the state. puses in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa experience boisterous Palestinian nationalist demonstrations with participants waving Arab municipalities in Israel,” the effective Palestinian flags and denouncing Israel and leadership of the Israeli Arabs, issued a the .11 Intellectuals and lengthy document outlining its “Future public figures from the community issued the Vision for the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.” Haifa Declaration in 2007 that called for The document rejected Israel’s continued to “return”12—the Arab existence as a Jewish state and demanded its euphemism for Israel’s destruction via substitution by a system that would ensure demographic subversion. For its part, the Arab “national, historic and civil rights at “national committee of the heads of local both the individual and collective levels.”13 MK Azmi Bishara, founder of the

ultranationalist Balad party, proposed to 8 Pluralism Index 2020, The Jewish People Policy redefine Israel as a “state of all its Institute, in , Apr. 21, 2020. citizens”—yet another euphemism for 9 “Tibi Meuchzav me-Gantz: ha-Bitui ‘Memshala Israel’s transformation into an Arab state in Patriotit’ Lo Mutslah,” Galei Zahal (IDF radio, which Jews would eventually be relegated to glz.co.il), Mar. 16, 2020. a permanent minority. Bishara was later 10 Daniel Pipes, “The Hell of Israel Is Better than the suspected of passing security information to Paradise of Arafat,” Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, pp. 43-50. 11 See, for example, The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 29, 13 2008, Nov. 14, 2019. “Ha-Hazon ha-Atidi la-Aravim ha-Falestinim be- Israel,” Ha-Vaad ha-Artzi Shel Roshei ha- 12 “The Haifa Declaration,” Mada al-Carmel, Haifa, Rashuyot ha-Arviyot be-Israel, Nazareth, 2006, 2007. p. 9.

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Hezbollah during the  Hanin Zoabi 2006 War and Arab Knesset members joined the armed pro- fled Israel to avoid have behaved dislooyally Palestinian Mavi Marmara prosecution. in a variety of waays. ship to Gaza in 2010, The Islamic Move- whose “peace activists” ment in Israel is reli- violently attacked Israeli giously and rhetorically soldiers.16 militant, inciting against the state and dis-  was scheduled to meet crediting any sign of “Israelization” within with the presidents of Jewish organ- the Arab community. The leader of its izations in Manhattan in 2015 but northern branch, Raed Salah, was imprisoned refused to enter the appointed room for aiding Hamas in 2003 and yet again in adjacent to the Jewish Agency offices 2020 for encouraging and supporting terror because of its Zionist mission and the attacks by his followers. The spirit of display of the Israeli flag.17 incitement undoubtedly contributed to the  Basil Ghattas was apprehended in July 2017 murder of two Druze police 2016 and sentenced to two years in officers in Jerusalem by two Arabs from prison for attempting to smuggle cell Umm al-Fahm, Salah’s home town. He also phones and SIM cards to incarcerated accused Israel of conspiring to destroy al- terrorists whom he visited.18 Aqsa Mosque and to deny free Muslim  Jamal Zahalka off the Balad Party worship on the Temple Mount (even though pledged solidarity with Hamas and the Muslim waqf or endowment has Hezbollah. In August 2018, in re- administered this most sacred religious site sponse to the new Basic Law: Israel 14 for the Jewish people since 1967). as the Nation State of the Jewish For their part, the Arab MKs, speaking People, he posted a map of Israel as the predominant political class for the covered with a Palestinian flag, later Israeli Arabs, have behaved disloyally in a adding that no Arab would ever re- variety of ways. For example: cognize a Jewish state.19  Yousef Jabareen participated in an  Ahmad Tibi served as a political ad- anti-Israel, pro-boycott-divest-sanction viser to , visited Libyan event in London in July 2019, de- dictator Mu’ammar Qaddafi in vi- claring that “we [the Arabs] have the olation of Israeli law and praised willingness and persistence as the Palestinian “martyrdom terrorism” owners of the land.”20 15 against Israel.

14 Shaul Bartal, “Sheikh Raed Salah and His Endless 16 (Beit El and Petah Tikva), May 30, Struggle against Israel,” Perspectives, no. 1492, 2014. Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Ramat Gan, Mar. 22, 2020. 17 The Times of IsIsrael, Dec. 11, 2015. 15 PA TV (Fatah), Palestinian Media Watch, 18 Middle East Monitor (London), Dec. 22, 2016. Jerusalem, Jan. 9, 2011; Efraim Karsh, “Israel’s 19 Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv), Aug. 2, 2018. Arabs: Deprived or Radicalized?” Israel Affairs, Jan. 2013, p. 15. 20 World Israel News (Lawrence, N.Y.), July 8, 2019.

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denominational fabric is real. Jews have their own national history, memory, identity, and experience, possessing a language, religion, and culture unto themselves. The Jewish state is central to a col- lective narrative that has shaped Jews into an extended family with strong bonds of trust, obligation, and unity. Across the divide are the Arabs, some 83 percent of whom are Muslims,22 with their own sense of rootedness, faith, language, and culture. They have been grasping for recovery since As Israel marked its 70th Independence Day, Israeli Arabs their 1948 defeat, forgetting and chanted, “This is our land. … We’ll continue our struggle at forgiving nothing and believing any price.” that justice demands returning Palestine to its Arab inhabitants. In May 2018, Mansur Dahamshe, sec- retary-general of the Party on the Joint Arab List, sallied forth in a television Two Peoples, Two Solitudes debate, saying, “I don’t recognize the At the interstices of society, there are legitimacy of the state of Israel” and lam- plenty of contacts and exchanges between basting it as racist, fascistic, and apartheid- 21 Jews and Arabs. They shop in the same like. malls, work in the same enterprises, drive on On “Nakba Day” in 2018, anticipating the same roads, eat in the same cafes, and and countering Israel’s Independence Day, receive medical treatment in the same Arabs came to the town of Atlit south of hospitals. There are Israeli Jews who feel Haifa, chanting, “This is our land. … We’ll strongly that the Arabs are well-meaning fel- continue our struggle at any price.” low citizens who should be more generously Palestinian flags fluttered in the air. In May welcomed and integrated into all areas of 2019, , chief executive national life. Other Israelis believe that any officer of the Youth Movement, said, further Arab political gains will radicalize the “This [Palestine] is our homeland. … We are demand for the “return” of Palestinian the indigenous community.” He added that refugees and the nullification of the law of the Jews had emigrated from Europe and that return that allows Jews to receive Israeli the decades after the 1948 war had turned a citizenship upon settling in Israel. That said, “bent generation” of Arabs into an “erect it is highly unlikely that friendships and ac- generation.” quaintanceships, for all their humanity, can Israel’s ostensible binational and bi- mitigate the political polarization separating

22 “Population, by Religion,” ICBS; “Christmas 2019: 21 i24 TV (Tel Aviv), May 27, 2018. Christians in Israel,” ICBS, Dec. 23, 2019.

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Jews and Arabs. A shared citizens. All Israelis would citizenship does not Many Israeli Arab citizens prefer be safer if his mission guarantee a shared vision to identify as “Arabs in Israel” or succeeeded against the en- of Israel’s raison d’être. as “Palestinians in Israel.” emy. Now he was dis- Polling data have covering that Arab shown a certain sym- citizens, members of the metry—with a marked Knesset no less, did not degree of mutual rejection and exclusivity— value his service to the country but rather coloring Jewish views of Arabs and Arab identified with the Syrian enemy. Romm views of Israel. Surveys have shown a insisted that the subject of Arab Israeli discernible Jewish preference to deny Arabs citizzenship demanded a reappraisal.25 equal rights with as much as half of Israeli Jews, according to a 2016 Pew Research poll, actually favoring Arab transfer or Citizens or Quasi-Citizens? expulsion from the country.23 The Israel Arabs in Israel are often uncomfortable Democracy Institute reported in 2017 that 58 calling themselves Israeli Arabs, preeferring percent of Jewish respondents—mostly to identify instead as Arabs in Israel or—as among those on the political right—support hass been the case over the past few revoking Arab citizenship due to Arab decades—as Palestinians in Israel. When rejection of Israel’s Jewish character.24 they received citizenship as an automatic A revealing anecdote illustrates the Arab right in the wake of the 1948 war, they had a position. In the July 2019 Knesset election harrd time appreciating what it meant, and in for national ombudsman, the center-left parrtt, for good reason. They enjoyed political, candidate was Giora Romm, a retired army educational, relligious, and cultural freedoms general and former deputy commander of the and resources, yet many were subjected to (IAF). In his civilian career, millitary rule until 1966 that restricted them Romm had made a point of including Arabs in many practical ways—as when the in significant posts. He canvassed parlia- authorities were ratifying or rejecting mayors mentarians, including Arab MKs, asking for and school principals—in order to ensure their support in the Knesset vote. But he they were not agents of subversion or heard from Arab members that they were viollence. uneasy with his IAF career. He was shaken The Israeli government exempts Arabs when he heard this, having assumed that he from military service with general approval would win their support against Prime of the policy on both sides. Some Bedouins, Minister ’s favored however, volunteer and do serve, and Druze candidate. To no avail. (and Circassiian) citizens, unlike most Romm later said that when he flew over Muslim Arabs, transcend their group identity Damascus on bombing runs during the 1973 in bonding with Jews as proud Israeli patriots war, he thought he was doing so on behalf of who serve in the army. It is perhaps un- Israel’s Arab citizens as well as Jewish reasonable to force the Arab citizens to face their Arab brothers on the battlefield in the defense of the Jewish state. It would be an 23 The Foorward (New York), Mar. 8, 2016. 24 (Tel Aviv), Nov. 7, 2017. 25 Israel Hayom, JJuly 19, 2019.

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agonizing task if Israeli Arabs in the army had to conduct security operations against Palestinian residents in the or Gaza. Hence, the concept of “quasi-cit- izenship” could offer an appropriate re- solution to this awkward situation—one that accords with the notion of “different logics of citizenship” for residents unable or unwilling to identify fully with the state while enjoying civil liberties apart from voting rights.26 The notion of citizenship as a continuum would also be consistent with the Middle Eastern social tradition of “tribal citizenship.” Using the term loosely as applied to Kurds in Iraq, Alawites in Syria, and Kabyle in Algeria, it likewise applies to the Arabs in Israel, focusing on a collective ethnic-religious profile. The Western concept of universal suffrage based on “state citizenship” for all Israeli Arabs demonstrate in front of the Haifa has exceptions in the West as in the cases of court building with Palestinian flags. Many of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Pacific island Israel’s Arab residents do not connect with the territories. Limitations on full citizenship ethos of Israel. For them, it is a foreign country. exist in the case of co-ethnic communities beyond the nation state borders, as for quasi- differentiation between citizens, all of whom citizens of Russia residing in the Crimea; so enjoy full rights before the law, and per- too in the case of transnational European manent residents denied voting rights in citizenship allowing participation in EU national elections (as for non-citizen Jews elections, but not in national elections. and most East Jerusalem Arabs). Lacking an British political discourse actually conceived authentic identification with the ethos of at times of citizenship and voting rights as 27 Israel, this is a foreign country for many of two separate items. These various permu- its Arab residents. tations of citizenship can stimulate thinking In 2002, Israel revoked citizenship in the on the Israeli conundrum of the Arabs’ status mode of felony disenfranchisement from two in the country. Arabs, one of whom affiliated with Hamas, Worth mentioning, in addition, is the the other with Hezbollah. Both had shown a “breach of allegiance” as delineated in the law to justify revocation.28 MK Avigdor 26 For more on this, see Elizabeth F. Cohen, Semi- Lieberman proposed in 2010 a succinct Citizenship in Democratic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 27 Daniel Naujoks, “Free Rider or Trailblazer? 28 Shai Lavi, “Punishment and the Revocation of Atypical Citizenship and the Meaning of Citizenship in the United Kingdom, the United Membership,” 2014 Citizenship Studies States, and Israel,” New Criminal Law Review, Conference, Wayne State University. Spring 2010, p. 418.

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slogan—“No loyalty, no who refuse recruitment citizenship”—that would In some countries, the principle by deducting a per- obligate all Israelis to of birthright citizenship centage of personal pass a loyalty test or give is neither unequivocal income; an oath of allegiance. nor categoricaal.  compulsory Arabs in Israel are civilian service for citizens admittedly not natural- who refuse military ized citizens but native- service; born who acquire citizenship at birth without  a differential scale of child allowance qualifications, conditions, or delay. However payments by privileging families where in some countries—Belgium and Lebanon, at least one member served in the army for example—the principle of jus soli or did ciivilian service. (birthright citizenship) is neither unequivocal nor categorical. The working assumption that Israel’s Basic Law of Government, a person born in a country naturally identifies Article 7a (1), demands that any party or with its ethos, history, language, and culture perrson seeking to participate in general has been disproven in some places. For elections and contending for parliamentary instance, among Muslims born in European reprresentation must recognize Israel “as a countries, some of these native-born citizens Jewish and democratic state.” Nonetheless, have committed murderous terrorist acts the activist, liberal Supreme Court upheld the against their non-Muslim neighbors. Israel, right of Arab parties and politicians—as in too, has experienced, in addition to acts of the case of the Joint Arab List—to run for treason, Arab-Muslim violence directed election though they manifestly do not accept against Jewish fellow-citizens. Some Israel as a Jewish state. Were the law to be version of quasi-citizenship reform would enfoforced, many Arab citizens would likely accord with the words of the great libertarian have refrained from voting as a form of self- philosopher John Stuart Mill, who advocated disenfranchisement in the 2019 and 2020 universal suffrage with “no persons elections. disqualified, except through their own Regarding Israel’s ultra-orthodox Jews, 29 default.” the fact that they overwhelmingly do not The anti-Jewish-state Arab citizenry is perrform military service cannot justify re- a constant and not circumstantial political- voking their citizenship as this has nothing to ideological datum. Measures might be taken, do with rejectiion of Israel as a Jewish state nonetheless, to incentivize loyalty or, alter- but with subordination of practical aspects of natively, to exact a price for its absence. For civil duties to immersion in religious study— example: a fact deemed by Israel’s founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion as sufficient  a military service exemption tax (as justification for exempting them from functions in Switzerland) for males millitary service. While the original ex- emption applied to a small number of students (to be substantially expanded since ’s rise to power in 1977), this does not 29 John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative obscure the national identity of the Government (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962), p. ultraorthodox as Jews living in the state of 169. the Jewish people rather than a distinct

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national group rejecting the existence of this and eat it too: to subvert Israel’s Jewish very state. identity while enjoying their democratic freedoms and while deriding any suggestion of making some Arab-Israeli border Conclusion communities citizens of a would-be Pales- In a September 2019 post-election tinian state as part of an Israeli-Palestinian meeting with President on the peace. Joint Arab List’s preferences for a future The sustained effort of the Palestinian prime minister, MK Tibi unambiguously Arab leadership from the 1920s to 1948 to stated his and the party’s national Palestinian subvert the Jewish national revival rather creed: “We did not immigrate here [unlike than to coexist peacefully with their Jewish the Jews] …We are the owners of this neighbors led to the collapse and dispersal of land.”30 No political decorum or con- Palestinian society. In a similar way, the ventional respect dissuaded Tibi from steady radicalization of the Israeli Arabs by brazenly brandishing his Palestinian Arab their elected leaders over the past decades ideological credentials in the Jewish state and might lead to an unbridgeable schism with against the Jewish state—directly to its their Jewish compatriots—a division whose Jewish president. He was even more blatant severity is often beguilingly obscured by after another round of elections (in March visible signs of social integration in various 2020) when the Joint Arab List won an spheres of life. unprecedented tally of fifteen MKs. In a radio interview, Tibi stated “the Land of Mordechai Nisan, retired lecturer Israel is a [Zionist] colonialist phrase”31 For in Middle East Studies at the this Israeli MK, the Palestinian narrative was Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recently authored The Crack-Up of the only legitimate one. the Israeli Left (Canada: Mantua This open defiance underscores the Books, 2019). brazen and hypocritical conduct of Israel’s Arab leadership, which seeks to have its cake

30 Arutz Sheva, Sept. 23, 2019. 31 Efraim Karsh and Gershon Hacohen, “The Struggle for Israel’s Jewish Soul,” Perspectives, no. 1486, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Ramat Gan, Mar. 16, 2020.

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