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Interrogating the Citizen: the Israeli Logic of Exclusion and the Internationalization of Citizenship Restrictions

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Interrogating the Citizen: the Israeli Logic of Exclusion and the Internationalization of Citizenship Restrictions INTERROGATING THE CITIZEN: THE ISRAELI LOGIC OF EXCLUSION AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CITIZENSHIP RESTRICTIONS SHOURIDEH CHERIE MOLAVI A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO June 2018 © Shourideh Cherie Molavi, 2018 Abstract Working from the paradigm of 'stateless citizenship' as a looking glass, or a heuristic device, this study examines the particular logic of exclusion in the Israeli constitutional order. To this end, the Thesis is composed of two central analytical tracks. It begins by outlining the manner in which the State of Israel mobilizes structures and arrangements of citizenship in the actual exclusion. It is through the bestowal of Israeli citizenship that non-Jews are ‘made’ stateless; it is through inclusion within the Israeli citizenship regime that they are excluded. Using extensive documents and original materials from archives in Jerusalem, London and Geneva, the study holds that the modern paradigm of citizenship, traditionally a mechanism for inclusion, is transformed in Israel. The relation of exception in the classical liberal model of citizenship is placed on its head and inclusive exclusionary mechanisms are inverted. This is because the Israeli incorporation regime has displaced the central figure of the ‘citizen’ in the body politic, vesting it with features of the less stable and capricious ‘immigrant’. Building on this, the study goes on to consider what these findings elucidate about broader transformations in citizenship restriction and revocation. It examines what the interrogation of the citizen within Israel can detect and reveal core and troubling directions in which the exclusionary policies embedded in Western liberal citizenship regimes are headed. Using citizenship in the Jewish State as a microcosm of broader developments around inclusion and exclusion, the study posits that questions as to who is a real or a desired citizen on the part of ostensibly liberal democratic nation-states have shifted their gaze of exclusion onto the figure of the citizen. With this shift, it is argued that we are witnessing a rising political trajectory where the citizen is assuming features closer to the more unstable figure of the ‘immigrant.’ Overall, in the discussions and assessments of the Thesis, the interrogation of the figure of the citizen in Israel is used to illuminate broader shifts in citizenship restrictions occurring today in Europe and North America. ii For Parvin, in honor of Bibimah iii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ..................................................................................................................... iii Preface ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction | ‘Stateless Citizenship’ as a Looking Glass ......................................... 1 1. States, citizenships and modes of incorporation ................................................. 1 2. ‘Stateless citizenship’ as the Israeli logic of exclusion ....................................... 4 3. Israeli inclusion: Inverting the ‘citizen’ with the ‘immigrant’ .......................... 10 4. Israel as a looking glass for broader trends in citizenship ................................ 13 5. ‘Core’, ‘center’ and ‘periphery’ ........................................................................ 16 6. Mapping interactions on citizenship ................................................................. 23 7. Outline of chapters ............................................................................................ 28 Chapter One | Citizenship Models and Ambiguities ............................................... 35 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 35 2. (Up)rooting citizenship ..................................................................................... 36 3. Framing citizenship ........................................................................................... 41 4. Theorizing liberal citizenship ............................................................................ 48 5. Citizenship beyond the state ............................................................................. 51 6. ‘Acting’ citizenship ........................................................................................... 60 7. Citizenship as a ‘zone of undecidability’ .......................................................... 64 8. Legal categorizations and the politics of recognition ....................................... 69 9. Summary and conclusions ................................................................................ 75 Chapter Two | In the Image of Europe: The Colonial Foundations of the Jewish Citizenship and Nationality Regime .......................................................................... 78 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 78 2. Colonizing the land of milk and honey ............................................................. 80 3. Behind the Balfour Declaration ........................................................................ 90 4. Alice goes to Blunderland ................................................................................. 97 5. The Holocaust and the foundations of Israeli civil policy .............................. 104 6. Summary and conclusions .............................................................................. 113 Chapter Three | Configuring the Jewish State: Citizenship from the Core to the Periphery .................................................................................................................... 115 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 115 2. Palestinian citizenship and nationality in the 1920s and 1930s ...................... 117 2.1. British Mandate: Laying the basis for citizenship as exclusion .............. 117 2.2. Hierarchies of colonial citizenship .......................................................... 121 2.3. A blueprint for separate and unequal citizenships ................................... 125 3. After statehood: Constituting the Jewish State ............................................... 133 iv 3.1. Leo Kohn’s draft constitution: Balancing modern formulations and Jewish traditions ......................................................................................................... 133 3.2 Debating the constitution: A splintered Knesset ...................................... 144 3.3. Pulling the break: ‘Israel needs laws, not a constitution’ ........................ 151 4. Summary and conclusions .............................................................................. 156 Chapter Four | Constituting the Jewish State: Inverting the Citizen with the Figure of the Immigrant ........................................................................................... 159 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 159 2. Israel’s constitutional makeup today ............................................................... 163 3. Constructing the Israeli body politic: Who is a Jew? ...................................... 174 4. Regulating the citizen: Israel’s first indigenous law ....................................... 185 5. Law of Return (1950): Clothing historical experience in legal form .............. 195 6. Placing the ‘Jewish immigrant’ at the center of Israeli politics ...................... 197 7. Posthumous citizenship: Victims of the Holocaust as an ‘immigrant population’ ............................................................................................................................. 202 8. Immigration as ‘return’ ................................................................................... 210 9. Merging the ‘Jewish’ with the ‘Israeli’ ........................................................... 213 10. Summary and conclusions ............................................................................ 219 Chapter Five | Interrogating the Citizen: The Internationalization of Citizenship Restrictions ................................................................................................................ 223 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 223 2. The closing north ............................................................................................ 229 3. Smugglers as travel agents, states as human traffic managers ........................ 234 4. Interrogations of liberal citizenship: France, Britain, and Canada ................. 241 4.1 France: Excluding the citizen from within ............................................... 244 4.2 Britain: Diminishing the proximity between citizen and stateless ........... 251 4.3 Canada: Transitioning from citizen to stranger ........................................ 259 5. Citizenship as an enhanced conditional status ................................................ 263 6. Summary and conclusions .............................................................................
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