Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel
Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel
Oded Haklai
Series: National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century
Copyright Date: 2011
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages: 256
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhj27
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Book Info
Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel
Book Description:

Arabs make up approximately 20 percent of the population within Israel's borders. Until the 1970s, Arab citizens of Israel were a mostly acquiescent group, but in recent decades political activism has increased dramatically among members of this minority. Certain activists within this population claim that they are a national and indigenous minority dispossessed by more recent settlers from Europe. Ethnically based political organizations inside Israel are making nationalist demands and challenging the Jewish foundations of the state. Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel investigates the rise of this new movement, which has important implications for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a whole. Political scientist Oded Haklai has written the first book to examine this manifestation of Palestinian nationalism in Israel. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with key figures, Haklai investigates how the debate over Arab minority rights within the Jewish state has given way to questioning the foundational principles of that state. This ground-breaking book not only explains the transitions in Palestinian Arab political activism in Israel but also presents new theoretical arguments about the relationship between states and societies. Haklai traces the source of Arab ethnonationalist mobilization to broader changes in the Israeli state, such as the decentralization of authority, an increase in political competition, intra-Jewish fragmentation, and a more liberalized economy. Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel avoids oversimplified explanations of ethnic conflict. Haklai's carefully researched and insightful analysis covers a neglected aspect of Israeli politics and Arab life outside the West Bank and Gaza. Scholars and policy makers interested in the future of Israel and peace in the Middle East will find it especially valuable.

eISBN: 978-0-8122-0439-1
Subjects: Political Science
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. A Note on Transliteration
    A Note on Transliteration (pp. ix-x)
  4. Introduction
    Introduction (pp. 1-12)

    Palestinian ethnonational political activism in Israel has increased dramatically in recent decades. Since the early 1990s, numerous ethnically exclusive Palestinian Arab political parties and organizations have emerged, making ethnic claims on the state. These groups are demanding that the state recognize the Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel (PAI) as an indigenous and national minority in Israel, that the exclusive Jewish identity of the state be replaced with a binational institutional framework, that there be power-sharing institutional arrangements, and that the PAI be granted extensive autonomy in a variety of cultural and social spheres. These demands, which had been only sporadically...

  5. 1 Transitions in Minority Political Activism, Grievances, and Institutional Configurations
    1 Transitions in Minority Political Activism, Grievances, and Institutional Configurations (pp. 13-35)

    The transformation of PAI political mobilization has been manifested in changing demands, as well as in the intensity and the channels through which the demands are made. During the first two decades of Israel’s existence, the PAI were compliant. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the Communist Party, which claimed to be biethnic and to advance an inclusive civic identity, was the primary channel for Arab mobilization in Israel. In recent decades, ethnically based political organizations have proliferated, making vociferous claims against the state in the name of minority nationalism.

    Informed by social inequality and relative deprivation theories, many comparative...

  6. 2 State Formation and the Creation of National Boundaries
    2 State Formation and the Creation of National Boundaries (pp. 36-52)

    State characteristics that influence minority politics do not just appear. They are largely shaped by the societal context that exists during their creation. The period of state formation constitutes a juncture that sets the path for long-term relationships and practices. During the process of state-building, the institutional foundations of the state are established and the foundational principles provide the platform for official state ideology. Understanding how and why a state possesses certain relevant attributes, therefore, requires some understanding of the process of state formation and the societal interactions and ethnic relations that existed before and during this process.

    Israel was...

  7. 3 State Autonomy, Marginalization, and Grievances
    3 State Autonomy, Marginalization, and Grievances (pp. 53-70)

    The process of state formation engendered ethnically based national boundaries that excluded the Arab residents. Inheriting the prestate institutional framework, the new Israeli state lacked autonomy from the Jewish national movement, which controlled its institutions. Lack of state autonomy was manifested in the ideological framework of the state and the societal identity of the officeholders at all levels of the bureaucracy and translated into uniethnic favoritism in almost all policy areas. On top of that, given the history of Jewish-Arab relations in the prestate period, the PAI minority was viewed with much suspicion.

    Although the objective inequality yielded serious grievances,...

  8. 4 From Quiescence to the Communist Party
    4 From Quiescence to the Communist Party (pp. 71-111)

    Arab politics transitioned dramatically within three decades. The ethnically defined nationalism of the prestate period was replaced by relative quiescence in the first two decades that followed Israel’s independence. In the 1950s and 1960s, most Arab elites were concerned with guaranteeing immediate local interests and complied with ruling stratum practices. Ethnonationalist claims were made only by a handful of unorganized, if outspoken, intellectuals. Initial passivity then gave way to mobilization in the binational Israel Communist Party (ICP), which throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s was the single most popular political organization among Arab voters. Changing patterns of mobilization were...

  9. 5 The Ethnonational Turn
    5 The Ethnonational Turn (pp. 112-145)

    In October 2000, thousands of Arab citizens of Israel took to the streets to demonstrate in solidarity with the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, which had erupted several days earlier in the West Bank and Gaza. The protests soon turned into a violent clash between the police and the demonstrators, resulting in the death of twelve PAI protestors. Marking a significant deviation from PAI behavior during the first intifada, which amounted mostly to general strikes, the October events left a deep wound in Jewish-PAI relations in Israel.

    On one level, episodes of communally related violence are sparked off by proximate...

  10. 6 The Changing Israeli State-Society Relations
    6 The Changing Israeli State-Society Relations (pp. 146-172)

    Distinctive mutability in some state institutions—and not in others—has been conducive to the rise of Palestinian ethnonationalist politics in Israel. Israeli society, economy, and politics further liberalized in recent decades and concurrently political authority continued to disperse away from the central government. State extensiveness has declined and the state is no longer present in public life as it was only a few decades earlier. The level of fragmentation at the core has increased considerably as more segments in society compete for political power. In this respect, transition in PAI political activism, the rise of ethnically based organizations, and...

  11. Conclusion
    Conclusion (pp. 173-178)

    Israeli society remains deeply divided along ethnonational lines. The PAI minority has always had to face Jewish ownership of the state, yet only in recent decades has PAI politics widely confronted the lack of state neutrality by making ethnonational claims, challenging the state’s foundational principles as a Jewish state, and demanding a distinct and expansive autonomous space. To some extent, Palestinian nationalism in Israel has completed a circle of sorts from the prestate period after transitioning through periods of quiescence and communist activism.

    The ethnonational turn should not obscure the reality whereby the state still possesses sufficient capacity to enforce...

  12. Notes
    Notes (pp. 179-206)
  13. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 207-232)
  14. Index
    Index (pp. 233-240)
  15. Acknowledgments
    Acknowledgments (pp. 241-243)
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