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Page last updated
March 7, 2007
Understanding the conflict
Palestinian citizens of Israel
See the JfJfP fact sheet The Arab Citizens of Israel
The Democratic Constitution Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 1st March 2007
'On the tenth anniversary of its founding, Adalah is issuing “The Democratic Constitution,” as a constitutional proposal for the state of Israel, based on the concept of a democratic, bilingual, multicultural state. This proposed constitution draws on universal principles and international conventions on human rights, the experiences of nations and the constitutions of various democratic states.
'In recent years, Israeli groups have put forward several constitutions for the state of Israel. However, these proposals are distinguished by their lack of conformity to democratic principles, in particular the right to complete equality of all residents and citizens, and by their treatment of Arab citizens as if they were strangers in this land, where history, memory and collective rights exist only for Jewish people. It is no coincidence therefore that these proposals have been preoccupied with the question of, “Who is a Jew?” and have neglected the primary constitutional question of, “Who is a citizen?”'1. Social, Economic and Political Status of Arab Citizens of Israel
The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel (Mossawa)
2. Fact Sheet: Discrimination in Israeli law
The Arab Association for Human Rights
'As well as offering limited provisions for equality or political participation to members of the Palestinian Arab minority, the law in Israel subjects them to three types of discrimination: direct discrimination against non-Jews within the law itself, indirect discrimination through "neutral" laws and criteria which apply principally to Palestinians, and institutional discrimination through a legal framework that facilitates a systematic pattern of privileges.'
c. 2,300 wordsThere are further factsheets on Land and Policy Planning in Israel, The Arab Bedouin of the Negev, and The Unrecognised Villages.
3. The Or Commission report into the shooting of Palestinian citizens of Israel in September 2003, official summary
4. Arab communities verging on 'catastrophe', leaders warn, Yair Ettinger
5. A family argument
Meron Benvenisti
Ha'aretz date?, 2002
c.750 words
The sigh of relief heaved by the anti-racism fighters over the defeat of the Druckman Law that would have allowed the establishment of communities for Jews created a false sense of victory that repressed and ignored an entire system of official discrimination against sectors that do not belong to the Jewish group - the Bedouin, the internal refugees, "unrecognized villages," cities and towns suffocating because of lack of room to expand, economic discrimination and racial prejudice camouflaged as "concern for security."
6. Report shows up land bias in favor of Jewish communities
Ruth Sinai
Ha'aretz, 11 December 2002
'While residents of Arab local authorities make up 12.5 percent of the country's population, the jurisdictions of those local authorities comprise only 2.56 percent of the state's territory...'
c.450 wordsAli Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2004
c.1,300 words'The JNF advertises itself as "the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners-Jewish people everywhere." As such, it provides one of the main mechanisms through which Israel's system of ethnic segregation and discrmination is enforced, because land that the JNF purports to "own," especially land that was forcibly taken from Palestinians, can by JNF statutes only be leased or sold to those Israel recognizes to be Jews.'
8 . The enemy within: Right and Left are uniting to exclude Israeli Arabs from the political process
Azmi Bishara MK (Member of the Knesset)
A discussion of 'the current legitimisation of Israeli racist rhetoric and its transformation into both a popular and an official political culture'.
c. 2,300 words
9. In the hot seat
Al Ahram, 8-14 nov 2001
Stripping outspoken Knesset member Azmi Bishara of parliamentary immunity clearly reflects Israel's idea of democracy when it comes to the Palestinian minority, writes Jonathan Cook
c. 1,200 words
10. An ominous prelude
Al Ahram, 28 Feb- 6 March 2002
Azmi Bishara, the most prominent Palestinian politician in Israel, was put on trial in an Israeli court yesterday for the second time in less than three months -- charged with supporting a terrorist organisation. Jonathan Cook reports from Nazareth
c. 1,000 words
Section 3: Other theoretical frameworks: settler societies, ethnocracy etc
1. Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the Struggle against Racism
Nira Yuval-Davis, 7th December 2006
A 'settler-society' perspective on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
