Israel and its Arab Citizens

Abstract

Most scholars writing on Israel's Arab citizens analyse Israel's Arab citizens mainly in terms of domestic internal relations between the minority and the State and between the minority and the Jewish majority. They minimize and often overlook altogether the larger, more complex regional picture capturing the relationship between Israel's Arab citizens, Palestinians in the territories, and the ‘Palestinian problem’ in general, and the interrelationship between them and the Arab world. This article explores to what extent Israel's Jewish population faces considerable risk from the Arab minority. Paradoxically, political dynamics since the massive outbreak of violence in September 2000 shows that though Israeli Palestinian elites might be suggesting changes in the structure and identity of the state to allow Arab cultural autonomy, the majority of Israel's Arab citizens are still working within the system. Nevertheless, the Jewish majority cannot discount the possibility that over a longer time-frame there exists an ominous process to deconstruct the Jewish State by stages.