Two states for three peoples: the ‘Palestinian-Israeli’ in the Future Vision Documents of the Palestinians in Israel

Abstract

This article focuses on the Vision Documents of the Arab civil society organizations in Israel as an act of citizenship and an expression of the politics of contention used by the Palestinians in Israel. We argue that these documents challenge both the political inclusiveness of the identity of Israel as a ‘Jewish and democratic’ state, and the political continuity of collective identity of the Palestinian people. With these documents, the Arab civil society organizations reclaim responsibility over their political future by clinging to the Israeli citizenship framework, but at the same time attempt to change its nature from within, by re-associating the Palestinians in Israel with the core issues of the stumbling peace process, especially in regard to the ‘Right of Return’. The paper contends that for the Palestinians in Israel, the national and the civic frameworks do not circulate in separate orbits, but constitute and reframe each other.