Palestinian Arab Citizens Of Israel Research Articles

‘Not ours’: Palestinian Arab students’ perceptions of the campus ethnonational climate in Israeli higher education

ABSTRACT Rooted in the campus racial climate framework by Hurtado and colleagues (1998) and utilising a qualitative-led mixed methods approach, this study explored the perceptions of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) who are undergraduate students of their campus ethnonational climates. Focus groups (n = 19) were conducted, followed by an online survey (n = 453). The results show that PAI students perceive their campuses as foreign and often exclusionary, leading them to expend a great deal of time and energy negotiating the terms of their presence on campus. PAI students respond to the negative campus climate by forming pockets of belonging, asserting their identities and giving back to their home communities. Campuses were described as highly segregated with little contact between ethnonational groups, yet a desire to connect was strongly expressed. Variations across types of HE institutions as well as implications for practice and research are explored in the paper.

The experiences of Palestinian Arabs with disabilities in Israel

PurposeIsrael ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and has subsequently worked towards putting disability-empowering policies and facilities in place. This study explores the experiences of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel with disabilities in everyday life including education, employment and accessing disability facilities and services.Design/methodology/approachThis study explores the challenges and experiences of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a disparate group of Arab men and women with various forms of disabilities.FindingsThis research indicates that Arabs with disabilities are either unable to access them or do so with great difficulty relative to their Jewish counterparts. The findings suggest that this is due to one of two reasons: first is institutional discrimination by Jewish and Arab staff, and second is structural discrimination as facilities and services are specifically designed for the Jewish majority and their areas of residence as opposed to Arab residential areas.Originality/valueGuided by intersectional theory, this article explores how the multiple identities of Arabs with disabilities living in Israel are co-constituted and ordered by different social and political structures which inform their daily lived experiences. This research illustrates that in Jewish politics and institutions, Arabs with disabilities in Israel are “otherised” by being flatly identified as Palestinians; yet, within their Arab communities, they are “otherised” by being reduced solely to their disability. This article examines how this variation in ordering and reduction can lead to specific experiences and forms of discrimination that requires multi-dimensional approaches and ways forward.

My Enemy, My Neighbour: Characteristics and Challenges of Arabic Instruction in Israeli-Jewish Society

This article examines Arabic instruction in Israeli Hebrew schools with regard to the political, social, cultural, historical and pedagogical issues shaping it. It examines challenges facing Arabic instruction in Israel's education system, emphasising the dissonance between potential benefits of studying Arabic and its overall marginalised status in Israel. This article argues that that the main factors shaping Arabic instruction in Israeli-Jewish schools since 1948 are official security considerations and security claims — Arabic is studied as the language of the enemy and not the neighbour. A radical policy shift is required to ‘civilianise’ and demilitarise Arabic instruction and transform it into a bridge for understanding between Israeli-Jews, Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, in particular, the Palestinians, in general, as well as Israel's Arab neighbours in the Middle East.

Songs of subordinate integration: music education and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel during the Mapai era

ABSTRACT This article traces the role of music in Arab public schools during Israel’s early decades, as a unique window into the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that underline the encounter between the state and its Palestinian citizens. We interpret the case of music education in Arab schools through the lenses of a larger historical process of the “subordinate integration” of Palestinians into the Israeli polity. In addition to reviewing the emergence of formal music education for the separate Arab school system, we analyze state-sponsored songbooks produced in the 1960s, discussing editorial motivation and the musical practices reflected and inscribed therein. We then focus on the role of a well-known Independence Day song, exploring both its emergence and early reception, and its persistent function as a lieu de mémoire, representing the larger trauma of forced spectacle of loyalty for an entire generation of Palestinian citizens of Israel schooled during those years.

Hierarchical Inclusion: The Untold History of Israel's Affirmative Action for Arab Citizens (1948–68)

The history of Israel's relationship with its Palestinian-Arab minority during the founding decades, from 1948 to 1968, is often portrayed as a story of formal citizenship that concealed large-scale, state-sanctioned oppression under military rule. This article excavates an untold history of employment affirmative action for Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel during these two decades which does not fit neatly into this story. Drawing on original archival research, it reveals that, during Israel's founding decades, officials adopted hiring quotas for unskilled Arab workers and for educated Arabs; requirements and incentives for hiring Arabs in government offices, Jewish businesses, and organizations; earmarked jobs and established vocational training courses for the Arab population. It demonstrates that interests in safeguarding Jewish control and economic stability aligned with egalitarian aspirations, and motivated state officials to adopt measures that promoted the inclusion of the Arab population in the workforce, albeit on unequal terms. Furthermore, these measures were part of a transformation of the state's attitude towards Arab citizens, from strict military control to a regime of “hierarchical inclusion” entailing gradual integration into the Israeli economy — mostly though its lower tiers and with a second-class status. Tracing the use of these mechanisms, not then called affirmative action but recognizable as such today, to this period of subjected population management, complicates our understanding of both this chapter in Israel's history and of affirmative action more broadly.

On the frontier of integration: the Histadrut and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel

This article analyzes the Histadrut, the quintessential Labor Zionist organization, and its policies regarding the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel between the years 1948-1967. Using archival documents, published material, and oral history, the article reconstructs previously unexplored aspects of Palestinian membership in the Histadrut and reveals the spectrum of attitudes that it elicited. Whereas previous research has identified the Histadrut’s role in segregating the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Palestine, this article argues that after 1948, the Histadrut integrated the Palestinian Arabs into Israeli society in a way that complicates our understanding of Zionism.

History, memory and the meaning of place: the renovation of Sidnā ‘Alī mosque as a nexus of Palestinian, Arab and Islamic identity in Israel

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates the possibility of gaining meaningful insights into a place by exploring its relationship with its surroundings. A model is suggested for examining the possible significances of this relationship and the actual meanings attributed to it by those who plan and use the place. The site analyzed here is Sidnā ‘Alī, an Islamic shrine on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Sidnā ‘Alī, which has been a pilgrimage site for centuries, was abandoned during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; it was renovated in the late 1980s by Muslim Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. The paper discusses the social mobilization for the renovation of the old mosque as a prelude to exploring the meanings of Sidnā ‘Alī’s relationships with the surrounding landscapes, places and buildings. The study of the social function of the renovation campaign focuses on its role in unifying the people involved and on forging a collective identity based on the shared struggle to return the site to Muslim hands. The spatial interpretation presented examines the renovation project as a form of Palestinian, Arab and Islamic resistance to the covert and overt Zionist hegemony in the public space.

GOVERNING THROUGH TIMESCAPE: ISRAELI SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE POLICY AND THE PALESTINIAN-ARAB CITIZENS

AbstractSocial scientists commonly know that time is a social construct and a tool for governing by those holding power. Yet,howexactly is time used for governing? This article examines how timescape (embodiment of approaches to time) works in practice as a tool of power by considering multiple networks of time that manifest in al-Batuf/Beit Netofa Valley planning policy. This valley's agriculture, mostly owned by Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, is considered by ecologists and officials a unique traditional agriculture landscape and wetland habitat that has become scarce in Israel due to its development and wetland drainage. Assembling separate modes of anthropological inquiry that attend to time as a technique, I show that knowledge, ethics, and time management are not separate spheres of governance but rather interwoven as one timescape tool of governing. Thus, the case of al-Batuf/Beit Netofa elucidates the ways in which time is used for governing in the context of an agricultural-environmental development policy and plan.

Liberal Whispers and Propaganda Fears

This article examines the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) engagement with Israel regarding the state’s Palestinian-Arab minority. It focuses on the period of military government (1948–1966), when the rights of most Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel were curtailed under military rule. In the mid-1950s, AJC leaders became interested in examining and alleviating the plight of the Arab minority. Rather than publicly confronting Israel, the AJC privately lobbied Israeli officials on the matter and later attempted to educate Israelis about liberalism using ideas more closely associated with its work in America than its human rights advocacy abroad. To understand the AJC’s motives, the article points toward AJC’s domestic civil rights and ‘human relations’ activity, its distinct form of pro-Israel non-Zionism, and its concerns about ‘Arab propaganda’, anti-Semitism, and Jewish-Christian relations in America.

Stateless citizenship: the Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel

List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Liberal Citizenship: Ambiguities and Inconsistencies Framing citizenship Theorizing citizenship Citizenship beyond the state Problematizing legal categorizations Racial state, racialized citizenship 2. The Israeli Incorporation Regime Colonizing the land of milk and honey A multifaceted discrimination Legislative level Formal and declarative levels Structural and institutional levels Mass protests of October 2000 Acre Riots of 2008 The 2008-2009 War on Gaza Criminalizing Arab Political Participation and Discourse Targeting Arab MKs: From Bishara to Zoabi Arab civil society: A non-state alternative Response to the rise of Arab civil society: The case of Ameer Makhoul Operative and budgetary level Israeli apartheid: Beyond South Africa 3. Israeli Hostipitality From hospitality to Derridean 'hostipitality' Oscillating between host and guest Israeli 'hostipitality' 4. Liberal Pretence of a Jewish State The UN Partition Plan of 1947 The principle of 'two states for two peoples' Israel as a 'state for all of its citizens' Rashid Bey: The de-Palestinianized Arab Zionist democracy in a comparative context Israeli demographobia Liberal rubber stamp for Israeli crimes 5. From Citizenship to Stateless Citizenship 'Israeli' and 'Palestinian' as incomplete identities Defining the 'Israeli' nation Research on Palestinians in Israel: An Overview Formulating Palestinian citizenship - Stateless citizenship 6. The Anatomy of Stateless Citizenship Knowing the terrain: From the exception to the example An exclusive inclusion A perpetual state of emergency Coexistence without existence Conclusion Appendix I: Selections from The Democratic Constitution by Adalah: Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (20 March 2007) Appendix II: Selections from The Haifa Declaration by Mada al-Carmel: The Arab Center for Applied Social Research (15 May 2007) References Index

Higher education abroad

Purpose – This study aims to expand the authors’ exploratory qualitative study, describing the characteristics of the flow of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) to Jordanian higher education (HE) institutes as an alternative to HE studies in Israel (Jordanization).Design/methodology/approach – At this stage of the study, 460 PAI studying in six Jordanian universities answered a questionnaire indicating the factors that led them to seek HE in Jordan. Respondents’ comparisons between the Israeli and Jordanian HE systems were analysed.Findings – Results showed that Jordanian HE attracts PAIs for practical reasons: lenient acceptance policy and better chances to graduate, while cultural and linguistic similarities between the PAI and Jordanian societies are less influential. Israel's HE is attractive for financial reasons and employment qualification.Research limitations/implications – Future research should compare the absorption of these graduates of Jordanian universities in Israel's labour market w...

Not just location: attitudes and functioning of Arab local education administrators in Israel

PurposeThis paper aims to provide useful insights into educational under‐achievement among Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI), investigating the perceptions of local educational administrators (LEAs) towards the education system and its modus vivendi, to uncover difficulties and suggest directions to improve the processes and achievements of the PAI education system.Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews were conducted with 16 stakeholders in local education (mayors, education department managers; school principals and parents’ representatives) in four Arab local governments in Israel to elucidate attitudes toward education.FindingsThe small random sample cannot claim to be representative however worrying problems were revealed: deficient resources in comparison to the Jewish education system; an ineffective political culture in local government; inferior status and problematic functioning of Arab education department heads and lack of inclusion of professionals and parents in decision‐making. These factors negatively impact the education system and its products.Originality/valueThe paper suggests local government should determine appropriate local policy, positioning education as a high priority with efficient education departments, more professional staff, and suitable education programs. Additionally state government should provide equal resources for the Arab education system, to lever Arab education in Israel.

Screening science, producing the nation: popular science programs on Israeli television (1968–88)

From 1968 on, the state of Israel deployed television as a tool in the service of its ongoing project of reproducing the nation and as a propaganda tool that targeted the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. With the collaboration of the scientific elite, the televising of original popular science programs, aired on the sole government-controlled channel at prime time, contributed immensely to these projects. Through these programs, the state disseminated a specific image of the nation’s scientific prowess for popular consumption in the euphoric aftermath of the Six Day War. This article examines the first 20 years of the state’s projects, during which the grip of Zionist collectivism was still strong, the monopoly of the government-controlled channel was not yet challenged, and the programs enjoyed astonishingly high ratings. My examination focuses on the ideology and motivations of the producers; the ways in which the communication elite and the scientific elite, enjoying a position of hegemony, collaborated by disseminating the nation’s accomplishments in both the Arabic and Hebrew programs; and the actual content of the programs at large and specifically that of four episodes of Tazpit, the popular science program of the 1980s.

A Dangerous Divide: The Deterioration of Jewish-Palestinian Relations in Israel

This article examines the relations between Jewish and Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel since the of October when massive Arab protests and riots took place and thirteen Arab demonstrators were killed. In the decade since then Arab-Jewish relations have been characterized by growing mutual mistrust, fear, and hostility. Together with these negative attitudes, political polarization between the two communities has also increased. This poses a serious threat to Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel and to Israeli democracy itself. In the first ten days of October as the so-called al-Aqsa Intifada got underway in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, massive demonstrations were held in Arab-populated areas throughout Israel. In the course of these demonstrations, Arab protesters blocked roads (including major highways and junctions), burned tires, and set fire to buildings such as post offices, banks, and gas stations. Some Arab youth threw stones (and in a few cases, firebombs) at cars, police vehicles, and policemen as well as at some Jewish civilians (one Jewish passerby was even killed). In trying to quell the demonstrations, police officers (including police snipers) fired tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition. Thirteen Arab protesters (including a Palestinian from Gaza) were shot and killed by the police, and many more were injured. This was the single bloodiest event for Palestinian citizens of Israel since the Kfar Qassem massacre in 1956. violence of October 2000 was not restricted to clashes between the police and Arab demonstrators. In reaction to Arab rioting, in some mixed cities (i.e., cities with a large population of both Jews and Arabs) Jewish mobs attacked Arabs and Arab property, and violent clashes occurred between Jewish and Arab rioters. worst instance of Arab-Jewish violence took place in the town of Upper Nazareth. Jewish mobs responded to Arab rioting in the adjacent Arab town of Nazareth by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at Arab neighborhoods and damaging Arab-owned property in (predominantly) Jewish Upper Nazareth; and on October 8, hundreds of Jewish rioters faced off against about a hundred Arabs on two sides of the road separating Nazareth from Upper Nazareth. mobs exchanged insults and threw stones at each other. In the melee, two Arabs were killed and many injured. Never before in Israel's history had there been inter-communal violence on such a scale.1 Now over a decade later, the events of October 2000, as they became known, remain an unhealed wound. They are also a watershed, marking the beginning of a new period of escalating tension and hostility between Jewish and Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel.2 This article examines Jewish-Palestinian relations in Israel since the of October 2000. In it, I argue that the October 2000 represent a turning point in Jewish-Palestinian relations in Israel. While these relations have always been fragile and uneasy, in the decade since October 2000 they have seriously deteriorated and the ever-present rift between the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Israel has widened even further.3 Attitudes on both sides have hardened, mutual distrust has intensified, fear has increased, and political opinion has become more militant and uncompromising. 4 In the words of a report by the International Crisis Group: The sense of alienation among Palestinian citizens of Israel is mirrored on the Jewish side by the feeling that Arab Israelis are increasingly disloyal.5 Palestinian minority and the Jewish majority in Israel have been caught up in a negative spiral in which the suspicion, fear, and animosity of one intensifies the suspicion, fear, and animosity of the other. While the outcome of this negative spiral cannot be predicted, it clearly does not bode well for the future of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence in Israel. Palestinian Minority since Octo ber 2000 To this day, the of October 2000 stand out as the most visible and violent manifestation of the alienation, frustration, and discontent felt by many Palestinian citizens of Israel. …

The Nakba in Palestinian Memory in Israel

Changes in the international, regional and domestic arenas in the late 1990s resulted in discursive change with regard to interpretation of the Al Nakba in the political and civil societies of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. Apart from fuelling a discursive challenge to the Israeli dominant discourse about the 1948 events, this reinterpretation allowed the Palestinian Arab citizens to discuss the historical roots of the problems they experienced within the Israeli political and civil societal spheres. This article analyses the nature and significance of discursive change of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel on the Nakba by referring to its impact on their identity politics as well as their political and civil societal activities.

Entertainment and Stereotype: Representation of the Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel in Reality Shows on Israeli Television

The present study aims to gain an understanding of the patterns of representation and appearances of Palestinian citizens of Israel in the genre of reality shows in Israel. This genre has become extremely dominant in the television-broadcasting schedule. The mere fact that Arab people are visually present in TV entertainment, and in reality shows more specifically, should not lead us to conclude that Israeli TV is witnessing a move toward pluralism. It is important to examine the precise mode of representation of the “others.” That is to say: we must look at the visibility of Arab participants in those reality shows in which they appear (research question 1); how Arabs are represented in such programs (research question 2), and at the types of interaction between Arabs and other, Jewish-majority, participants in the program (research question 3). Content analyses were conducted for all reality shows broadcast on Israel's commercial TV channels between 2003 and 2007 that included Arab participants. Results show the reality show genre is still firmly ruled by a Jewish hegemony that represents the Palestinian Arab as the “other” and that the overwhelming majority of spectators are Jewish.

The Israeli Palestinian‐Arab Vision of Transforming Israel into a Binational Democracy

The idea of binationalism has risen anew as a result of several developments. It was invoked by the weakening of the nation-state which is identified with a single nation, a single language and a single culture. It was further stimulated by the ideology of multiculturalism that calls for the recognition of diversity and bestowal of cultural rights on cultural minorities. Transnationalism (i.e., activity of a certain nation in more than one country), facilitated by economic and political globalization, was an additional push. In the sphere of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the idea of binationalism rises as an option because of the political impasse and the spreading despair of the two-state solution. The Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel are also attracted to binationalism because they seek a radical remedy for their minority status in the Jewish state and fear lest the formation of a new Palestinian state alongside Israel will strengthen Israel’s Jewish-Zionist character and exacerbate their subordination. They are supported by a handful of post-Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.1 Four “Arab Vision Documents,” in which Paestinian-Arab elties in Israel state their views of the present and desirable status of the Arab minority and Israel’s character, were published from December 6, 2006 to May 15, 2007.2 They share the demands to establish an independent Palestinian state and to turn Israel into a binational democracy. The adoption of this option entails renunciation of three other possibilities: individualbased liberal democracy in Israel in its pre-1967 borders; a single individual-based liberal democracy in the area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; and a single binational state in the area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The common denominator of these four options is the eradication of Israel’s nature as a Jewish state. The ensuing discussion will focus on the binational option, addressing the following questions: What kind of binational democracy do the Arab Vision Documents advocate? What can be learned from the international and historical record of binational regimes? Does the Arab minority, apart from the Arab elites, reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and is it ready to wage an intense struggle for a binational democracy? Does the Jewish majority accept any form of binational democracy and what would be its reaction if Arabs fight for this goal? Will the Palestinian Authority deny Israel as a Jewish state and back up Arab minority’s endeavor for recasting it into a binational democracy? Would the international community lend legitimacy and support to the idea and campaign for setting up a binational democracy in Israel within the Green Line? Is the related idea of one-state in all of Palestine/Land of Israel acceptable and realistic? What are the likely repercussions of the spread of the Arab Vision Documents? The discussion has two dimensions: scientific-empirical and ideological-normative. Although a comprehensive scrutiny of the issues requires elucidation of both dimensions, this paper is limited to the scientific-empirical dimension as much as possible.

Palestinian Education in Israel: The Legacy of the Military Government

This essay analyses the ways in which the military government (1948–1966) and its policies positioned the Palestinian Arab community in Israeli society, with a particular focus on public education. The educational system for the Palestinian Arab community developed within the context of military government, and while the formal administrative structures have changed, the legacy of using education as a tool for political purposes has endured and continues to defi ne the educational experience of indigenous Palestinian Arab students in Israel today. Despite the formal abolition of the military government in the mid-sixties, its ongoing legacy continues to shape educational policy and practice, as well as the broader status of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.

Palestinian Education in Israel: The Legacy of the Military Government

This essay analyses the ways in which the military government (1948–1966) and its policies positioned the Palestinian Arab community in Israeli society, with a particular focus on public education. The educational system for the Palestinian Arab community developed within the context of military government, and while the formal administrative structures have changed, the legacy of using education as a tool for political purposes has endured and continues to defi ne the educational experience of indigenous Palestinian Arab students in Israel today. Despite the formal abolition of the military government in the mid-sixties, its ongoing legacy continues to shape educational policy and practice, as well as the broader status of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.

Palestinian NGOs in Israel: A Campaign for Civic Equality or ?Ethnic Civil Society??

RIESEARCH ON THE POLITICS OF the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) has thus far focused mainly on parliamentary activity. In recent years, the PAI has also been resorting to mobilization through civil society associations, an area that has thus far received little scholarly attention. The absence of a theoretical link between the universalistic assumptions of civil society theories and the particularistic motivations behind communal mobilization has led some observers to assume that PAI non-governmental organizations target civic equality.' This is largely because civil society is conventionally seen as building strong, inclusive societal bonds. In this article, I present an alternative: PAI NGOs constitute what can be termed civil society. Rather than view PAT NGOs as embarking on a civic campaign for civil equality, I contend that PAI civil society associations are a mode of ethnic mobilization, targeting the empowerment ofan ethnic community. As such, they are distinct from conventional civil society organizations that promote civic rights. PAI NGOs borrow a variety of strategies that are applied by classical civil society associations, but their ends are more particularistic, aiming at institutional reform favorable to the PAI community and raising political and communal consciousness amongst the minority population. More generally, ethnic civil society mobilization is a peculiar subtype of civil society activity. The study of this phenomenon requires an integrated framework that bridges between civil society activity and ethnic mobilization. Such a link is necessary for a better analysis of ethnically based civil society mobilization that promotes institutional reform and raises minority political and communal consciousness. Such mobilization, however, does not target universal empowerment of citizens vis-a-vis the