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Arab Citizens in the Jewish State of Israel

Israel’s Declaration of Independence proclaims full equality for all Israel’s citizens and calls upon members of the Arab nation “to participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” This solemn pledge has not been kept. Nevertheless, the growing pluralism of the political system has strengthened the foothold of Arabs in Israeli society and politics.
The situation of the Arab community in Israel is still dire. The tenuous relationship between Jews and Arabs is under constant pressures, exacerbated by the 2018 Basic Law: Israel – The nation-state of the Jewish people, that undermines the status and legitimacy of the Arab citizens.  Nonetheless, a change began to surface tacitly in the official state approach towards the Arabs – recognizing the justification of equality, particularly in economic terms.  Politically, the last Knesset elections have increased Arab parties’ visibility and potential strength.

About the speaker

Itzhak Galnoor: Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (emeritus); senior fellow at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem. He served on the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), and edited its Advances in Political Science, (Cambridge University Press) book series. Head of the Civil Service Commission in Prime Minister Rabin government (1994–96); The Israel Science Foundation’s Executive Committee and on the Governing Board of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  In 2007-2008 he was the Deputy Chair of the Israeli Council of Higher Education. In 2015 he was awarded the Life Achievement Prize by the Association of Israel Studies (AIS). Latest English books:

The Handbook of Israel’s Political System, (with Dana Blander), Cambridge University Press, 2018.

The Privatization of Israel: The Withdrawal of State Responsibility (with Amir Paz-Fuchs and Ronen Mandelkern), eds., Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018.

“Arab Citizens in the ‘Jewish and Democratic’ State of Israel,” in Reuven Y. Hazan, Alan Dowty, Menachem Hofnung, and Gideon Rahat, eds., Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society (forthcoming).

In cooperation with the Vienna School of International Studies and the support of the University of Vienna, the Department of Contemporary History