Bernard Spiegal

Little attention has been given to the position – the plight – of Palestinian citizens of Israel. This was always generally true. Since the 7^th October, however, their position, always precarious and constrained, has worsened considerably. The Palestinian citizens of Israel, as those in the OPT, are also the victims of an Apartheid regime.

In an ICAHD UK webinar, which I urge you to watch, Middle East Eye’s Bureau Chief in Palestine and Israel, Lubna Masarwa, sets out how Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza has affected ’48 Palestinians, the Palestinian citizens of Israel. I offer only a glimpse of what she says so well[1]. 

Since 7^th October, Palestinians face an increase in political repression. Students, teachers, doctors, nurses have been arrested, along with anyone who has shown the least sympathy for the people of Gaza. That’s displaying empathy for the people of Gaza, not Hamas.

Adalah reports:

Since Saturday, 7 October 2023, Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as some Jewish Israelis who oppose Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, have experienced a severe crackdown on freedom of speech. The crackdown is the result of a widespread and coordinated effort among government offices, official Israeli institutions, and extremist right-wing groups, and has targeted Palestinian citizens and others who voice dissent against Israel’s actions in Gaza or express any support for the Palestinian people in Gaza. 

Masarwa highlighted a number of examples of repression (she offers more than will be found in this article)

A teacher was arrested, his home invaded, his children terrified, his wife’s study materials taken away.  He was jailed for two days, all for teaching children a song about a bird who fled its cage.

And because the bizarre is never far away when paranoid, violent and vicious malignancy takes hold, a student studying at the Technicon, Haifa, posted on social media a photo of a Shakshuka (a tasty egg, tomatoes, peppers and spices dish) she had made, congratulating herself on doing it so well.  She was arrested on the basis the dish symbolised a wish for a Hamas victory.

‘Every Israeli has become a fascist…every Israeli has become the police’. Ordinary Israelis now report to the police Palestinian nurses, doctors, students and academics who have posted anything that might be interpreted as sympathy for the plight of the civilians of Gaza; or criticism of Israel’s actions there.

Silencing

Most chilling, perhaps, is that Palestinians fear to speak Arabic on the streets or on public transport. There is the sense that to survive, ’48 Palestinians must make themselves invisible. Israel thus induces Palestinian self-harm and self-effacement, mirroring only too precisely Israel’s institutionalised policy of denying Palestinians’ being-in-the-world as a people, as a nation. 

In contrast to the silencing of Palestinians, Masarwa points to the increased, unrestrained volubleness of Israelis who now speak openly of genocide, of the starvation tactics deployed in Gaza, and of a desire to expel Palestinians from Israel. This, coupled with the increased weaponisation of Jewish Israeli citizens – National Security Minister Ben-Givr announced that more than 100,000 Jewish Israelis are approved to arm themselves – underscores why ’48 Palestinians feel themselves to be a ‘trapped minority’, silenced, abandoned and vulnerable. 

The marginalisation and vulnerability of ’48 Palestinians is particularly acute since 7th October. This, however, is best understood as an exacerbation, a ramping-up, of pre-existing institutional barriers and discriminations that assail Palestinian citizens of Israel. 

Below I point to three aspects – this not a comprehensive list – which together embed the discrimination Palestinian citizens of Israel confront:

1. The distinction Israel makes between the terms citizen and nationality;
2. 2018 Jewish Nation-State Basic Law;   
3. consequences of the Oslo Accords.

Citizen/Nationality

For Palestinians, ‘citizenship’ does not denote what is usually understood by the term, for example, sharing the same full rights and responsibilities as fellow members of the nation or political community.  This is not the case for Israel. This is because the Israeli State draws a distinction between citizenship and nationality. 

The State’s national population registry classifies each resident not only as a citizen, but also by nationality. Through this mechanism, Israel structures-in discrimination of anyone not Jewish.

The category nationality, forms the vehicle and framework for entrenching and expanding, within law and by law, discriminatory treatment against all those not classified as Jewish by nationality.  Thus, Arabs and Druze belong to separate national categories. (A summary of some 65 discriminatory laws can be found here.)

The world has been fooled, or wishes itself to be fooled, by Israel’s self-presentation as a democracy.  But this claim is simply another display of Israel’s policy of legerdemain, where what it says is the case, is, in fact, not.

Discrimination by law

In 2018, Israel further entrenched institutionalised discrimination by passing the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law. Four of its provisions are sufficient to demonstrate that the status ‘citizen’, for Israel, is trumped by that of ‘nation’ or ‘people’. Those Israelis not of the Jewish people or nation are, in effect, second class citizens.

• Article 1: states that the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is solely for the Jewish people.

• Article 2: states that the symbols of the state are all specifically Jewish in character.

• Article 4: the official language of the state is Hebrew, demoting Arabic, which was previously a second official language, to a language with an undefined “special status”.

• Article 5: establishes that immigration leading to automatic citizenship is exclusive to Jews

It is worth noting here that Israel does not recognise a distinct Palestinian Nationality, but designates Palestinians as Arab.  This, incidentally, forms part of a wider process of erasure, calculated forgetting, dissembling and tendentious historical research by state funded or state endorsed institutions. 

Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, 1993-1995, induced Arafat to recognise Israel and its borders. This had the effect of severing ’48 Palestinians from the wider Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories and Gaza. As a result, many Palestinian citizens of Israel felt abandoned to the mercies of a Jewish Supremacist state that was in fact strengthened by Oslo.

The Oslo Accords were essentially a means of neutralising Palestinians aspirations for self-determination. It turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s’ clothing. Driven by colonising intent, the Accords enabled Israel to split Palestinians from themselves by dividing the West Bank into three sections, A, B, C.

Stymieing political development

The division of the West Bank into what amount to enclaves of Palestinian habitation, each of which can, at the whim of Israel, be cut off from each other is a major element in Israel’s capacity to control every feature of Palestinian life in the West Bank. This, obviously, has profound economic, social and psychological effects.

But there is another major cost to Palestinians. It is that Israel’s control of physical and electronic space, coupled to the control this affords them over Palestinians’ use of time, places a severe constraint on their ability to organise politically. For the bedrock of political organisation is communication, connection and authority over one’s own use of time.

These factors – splitting the OPT into Areas A,B,C; severing ’48 Palestinians from its own people – must, in part, account for the current failure of Palestinians to develop a vibrant, authoritative, popularly endorsed Palestinian leadership.  

Motifs

The motif running through every proposal to ‘solve’ the Palestine/Israel conundrum, has been based on the barren, negative pursuit of dividing, separating, fragmenting; the drawing of artificial boundaries between peoples and spaces. All in the vain hope that the allusive quality ‘peace’ will somehow emerge.

Call it naïve, but surely the time has come to nurture an alternative, counter-motif. One based on connection, cohesion, coherence; sharing rather than splitting. That, I venture, is the motif informing the One Democratic State Campaign. Some light, replacing darkness.

[1] Prior to Lubna Masarwa there is 7.5 minute analysis of current situation by Jeff Halper. I commend it to you