This study examines the attitudes and policies on all sides of the majority/minority divide in Israel during the state’s formative decade, and how the social, political, and strategic decisions made vis-à-vis the non-Jewish populations then continue to impact this unique Middle Eastern state today. While land, labor, and settlement policies, or the educational, legal, or political systems, could have been used to explore majority-minority relations in Israel between 1948-1958, this study does so through the prism of the army – in theory, the state’s most unifying social institution. The central questions investigated in this study are; how did the leadership of the Jewish majority balance its declared commitment to the state’s democratic ideals and the principle of equality on the one hand, and its commitment to creating a Jewish state and ensuring its security on the other? Was the army – charged with instilling Zionist patriotism in Jewish youth – prepared to absorb and integrate Arabs, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the non-Jewish minorities? Would the state’s minority groups be viewed as trustworthy and loyal enough to serve in the army? Furthermore, how would (potential) Arab military service impact the educational mission, and particularly the simultaneously transformative and integrative effort the army was charged with carrying out among Jews? While a specialized work in the fields of Israel and Middle Eastern Studies, this book should appeal to all students interested in majority/minority relations and the state-building process in newly-emerging democratic societies.

This volume examines the status of the Palestinian citizens in Israel and explores ethnic privileging and the dynamics of social conflict.

The Arab-Palestinian community, which constitutes 20 percent of Israel’s population, is an ethnic minority living mainly in ethnically homogeneous cities and villages. Arab-Palestinian Society in the Israeli Political System offers a comprehensive, detailed examination of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel within the Green Line in the twenty-first century. Rami Zeedan analyzes political trends, leadership, and the effects on Arab-Palestinian identity in Israel of recent changes, especially the 2015 legislative elections. The author also sheds light on the crisis and identifies the sources and relations to the local political structure in Arab localities in Israel. The book discusses the implications of the integration of an ethnic minority in an ethnic state and on the definition of Israel as “Jewish and Democratic.”

The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not just another contest by competing nationalisms or an instance of geopolitical competition. It is also about control of sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each with their own interests and stake in what transpires. This balanced introduction to a complex subject presents the multiple positions within the great monotheistic traditions. It demonstrates that the secular discourses in the public square concerning ownership privileges, historical precedence, political rights, and justice that have allegedly replaced religious claims actually coexist with, and often complement, the theological. It explores the century-long tangle of secular and theological debates about Israel's legitimacy. Whether readers support a Jewish state or are resolutely opposed, the serious and substantial scholarship of this well-reasoned and innovative book will contribute to a nuanced and better-informed understanding of this persistent issue that has entered its second century on the international agenda.

From Desert to Town sheds light on the sedentarisation and integration of Bedouin living in fellahin towns and villages in the Galilee, between 1700 and 2020. The purpose is to analyse the dynamics of the factors and circumstances that led to this migration. Official history has always lacked data on the Bedouin population in Palestine. Historians have recorded the biography of particular elites, and especially in the context of local warfare and tribal antagonisms, but have hitherto neglected ongoing migration from desert life to town life of Bedouin in the Galilee. The historical record is further complicated by the Bedouin themselves, who over time have been reluctant to register with governmental authority, whether Ottoman, British, or Israeli. This book brings together the available historical information combined with ethnographic data, from which it is possible to derive, analyse, and infer much information about Bedouin life in the Galilee over the past three hundred years. The move from rural to town for populations world-wide has dominated twentieth-century migration patterns. The move from desert life, as opposed to the move from rural life, has distinctive features, making the Bedouin case unique in its social complexity: from change in the use of language to the economic underpinning of intermarriage. A comprehensive understanding of the process of Bedouin settlement and integration into urban society has major social, cultural and economic implications for the wider Israeli society. The work is a major contribution to government planning at many levels, including population disbursement and education.

In 1948, a war broke out that would result in Israeli independence and the erasure of Arab Palestine. Over twenty months, thousands of Jews and Arabs came from all over the world to join those already on the ground to fight in the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces and the Arab Liberation Army. With this book, the young men and women who made up these armies come to life through their letters home, writing about everything from daily life to nationalism, colonialism, race, and the character of their enemies. Shay Hazkani offers a new history of the 1948 War through these letters, focusing on the people caught up in the conflict and its transnational reverberations. Dear Palestine also examines how the architects of the conflict worked to influence and indoctrinate key ideologies in these ordinary soldiers, by examining battle orders, pamphlets, army magazines, and radio broadcasts. Through two narratives—the official and unofficial, the propaganda and the personal letters—Dear Palestine reveals the fissures between sanctioned nationalism and individual identity. This book reminds us that everyday people's fear, bravery, arrogance, cruelty, lies, and exaggerations are as important in history as the preoccupations of the elites.

Examining the development of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinian refugee issue, this book spans the period following the first Arab-Israeli War until the mid-1950s, when the basic principles of Israel’s policy were finalized. Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue outlines and analyzes the various aspects that, together, created the mosaic of the "refugee problem" with which Israel has since had to contend. These aspects include issues of repatriation, resettlement, compensation, blocked bank accounts, internal refugees and family reunification. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book uses documents from Israeli government meetings, from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and files from the office of the Prime Minister’s advisor on Arab affairs to address the many diverse aspects of this topic, and will be essential reading for academics and researchers with an interest in Israel, the Middle East, and political science more broadly.