The Everyday Life of the State: A State-in-Society Approach

5. Nationalisms Compete: The Boundaries of Arab Political Participation in Israel

76 5 Nationalisms Compete The Boundaries of Arab Political Participation in Israel mAhA El-tAJi dAghASh The early years of the state of Israel show the use of the legal framework as a means for the dominant Jewish group to isolate and control the Arab citizens (Lustick 1979). Between 1948 and 1966, the Mandatory Defense Regulation (Emergency Regulations) of 1945 and the Emergency Defense Regulations (Security Areas Law) of 1949 were used to define the boundaries between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority.1 Thus, the Israeli government was able to impose military rule over the Arab minority for over eighteen years without specifically singling them out for such rule (Kemp 2004; Jiryis 1969). This was done to serve Israelis’ security needs and their fear of Arabs betraying the state in solidarity with their brethren across the Green Line. Furthermore, the Israeli legal “land regime” served as a tool that facilitated the transfer of vast amounts of land to the state, allocated that land to Jews, and ensured retention of that land by the dominant majority.2 The very nature of the state as a Jewish state also solidifies the separation between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. In Israel, there is no common identity that unifies the majority and the minority and, therefore, no basis for common citizenship. Arnon Bar-On argues that the 77 Nationalisms Compete state, as an ethnic state, is structurally bound to serve a particular group and to prioritize their social rights. The very equalization of those rights contradicts and defeats the purpose of the ethnic state. In his opinion, this structural separation is reversible. He argues that as Israel emerges from its nation-building phase and becomes more confident in its statehood, there will be more recognition that institutional discrimination is inconsistent with the principle that the democratic state must serve the needs of all its citizens (Bar-On 1994). The complex relationship between the Jewish state and its Arab citizens , especially the changes in the participation of the Arab minority in Israeli politics, can be usefully explored through Joel S. Migdal’s statein -society approach (2001a). Using the state-in-society lens, the relationship between the Israeli state and its Arab citizens appears dynamic and mutually constitutive. The very nature of Israel as a Jewish state made the rise of any Arab nationalist political party appear threatening to the existence of the state, and state agencies dealt with those parties with an iron fist. In this atmosphere, where the state met any sign of Arab nationalism with panic and where integration of the Arab population into the Jewish state violated the essence of the state’s “image,” Zionist parties created alliances with individual hamulas rather than answer demands made by parties representing Arab citizens as a national collective.3 The competition between the Zionist parties for the Arab vote and key Israeli Supreme Court decisions also played a role in creating and shaping the Arab political movements and parties. Furthermore, the Arab citizens of Israel are not homogenous, nor do they follow a uniform policy vis-à-vis the state and its institutions. At the same time that they were struggling against the hegemony of the Zionist parties, the various Arab parties competed among themselves for leadership of the Arab citizens and advocated various degrees of Arab nationalism. The contribution of this approach to the existing scholarly research is twofold. First, it challenges the static state-centric model that scholars tend to apply to the analysis of the majority-minority relationships in Israel. Instead, the state-in-society approach broadens the scope of analysis by removing the focus from the state as a unitary causal factor and by making room for various actors such as competing Zionist parties, the judiciary, and competing interests within the Arab minority (see Migdal 2001a, 53-55, 88-92). And, second, rather than being a result of Zionist party manipulation and control, the fragmentation of the Arab minority is explained as a 78 Maha El-Taji Daghash result of competition between Zionism and Arab nationalism, on the one hand, and among Arab nationalisms, on the other. Rather than examine the state and society relationship in the context of a controlling state and an acquiescent society, it becomes possible to explore change as a process and gives weight to the agency and choices exercised by multiple actors in the Arab minority. thE ArAb minority AS A...