Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Notes

Notes i n t r o d u c t i o n 1. For an explanation of our preference for the term Palestinian citizens of Israel to other labels sometimes used to describe the group this inquiry focuses on, see later in the introduction and in chapter 1. 2. A key event in this process is Land Day 1976 (see chapter 3). For an early account, see Matzpen 1976. 3. Alterman 1974. 4. Guri [1949] 1989: 252. 5. The emblematic case here is no doubt Hanoch Levin’s groundbreaking satirical play Malkat Ambatya (Queen of the Bathroom) (Levin 1987). The play, written and performed originally in 1970, mocks the macabre ritual in which Israeli parents proudly send their sons to certain death. An instant provocation, it was performed only nineteen times before being taken off stage as a result of public scandal, in which claims that the play hurts the feelings of bereaved par185 ents played a major role. The play remains a cornerstone in Israeli cultural history . 6. A clear statement of the mission and prospect of this version of liberal democracy can be found in Waltzer 1983. 7. Habermas 2002. 8. Attempts at comparative work include Gurr 1993 and Green 1994. For examples of theoretical insight, see Svensson 1979; Waltzer 1982; and Asch 1984. 9. Kymlicka 1995. 10. Kymlicka 2001; Kymlicka and Norman 2000. See also Brass 1991; Bennett 1998; Danley 1991; and Bhargava et al. 1999. 11. For studies of this tension, see Oommen 1997; Sheth and Mahajan 1999; and Tomasi 1995. 12. Zureik 1979 is probably the first explicit analysis of Israel as a colonial state. Gershon Shafir, in his 1989 analysis of land and labor within Zionism, highlights the specific circumstances of the Jewish national movement but nevertheless adheres to the colonial paradigm. Similar trajectories are echoed in Michael Shalev’s 1992 study of Israel’s split economy and Lev Greenberg’s 1991 analysis of Israel’s Labor movement. 13. See Lustick 1980. 14. Peled’s view of Israel as an “ethnic republic” (1992) is supported by works such as Rabinowitz 1997; Ghanem 1998, 2001; and Rouhana 1997. 15. Smooha 1990: 391. 16. Smooha’s work on ethnic democracy (1990) has attracted considerable criticism and debate. Ghanem (1998) identifies the inherent contradiction between Israel’s pretense to being a Western-style liberal democracy and its rather restrictive practices toward its Palestinian citizens and their collective rights. Yiftachel (1997) applies Donald Horowitz’s term ethnocracy (1985) to the Israeli case. 17. The total number of Palestinian refugees in 1948 is widely estimated to have been between 720,000 and 740,000. The number of Palestinians who remained within the borders of Israel (the Green Line) is often estimated to have been 160,000. The figure for Jews who lived in Palestine prior to 1948 (the Yishuv) is widely recognized to be 600,000. 18. Ghanem, Abu-Ras, and Rosenhak 2000: 22. 19. Ghanem, Abu-Ras, and Rosenhak 2000. In recent years, the unemployment figure for Israel at large has been fluctuating, from 8 percent in 1999 to 9 percent in 2002 to almost 11 percent in 2004. 20. Ibid., 24. For more details about the welfare policy for Palestinians in Israel, see Abu-Baker 2003b. 21. The rest of the Palestinian population lives in mixed towns. 22. See Ghanem, Abu-Ras, and Rosenhak 2000. With little or no industry and commerce, and with populations that are largely poor, Palestinian communities have a limited potential for income through local taxes. Not surprisingly, the 186 n o t e s t o pa g e s 4 – 7 financial deficits accumulated among Palestinian local councils in 1998 reached a staggering 800 million shekels. Ibid. 23. See Kretzmer 1990; Kedar 1996. 24. See Yiftachel, Khamaisi, and Kedar 2000. 25. Israel has an elaborate system of incentives and subsidies based on geographical zoning. While periodically reviewed, the system only seldom includes Palestinian towns and villages. 26. For many years, child benefits paid out by the national institute of social security were confined by law to families whose heads had served a full term in the Israel Defense Forces, thus excluding the vast majority of Palestinian families in Israel. 27. Some of these exclusionary practices go back to the formative period of the military government, imposed on the Palestinians inside Israel from 1948 to 1966. That period saw land confiscation on...