The Shrinking Space of Citizenship

Ethnocratic Politics in Israel

by Oren Yiftachel
published in MER223

On February 14, 2002, the Israeli government sent several light planes to spray 12,000 dunams of crops in the southern Negev region with poisonous chemicals. The destroyed fields had been cultivated for years by Bedouin Arabs, on ancestral lands they claim as their own. The minister responsible for land management, Avigdor Lieberman, explained:

We must stop their illegal invasion of state land by all means possible. The Bedouins have no regard for our laws; in the process we are losing the last resources of state lands. One of my main missions is to return to the power of the Land Authority in dealing with the non-Jewish threat to our lands. [1]

Living on the Edge

The Threat of 'Transfer' in Israel and Palestine

by Robert Blecher
published in MER225

Palestinians in Israel

by Hassan Jabareen
published in MER217

The mass demonstrations of Palestinian citizens of Israel during the first week of October represent a new stage of resistance and a transformation in the Palestinians’ struggle in Israel. The demonstrations were the culmination of several years of political ferment during which Palestinians in Israel asserted their collective identity as Palestinians and as citizens.

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"A Double Responsibility"

Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Intifada

by Chris Toensing
published in MER217

Azmi Bishara, a contributing editor of this magazine, represents the National Democratic Assembly (NDA), a party advocating cultural autonomy and civil rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, in the Knesset. He spoke with Middle East Report on November 29, 2000, the day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak preempted a likely vote of no confidence by calling early elections. In 1999, Bishara ran for prime minister on the NDA ticket.

In early October, Palestinians inside Israel protested very vocally in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Why did that happen this time around, when it had not happened so much during the last intifada?

Letters of Warning

The Or Commission in Israel

by Jonathan Cook | published March 18, 2002

The Case of Azmi Bishara

Political Immunity and Freedom in Israel

by Gad Barzilai | published January 9, 2001

Israel's Palestinians and the Politics of Law and Order

by Graham Usher | published September 23, 2000

Last week, a shocking case of Israeli police brutality in the occupied West Bank was reported in the Washington Post. Officers accosted three young Palestinians out delivering groceries, beat them and took photographs of themselves holding up the Palestinians' bloodied heads "like hunting trophies" for the camera. Aggression and erratic behavior on the part of Israeli police is routine in the Occupied Territories -- and familiar to Palestinian citizens of Israel itself.

Equal Rights for Arabs in Jewish State: A Goal Unrealizable

An Interview with Azmi Bishara

by Laurie King-Irani | published December 14, 1999

Land, Identity and the Limits of Resistance in the Galilee

by Laurie King-Irani
published in MER216

There has never been anything abstract about the longings of the Palestinians. The object of their longing has always been well defined: the places that had been left behind in 1948. For these places were, and still are, the dominant components of the Palestinian identity. -- Danny Rubinstein

Israeli Constitutional Committee Faces Double Bind

by Jonathan Cook
published in MER231