Vital Interests: Nadim, thanks very much for participating in the Vital Interest Forum. Last year, you published an important and well-received volume on Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State. The book offers insights into the history and current status of Palestinian citizens within the Israeli state. We hear a lot about Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, but not much about the Palestinians within Israel itself. Can you tell us about them and their situation?

Nadim Rouhana: The book seeks to inform readers about the experience of Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. When we speak of Palestinian citizens within Israel this doesn’t includes those in occupied East Jerusalem because Palestinians living there are not given the status of citizenship. They were granted the status of residents, as if they are not natives of their city or as if they moved to it from outside – from another country.

Palestinian citizens live in a state that is defined exclusively as the state of one people – the Jewish people, those who live in Israel itself but also those who live outside Israel. By definition Israel is the state of every single Jewish person in the world. By definition also, it is not the state of any Palestinian, including those who are formally their citizens. This has been the case since Israel was established in 1948. This definition of the Israeli state was actually constitutionalized in the mid 1980’s with a law that has constitutional status as Basic Law. Technically, Israel doesn't have a constitution, instead it has a series of laws called Basic Laws.

This Basic Law was about who can organize a political party and run for parliamentary election – to the Knesset. The law made it illegal for a party to run for Knesset elections if it challenges Israel as a Jewish state, or denies the right of Israel to be a Jewish state. There was a lot of debate in the Knesset but it became clear that the definition of Israel would be that it is the state of the Jewish people, rather than the state of its citizens, or even the state of the Jewish people and its Palestinian citizens. So, the ethnic exclusivity, or what is known in the literature as an ethnic state, which anyway was part of its raison d’etre, became constitutional. 

Another recent Basic Law - Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People – that was  adopted by the Knesset in 2018 makes it even clearer that self-determination in Israel is only for one of its two national groups: the Jewish people. It doesn't speak about equality for all citizens. This law was internationally criticized and was called by many, including in Israel, a racist law.

 These laws are added to a whole series of laws that aim to maintain Jewish political hegemony and superiority in effectively a binational state.  Most prominently, the Law of Return which gives any Jewish person the right to become a citizen immediately while Palestinians, those who “left” Palestine under the duress of war are not allowed to come back and their houses and all their properties were expropriated. This prohibition against Palestinians is so strict that even if a Palestinian citizen of Israel gets married to a Palestinian, say from the West Bank, the spouse from the West Bank is not allowed to live in Israel, let alone acquiring Israeli citizenship.

In my recent book that you mentioned, a group of scholars looked at what normally constitutes a citizen’s rights - legal definitions, land ownership, political  participation, etc. – and examined what kind of citizenship rights Palestinians are granted. The book covers a whole range of issues which show that being a Jewish citizen of Israel is not only a privilege but a form of supremacy. I avoided using that term in the title of the book and instead used “privileges” but I certainly would use it now. Palestinians are now clearly subordinated citizens in Israel whose very belonging to their homeland is denied.

Vital Interests: So, the reality is that Palestinian Arabs, who constitute 26% of the population of Israel, some 1.6 million people, live as settler colonial subjects, not as equal citizens? How can Israel be characterized as a representative democracy with this marginalization of minority rights?

Nadim Rouhana:  According to recent statistical information, 26 percent of Israel's population is not Jewish. Still, Israel is recognized as a Jewish state, and called a democracy. It's really quite a case of conflicting definitions. If anybody in the United States stated that this country was a White state, or a Christian state, they would justly be called racist. At the same time, people refer to Israel and support Israel as a Jewish state with little regard for its Palestinian people.

Now when you are considering the issue of the Palestinians in Israel, you also must look at the separate circumstances in Jerusalem, where close to 40 percent of the population are Arabs and do not even qualify as citizens. They have no citizenship rights and are granted only resident status. For example, they cannot vote for candidates for the Knesset. When you include the Palestinian community in the whole of Palestine, that is Israel and the Palestinian territories under its control, we are talking about only 50 percent or less of the population being Jewish.

Vital Interests: There does seem to be an ongoing struggle in Israel between the ardent proponents of a purely Jewish state and those who advocate for expanded citizenship rights for Palestinian Arabs. Recently there was media coverage of a vote in the Knesset for a law guaranteeing equality for Palestinian Israelis that was voted down. Can you explain the political dynamics in Israel over the question of an exclusively Jewish state?

Nadim Rouhana: The question of equality is fundamental, of course, for meaningful citizenship. The Nation-State Law that I mentioned does not discuss or even include the word equality. The Arab citizens (that is the Palestinian citizens) are completely against it because of that, and because it excludes them totally and constitutionalizes Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.  The term equality in Israel is sometimes used, but it is always with a caveat. You have equal rights in this area or that area but always the state is for Jews only. Therefore, equality fundamentally clashes with what Israel represents.

You have some political forces that support citizenship rights, that is granting Arab citizens more rights but always in a Jewish state. Whatever remains of the Zionist left supports more rights and argues that Israel can be Jewish and democratic. Which means it can be the state of the Jewish people only, not of its Arab citizens, and still you give Arabs some rights, equal rights actually, in some areas - in areas that they define and areas that do not challenge the concept of a Jewish state.

But when you come to the question of equality in its essence, Israel would not accept that. If you want a concept that does not characterize Israel, doesn't define Israel, it would be equality. Israel is a state against equality.

I'll give you one example. There is a small Arab party represented in the Knesset (with three Knesset members) that calls for Israel to be the state of all its citizens. This is something that would be a basic right in any democratic country.  Before every single  Knesset election, this party’s right to run for the Knesset is challenged by an official Elections Committee, and it goes to the Supreme Court. After heated debate, the Supreme Court lets the party’s candidates run for the Knesset. But the party is labelled as "extremists, anti-state” solely because they want Israel to be the state of all its citizens, a democratic state.

If they said in their political platform that Israel cannot and should not continue as a Jewish state, they would be ruled out, so they don't say that openly. They just say that their platform is that the state should be a state for all its citizens. This is vague enough for the Supreme Court to let them continue putting forward candidates for the Knesset.

Vital Interests: The bill that was recently rejected by the Knesset specified that: "Israel shall be a democratic state, guaranteeing equality and rights and concentrating on the principles of human dignity, liberty, and equality in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ...The state will provide equal protection to all its citizens, and will guarantee completely national, cultural, linguistic, and religious privacy to the two national groups within it, the Jews and the Arabs." Aren’t these sentiments the foundational rights expected in any democratic government?

Nadim Rouhana: Yes, exactly. The rejection of that proposed law, which not surprisingly was proposed by the Joint List - a coalition of small Arab parties in the Knesset - makes the point very clearly. At the same time, we have to understand there is something really fundamental in Israel's self-perception - that it wants to be Jewish and democratic. Anybody who questions that premise in the Israeli political culture is castigated as challenging the state itself.

But Israel cannot be Jewish and democratic. It's simple. The world has to understand that. Israel cannot be an exclusively ethnic state, openly so, and by constitution, with any Jewish person who is a citizen of another country, say the U.S., having more acceptability and belonging and rights in a state than 26 percent of its indigenous population, and still call itself democratic. 

Of course, the democratic connotation is important for Israel’s self-image, although now you see some forces on the Right in Israel, including in the ruling Likud Party, not really caring about democratic principles or the democratic image anymore. Their sentiment is: “We are a Jewish state, we want to be a Jewish state, and that's it.”

I find it particularly disturbing to witness democratic forces in the world ignoring this trend away from democratic principles in Israel and announcing "We recognize Israel as a Jewish state,"  instead of insisting that Israel adhere to the democratic norms expected from any other country in the world. 

Vital Interests: In any definition of a liberal democracy, and clearly articulated in international law, is the protection of the rights of minorities. To further cite from the bill rejected by the Knesset it sought to guarantee “to the aboriginal Palestinian Arab minority the just right to be represented and to be influential in all the branches of government in the state, in public institutions, in every setting where decisions are made...that the Palestinian Arab minority in the state will have the right to establish its own institutions in the realm of education, culture, and religion and will be authorized to manage these institutions via representative bodies chosen by Arab citizens.” And yet these basic democratic norms are ignored?

Nadim Rouhana: Well, that is right, but again, it goes back to that very fundamental identity of the state. Israel doesn't recognize its Arab citizens as a national minority. Again, constitutionally in Israel, they are not a national group. Arabs have been demanding this recognition of a national minority for a long time but in vain. Israel by reality on the ground is a bi-national state – in demographic composition, geographic spread, cultural affiliation, language, and national identity of Arabs and Jews: you have, in reality a national majority and you have a national minority. This is precisely why Israel does not recognize the Arabs as a national minority because then it becomes not only by reality on the ground a binational state but politically recognized reality. This of course negates its identity as a Jewish state.

Israel, like any colonial state, seeks to segment the Arabs. It refers to them as among minorities (miuutim in Hebrew)- Muslims, Christians, and Druze which are religious affiliations of various constituents of the Arab society. In fact Israel went as far completely segmenting one of the religious constituents  - the Druze community, and constructed a new, national group by using (or abusing) the educational system, drafting them to military service, and emphasizing their religious holidays. In the official Israeli discourse, the Palestinian citizens in Israel are referred to as minorities, or Arabs, Druze, and Bedouin to emphasize the segmentation, and never as Palestinians. 

The other thing is that in the halls of power in Israel, Arabs are not represented. Only recently, a small number of Arabs became represented in Israeli academia, but in policy making circles and in government ministries there are none. There was one case in the whole history of Israel where an Arab minister served in the government – but as a  Druze. 

Palestinians are represented in the Knesset but not in the centers of power and policy making. They are completely excluded because, according to the state,  developing policies is none of their business. This is the business of the people whom the state seeks to represent, to be their state, for the Jewish citizens not Palestinians.

Vital Interests: We’ve discussed the status of the Palestinian Arabs within the Israeli state, what about the 5 1/2 million Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza? What is the status of these people?

Nadim Rouhana: Soon after the June war in 1967, Israel expanded its borders by annexing East Jerusalem. Together with West Jerusalem, the city became “the eternal capital of Israel.” So, by international law, a major part of the Israeli capital is occupied. While annexing East Jerusalem, Israel did not extend citizenship to its Palestinian population. These Palestinians have the right of residence, but this is an unstable status that can be restricted or taken away in certain situations.  For example, if a Palestinian from East Jerusalem leaves the country for a  time – let’s say to study or work abroad, their residency in Jerusalem can be questioned and they might lose their right to come back to their city and their home. Thousands of Palestinians lost the right to come back.

The Palestinians living throughout the West Bank are under yet a different status, they are under Israeli military control. There's no sovereignty for Palestinians there,  every aspect of life is controlled by the Israeli government. The Palestinians in the Gaza strip live under siege.

We are talking about populations who are stateless. This is something really fundamental to understand because the West Bank is a territory under occupation. These people do not have citizenship in any state, and so they are basically stateless - so are the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the Gaza strip. By the same concept, one can say that Palestinians in Israel are, despite limited citizenship rights, actually stateless. 

Israel tells them in a constitutional language that it is not their state. We have to understand that the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, comes at a very high price for all Palestinians – who are the native population of the land. Palestinians from the West Bank are not allowed to come to Israel, are not allowed even to visit their historical capital Jerusalem. Palestinians everywhere are stateless. Statelessness is a defining feature of being a Palestinian in large part because of Israel’s insistence of being a Jewish state.

I think what's happening now is that Palestinians are starting to understand that being stateless is a common experience unifying all their communities. Palestinians have to prioritize the right to be citizens, the right to be in their land, and the right to be equal. This truly is what defines the conflict with Israel, and what defines the meaning of their future self-determination, rather than the hopeless pursuit of a state in the West Bank that Israel fully controls and colonizes in the classical settler colonial traditions.

Vital Interests: Let's look at the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian National Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has some administrative and policing control in certain areas. But there are also two parties, Fatah and Hamas, representing Palestinians living in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Fatah is the party of Mahmoud Abbas, and they have control of the West Bank, and then there is Hamas, which has their power center in Gaza. Can you explain this dynamic?

Nadim Rouhana: The Palestinian Authority, in 1994, was formed subsequent to the Oslo Accords. Mahmoud Abbas was elected as president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005 after the first president Yasser Arafat died of a mysterious illness. Although the Palestinian Authority plays the game of a government and in effect is a governmental institution, in reality, the Palestinian Authority is under complete Israeli control. The West Bank is divided into three areas – A, B, and C - and the Palestinian Authority has limited governmental power in all three areas – the least in area C which constitutes 60% of the West Bank. 

After Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006, a national unity government of Hamas and Fatah was formed but collapsed in 2007 after a conflict between the two sides. Abbas and his Fatah Party took control in the West Bank and Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. As a result, Israel put Gaza under siege. Gazans can't leave Gaza, to go any place, certainly not to the West Bank and neither can people in the West Bank go to Gaza. The two parts are completely separated and no movement from one part to another is allowed by Israel.

The conflict between Fatah and Hamas has been going on now for about 15 years. All efforts to bring the two parties together have so far failed. The point is that this separation is clearly against the interests of Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have the kind of leadership that perpetuates this division. Instead of working together as people under siege and occupation, and actually under an ongoing project of settler colonialism, the Palestinians are separated by their own partisan disputes in addition to all the forms of separation that Israel imposes. It is a very regrettable situation. Palestinians need to accept responsibility for how detrimental it is for their liberation struggle. 

The political divide among Palestinians, of course, is supported and nourished by Israel. It is used as an excuse to say, "There is no partner on the other side with which we can negotiate in any meaningful way." This is not accurate because Abbas is charged as the president of the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel for a roadmap to achieving a Palestinian state. 

Vital Interests: Earlier this summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for annexation of areas in the West Bank. Right-wing factions in Israel refer to the West Bank as the ancestral Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria and advocate for a Jewish state extending from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

Annexation plans were put on hold because of the so-called peace deal that the Trump administration came up with to normalize relationships between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Where does that leave the Palestinians? 

Nadim Rouhana: This whole thing started with the ambition of President Trump and his team to take another approach to bring peace to the Middle East. Regrettably, the American administration is representing the ambitions of Israeli right-wing extremists rather than acting as an impartial broker with some credibility. The plan was prepared with the Israeli government and Palestinians were completely ignored and left out.

Mr. Netanyahu’s political future was in jeopardy because of domestic problems related to charges of deception, breach of trust, and receiving bribes, so annexation became a trump card, he thought, to maintain his base. In considering what parts of the West Bank to annex, he was negotiating with the other extreme Israeli parties, the settlers movement, and with the Trump administration. The extreme right-wing and the religious nationalists, wanted to have sovereignty over the entire West Bank. Then the Palestinians would be confined to isolated areas, like the Bantustans in apartheid South Africa.

Other forces wanted to annex only two partsm - Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank, that has less than 200,000 Palestinians but many substantial Jewish settlements and the settlements themselves. If you include the settlements in and near East Jerusalem, we are talking about close to 800,000 settlers, and hundreds of settlements.

If the settlements and Area C, covering a major part of the Jordan Valley, are annexed, that is the major part of the West Bank. But in effect nobody knew exactly what areas Netanyahu was talking about because he was in negotiations with all these parties. Most observers think that his plans were limited to about 30%. 

Annexation was stopped, in my view, not because of the normalization arrangements with the two Arab Gulf states, but rather because of the quick and vocal international condemnation of any annexation of areas in the West Bank. Other than the United States, there was no other support for Netanyahu’s plans. The European Union was particularly against annexation, as were Arab countries and many others. It was stopped because of that, not because of the “peace agreements” between Israel and the two gulf states. The so-called “peace agreements” are a different story as they are more of normalization pacts leading to new coalitions. There was no war with the UAE or Bahrain. There are no common borders. The coalitions are related to the strategic interests of Israel and undemocratic Arab states like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that have nothing to do with the Palestinian struggle for recognition and equality. 

It's a coalition to serve the interests of Israel, mainly to give it legitimacy, access to economic and security cooperation, a foothold in the Gulf, and serve the interests of these small states, vis-a-vis the competition between Saudi Arabia - their ally, and Iran.

Vital Interests: Perhaps this will incentivize Palestinian factions to put aside their differences.  In Istanbul this week, Turkey brokered a meeting between Hamas and Fatah, which reportedly went fairly well. There was talk about reconciliation and an agreement to hold new elections. President Abbas is 85 and the leadership of Hamas are hardened veterans - could this bring new and younger leaders into power? 

Nadim Rouhana: For the first time in many years, Palestinians have hope that these reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas will work to break the status quo. There is a sense among Palestinians that things are going too far in the wrong direction, and that they are losing the ground on which they stand. Abbas is losing popularity in the West Bank. Very few believe that a two-state future is possible.

The more important hope is that reconciliation between the two parties can bridge two different worldviews - Hamas has its more Islamist outlook while Fatah has a secular nationalist party ambition. The important thing for reconciliation is that it opens the door for two things that are related. If you have new elections you should be open to new leadership and new blood, and you should bring in people who have different experiences in life, people who were born under occupation, and grew up under occupation. New visions might start to emerge. 

Number two, and this is equally important, if not more important, is building the Palestinian representative institutions like the PLO and the Palestinian National Council.  I would, for one, be hopeful if there was a new generation of Palestinians represented in these institutions for the simple reason, that a two-state solution has always been, and more clearly now, impossible. You need fresh, new, innovative, humanistic, universalistic thinking about the future of Palestinians in their homeland.

That homeland includes the whole of Palestine, meaning Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and of course, Jerusalem, in which every single citizen, including Israelis, of course, is equal. Israelis, in that vision, have to give up their colonialist privileges and supremacy in order to be part of a new collective. This is in a nutshell, what somebody like me would be arguing for - two national groups, living equally, in a common homeland, without the privileges of Israelis, which means, frankly, without Zionism. For Palestinians, it would mean accepting Israelis without their Zionism, as a legitimate part of that place and as partners in the homeland redefined as the homeland of the two groups in equality and justice.

To your question, the Palestinian current leadership isn't capable of even imagining something like that. I doubt it. You need new blood, new generations, new thinking. You need a new generation of Palestinians, and for that matter, of Israelis, and supporters of equality and justice in a common homeland including Jewish groups in this country - the United States. Groups that understand and call for equality, dignity, universal rights, no control of one group over another. These are the defining issues of the future. Not whether you will have a small canton in the West Bank, and you can call it a state to be controlled by a colonial power. It needs a revolution in political thinking and a psychological revolution on both sides.

Vital Interests: Nadim, we're coming to the end of our time. We like to end conversations on a positive note, and I think you've just presented us with one. This is a tense and pivotal point for Palestinian-Israeli relations. As you said, there is hope that the events that are going on now can produce a new united movement for the Palestinian people that will bring hope for the future.

Nadim Rouhana: Thank you, John.

Nadim Rouhana is Professor of International Affairs and Conflict Studies and Director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at the Tufts University Fletcher School. In addition to research and writing on conflict studies and international negotiation, Dr. Rouhana’s research includes work (in Arabic, English, and Hebrew) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, collective identity and democratic citizenship in multi- ethnic states, settler colonialism, and questions of reconciliation and transitional justice. His most recent books include “Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State"(Cambridge University Press, 2017); and “The Palestinians in Israel: Readings in history, politics, and society” (Mada al-Carmel, 2015).