Abstract: The author argues that an effective strategy to implement the Right of Return depends on the success of anti-racist campaigners to expose and defeat the racist basis of opposition to Palestinian return by removing the ‘demographic’ issue from current discourse. Israeli opposition to the Right of Return based on so-called ‘demographic problems’ is in fact a code for racialised and racist policy. This article argues, that by doing so, the central obstacle to effecting the Right of Return will be excised, and the prospect of an egalitarian, bi-national state can become a realistic prospect.
INTRODUCTION
There have been many articles on the Palestinian Right of Return, a number of them illustrating how this right is legal, moral and practical. The starting point of such articles is to begin with the Palestinian refugees themselves, especially those in the Diaspora outside Palestine. Others look at the possibilities that might emerge from a Palestinian mini-state on the West Bank and Gaza. This article attempts to approach the subject from a different perspective – namely, to examine the possibilities that arise from a study of those Palestinians who are Israeli citizens – the Israeli Arabs.
The justification for this approach is the oft-repeated excuse from the Israeli government and its supporters that permitting the Palestinian Right of Return would be a ‘demographic disaster’. The use of the term ‘demographic’ in this instance is a propagandistic euphemism for ‘racial’. This is, to use a colloquialism, ‘the bottom line’. Even after it is demonstrated that the Right of Return is indeed legal, moral and practical, the Israeli government and its supporters will continue to object on ideological grounds to its implementation. A glance at Zionist and Israeli state history will demonstrate why this is so. Moreover, as the US State Department observed, senior Israeli leaders use the same terminology about Arabs who are Israeli citizens:
‘Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in December at a major public policy conference that Israeli Arabs presented a “demographic problem” in the country elicited strong criticism, especially from civil rights groups and Israeli-Arab leaders.’[1]
Similar sentiments were expressed by the infamous Koenig Memorandum, produced by the Ministry of the Interior which noted that ‘The natural increase of the Arab population in Israel is 5.9% annually against a natural increase of 1.5% annually among the Jewish population.’[2] This official Government document denotes this as a ‘problem’.
It follows that an effective strategy to implement the Right of Return depends on the success of anti-racist campaigners to expose and defeat the racist basis of opposition to this sacred right, and remove the ‘demographic’ issue from the equation. In fact, this article will argue, that by doing so, the central obstacle to effecting the Right of Return will be excised.
1. ZIONIST AND ISRAELI STATE IDEOLOGY
In Britain, the definition of a citizen of the United Kingdom is based on civic identity. One becomes a citizen either through birth or naturalisation. Once naturalised, all the rights pertaining to those born with UK citizenship become inherent to the new citizen. Neither race nor creed play any role in British citizenship (the role of the Crown in relation to the Churches of England and Scotland, and the 1689 Act of Settlement are historically-based and perform only nominal roles in the state, and certainly do not impact on the everyday life of the citizen).
This is best emphasised by immigration rules, which allow any citizen of another state born overseas and with a British grandparent to attain UK citizenship. It does not matter whether that grandparent was Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim, White or Brown, etc., the law is colour-blind. ‘Britishness’ does not consist in being a White Protestant, but in being a UK citizen, with all the rights and duties attached thereto. Britain is officially viewed as the land of the British, irrespective of demographic considerations.
Israeli state ideology, however, is totally different. The Israeli State is the realisation of Zionism, based on Theodore Herzl’s book The Jewish State. The central ideology of the state is based on racial and creedal identity. Immediately, we can see a major difference with British state ideology – and for that matter with that of France and America. The Israeli scholar Dr Uri Davis has observed that it is a common misnomer to refer to ‘Israel’s Declaration of Independence’ on 15 May 1948:
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel – popularly and wrongly known as ‘Israel’s Declaration of Independence’ – does not declare Israel an independent state, nor does it declare Israel a sovereign state; rather it declares Israel a Jewish state:
We, the members of the National Council representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist Movement, are met together in solemn assembly today, the day of termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine to be called Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel) (Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, 15 May 1948 (henceforth Declaration 111948) (original Hebrew).[3]
This is effectively admitted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry: ‘The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, signed on 14 May 1948 by members of the National Council representing the Jewish community in the country and the Zionist movement abroad…’[4] Its establishment was not based on the common or even majority consent of its citizens-to-be, but rather on ‘the natural and historic right of the Jewish people’. It defines itself as the state of ‘the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.’[5] Note it does not define itself as ‘the sovereign Israeli people settled in its own land.’
This is a vital point to bear in mind when we consider the Palestinian Right of Return. Unlike state ideology in Britain and America, ‘Israeliness’ and more concretely Israeli nationality is not based on the liberal-Western concept of civic identity and sovereignty; rather, it is based on race and creed. That is, Israeli state ideology of its own national character is inherently racist and sectarian. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs demonstrates how it views ‘Israeliness’, and ‘Jewishness’ as practically synonymous: ‘Israel is a land and a people. The history of the Jewish people, and of its roots in the Land of Israel, spans some 35 centuries.’[6] Arabs are thus excluded.
For example, when Professor Georges Tamarin petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to change his national designation from ‘Jew’ to ‘Israeli’, the court ruled against him, revealingly stating that: ‘there is no Israeli nation apart from the Jewish people and the Jewish people consists not only of the people residing in Israel but also of the Jews residing in the Diaspora.’[7]It is unimaginable that the US Supreme Court could ever rule that ‘there is no American nation apart from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant people and the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant people consists not only of the people residing in America but also of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants residing around the world.’ This ideology goes back to Herzl, who clearly viewed the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians as essential to the Zionist project:
…they might be usefully employed in the removal of dangerous snakes and other distasteful or perilous tasks in the settlements to be developed by the Zionists…. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We will try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own.[8]
Thus, a Jewish state could only be formed by ethnic cleansing. The Israeli scholar Tom Segev notes that ‘The idea of transfer [i.e. ethnic cleansing] had accompanied the Zionist movement from its very beginnings, first appearing in Theodor Herzl’s diary.’[9] Yossef Weitz, who from the early 1930s had been in charge of the settlement department of the Jewish National Fund, noted in his diary in 1940: ‘Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country… And there is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, to transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe, should be left.[10] He repeated this view in the Israeli magazine Davar in 1967.[11] Knowing that demographic realities demanded this for the success of their vision; the Zionists established a ‘Committee for Population Transfer’ in the 1930s.
All suggestions that the state should be declared the state of all its citizens have been firmly rejected. Thus, the ‘State of Israel’ is not the State of the Israelis (Jewish or Arab); rather it is the State of the Jews, (whether Israeli or not). In fact, in 1985 this was introduced into the Basic Law regarding political parties, which can be banned from electoral participation if their platform involves ‘negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people’: ‘By this law no party whose programme openly opposes the principle of “a Jewish state”, or proposes to change it by democratic means, is allowed to participate in the elections to the Knesset.’[12] The Israeli Foreign Ministry confirms this, observing that the Basic Law regarding elections to the Knesset prohibits the candidacy of anyone whose policies involve the ‘negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’.[13]
Again, the parallel would have been if the Mississippi State Supreme Court had ruled in 1954, in answer to the US Supreme Court judgment on desegregation, that Mississippi prohibited the candidacy of anyone whose policies involved the ‘negation of the existence of the State of Mississippi as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and democratic state’. This would have prevented Martin Luther King’s campaign for civil rights even if he could have registered Blacks to vote; in effect, they could not have voted for parties opposed to Segregation. The same is true of South Africa under Apartheid; granting full citizenship and enfranchisement to the Blacks would have been a demographic disaster for the Afrikaner nature of the state.
In fact, this analogy is extremely pertinent to the issue of Palestinian Return. The principal objection to Desegregation is that Blacks would be enfranchised, and thus the White, Redneck character of the South would be destroyed. Black enfranchisement would be a ‘demographic disaster’ for the White South; Palestinian Return would be a ‘demographic disaster’ for the Jewish State. Ultimately, both objections rested on racist state ideology. Thus, technically speaking, if an Israeli party merely wanted to advocate that the State should become the state of all its citizens, it could be legally excluded. This demonstrates that the Zionist State is not truly a democracy. This goes right back to the ideological foundations of Zionism. Segev observes ‘the Zionist dream ran counter to the principles of democracy’, opposing democracy because Arabs were the majority.[14]
It is clear from this that in the ideology of Zionism and the nature of the Zionist State there is really no place for any Arabs in the State, and certainly not if their numbers increase. This is the unintended admission by Israeli leaders and apologists when denying the Palestinian right of return, as demanded by UN Resolution 194. Once this is understood, we can see that even were the Israeli authorities to admit that the Palestinian Right of Return was legal, moral and practical, they would still oppose it on ideological grounds, since the principal objection to the fulfilment of UN Resolution 194 is ‘demographic’ – i.e. racial and creedal.
It follows from this that campaigners for the Right of Return have missed a major – perhaps, the major means for arguing for its implementation. Israeli Arabs are an oppressed minority, denied full nationality. If a pluralistic, civic Israeli nationality were to be established, along the lines of British or American identity, the central objection to the Right of Return would disappear, since ‘demographic’ considerations would play no role in the reformed state ideology.
2. THE ISRAELI LAW OF RETURN AND ISRAELI ARAB DISPOSSESSION
The central Pillar of Israeli state ideology is the 1950 Law of Return. It is ‘the cornerstone of the Israeli Nationality Law (1952).’[15] Ben-Gurion’s speech introducing the Act defined the law as ‘the principle of sovereignty by force of which the state of Israel was established.’[16] He also stated that the right of settlement in the land that the law recognised was ‘inherent by virtue of one’s being a Jew…’[17] It must be emphasised that he did not say that this right was ‘inherent by virtue of one’s being an Israeli’. In fact, its provisions have no direct relation to Israelis as such. Its focus is purely on those viewed as Jews by race or religion. It need scarcely be stated that the law does not apply to Israeli Arabs, still less other Palestinians, as the US State Department observes:
Under the Law of Return, the Government grants automatic citizenship and residence rights to Jewish immigrants and their families; the Law of Return does not apply to non-Jews or to persons of Jewish descent who have converted to another faith… The Government welcomes Jewish immigrants, their Jewish or non-Jewish family members, and Jewish refugees, on whom it confers automatic citizenship and residence rights under the Law of Return. Beginning in February, children of female converts to Judaism are eligible to immigrate only if the children were born after the woman’s conversion. The Law of Return does not apply to non-Jews or to persons of Jewish descent who have converted to another faith.[18]
Hence, the Law of Return applies only to Jews; a Jew from London can immediately migrate to Haifa or even the West Bank; an Israeli Arab, born in Haifa, if he emigrates, can never return, even if he served in the army and was decorated for bravery – even if he saved the life of the Prime Minister. His citizenship is stripped from him, solely because of his race. It must be emphasised that this affects even Druze and Bedouin who serve in the armed forces, even if they were officers or highly decorated. Similarly, although there has been a Druze member of the government, and there has been an Israeli Arab as an ambassador, neither of these people qualifies under the Law of Return, despite their undoubted loyalty and service to the State. They are victimised by the Law solely because of their race and religion.
Indeed, it must be emphasised that even if an Israeli Jew is a paedophile, even if he is a murderer, even if he is a traitor who spied for the Syrians (and there have been such people), he may serve a prison sentence during which time his enjoyment of the rights of Israeli citizenship is removed, but not the rights themselves. However disloyal he may be, his genes and religion guarantee his rights. In contrast, however loyal the Israeli Arab may be, his genes and religion guarantee the denial of his rights. It follows from this that a campaign of equal rights for Israeli Arabs would include the equalisation of the Law of Return and its ‘de-ethnicitising’ as well. Again, this would further sweep away barriers to the Palestinian Right of Return. By fighting for equal rights for Israeli Arabs, the rights of Palestinian refugees would be enhanced.
This has an immediate relevance to the Israeli Arabs themselves. It is frequently overlooked that as well as the expulsion of Palestinians to the surrounding countries, the West Bank and Gaza, an internal displacement of Israeli Arabs occurred even after the Armistice. The best known case is that of Biram and Ikrit, two Christian villages that submitted to Israeli rule in 1948. Israeli soldiers asked them to move out temporarily, but after the armistice refused to let them return.[19] Despite receiving Supreme Court decisions allowing their return in 1951 and 1952, the military obstructed this and dynamited the entire two villages, with the Air Force bombing them in 1953 – surely a relatively, if not completely unique usage of an Air Force against its only peaceful, loyal citizens during a cease-fire.[20] The land was then handed to Jewish settlements.
Golda Meir, whilst Premier, rejected their right of return, (even though the Supreme Court again found in their favour in 1972), on the grounds that ‘the villagers were gentiles – Maronite and Greek (Melkite) Catholics. Their lands were now occupied by Jewish immigrants. Allowing the original residents to return and rebuild, she noted, would therefore be an erosion of Zionist values.’[21] Representatives of the residents met Golda Meir in 1972, demanding the implementation of the Court decision, to which she replied ‘Impossible. For state reasons, we cannot allow them to return.’[22] ‘State’ reasons will be explained by our examination of Israeli State ideology later. Meir repeated this on Israeli radio: ‘For state reasons, we will never give them the right to return’, and went on to add that allowing them that right ‘would establish an undesirable precedent.’[23] Clearly, that precedent would mean the return of land ownership and residence to Israeli Arabs elsewhere, and indeed, to Palestinian refugees. Subsequent court rulings have always been ignored by the government, similar to the way Southern states in the USA rebelled against the 1954 Supreme Court ruling ordering desegregation:
The Government has yet to agree with the pre-1948 residents of the northern villages of Bir Am and Ikrit, and their descendants, regarding their long-term demand to be allowed to rebuild their houses. In 1997 a special inter-ministerial panel recommended that the Government allow the villagers to return to Bir Am and Ikrit. The High Court has granted the Government several extensions for implementing the recommendation. In October after the expiration of the most recent extension, under instructions from the Sharon government, the State Prosecutor’s Office submitted an affidavit to the High Court asking it to reject the villagers’ appeal, stating that the Government had legally appropriated the land and that the precedent of returning displaced persons to their villages would be used for propaganda and political purposes by the Palestinian Authority.[24]
The inhabitants of Biram and Ikrit are the best known examples of internally displaced Israeli Arabs, but by no means the only ones. The dispossession has continued ever since the state was formed. Changing state ideology so that Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews to the Law of Return would not only impact on the discrimination that they face, but also on their brothers in the refugee camps.
3. DISCRIMINATION AND THE ISRAELI ARAB BIRTH RATE
It is noteworthy that when Reverend Elias Chacour met anti-Apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in 1986, the latter informed the former that the situation of Palestinians was worse than that of Black South Africans – something he would not have said lightly.[25] Israeli Arabs are not, despite Zionist propaganda, equal citizens. Instead, as the Evangelical relief agency World Vision have observed, ‘the Israeli legal system embodies a type of discrimination which is similar to that found under apartheid.’[26]
The ‘Pillars of Apartheid’ in South Africa were the Population Registration Act, which defined everyone on the basis of race and thus designated what rights they would enjoy; the Land Act that reserved 87% of land for Whites; the Group Areas Act which designated where different ethnic groups could live. The corresponding Israeli laws are the Population Registry Act, which defines everyone on the basis of ‘nationality’ (i.e. race) and creed, and the Land Act, which in effect reserves about 93% of the Land for exclusive Jewish ownership and residence.
The Israeli State is as abnormal as was South Africa, and its consistent policy towards its Arab citizens is to deny them full and equal rights. Since America is the regime’s closest ally and largest provider of funds, it is most appropriate to quote the US State Department as a source that cannot be accused of anti-Israeli bias. An article examining the U.S. Country Reports on ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories’ for 1989 observed what the situation was:
… ‘Israel’s Arab citizens have … not shared fully in the rights granted to Jewish citizens.’… ‘Israel welcomes Jewish immigrants … to whom it gives automatic citizenship and residence rights,’ while it denies such citizenship and residence rights to Palestinians living in refugee camps in the West Bank and in Gaza who were born in Israel, and whose very lands Israel has expropriated and holds ‘in trust for the Jewish people.’…The fourth basic law is Israel’s status law, which gives Israel’s citizens with ‘Jewish nationality’ certain rights and privileges which are denied to Israel’s citizens with ‘Arab nationality.’[27]
The Report for 2005 shows how little progress was made:
The Government did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens, who constituted approximately 20 percent of the population but did not share fully the rights and benefits provided to, and obligations imposed on, the country’s Jewish citizens.[28]
The reference to discrimination that is ‘institutional’ and ‘legal’ is significant. Societal discrimination may occur against people of certain races or creeds in Britain and America, but this is not the same as the former kind of discrimination such as characterised the US South and Apartheid South Africa. The US State Department in effect has clarified that the Israeli Stateitself is engaged in fundamental discrimination against its Arab citizens. This also extends to resources allocation;
The Government did not allocate sufficient resources or take adequate measures to provide Israeli Arabs, who constitute approximately 20 percent of the population, with the same quality of government services, as well as the same opportunities for government employment, as Jews. In addition, government spending was proportionally far lower in predominantly Arab areas than in Jewish areas; on a per capita basis, the Government spent two-thirds as much for Arabs as for Jews. The Government noted in a 2002 report to the U.N. that “the Arab population is typified by larger families, lower levels of education, and lower income than the total Israeli population.” … the “Government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory,” that the Government “did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action to allocate state resources in an equal manner.”[29]
Unfortunately, these facts are generally unknown to the wider Western public, and whilst media and party political bias are somewhat to blame for this, a major responsibility must rest with anti-racist campaigners and especially Arab and Muslim communities in the West. Were the general public in the UK and USA more aware of this discrimination, a campaign for Israeli Arab equal rights would probably generate serious public support. The ‘knock-on’ effect for the plight of the refugees can be imagined.
Another factor that should be borne in mind brings us back to Netanyahu’s infamous comment – the Israeli Arab birth rate. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) observes that there has been a steady growth in the Arab population:
At the end of 2001, the Arab population of Israel numbered 1.2 million people … 8 times its size in 1948 (156,000 people); according to the forecast of the CBS, it is expected to number some 2 million… The Arab population currently comprises 19% of the population of Israel, similar to its proportion in 1948. In the 1950s, following the mass immigration of Jews, the proportion of the Arab population decreased to 11%… According to the CBS forecast, in 2020 it is expected to be between 21% and 24%.[30]
The Arab birth rate is considerably higher than that of the Jews.[31] For example, ‘Arab children make up approximately one-quarter of the public school population…’[32] The CBS observes that:
The rate of growth of the Arab population of Israel – 3.4% on average per year – is one of the highest in the world…As a result of a high level of fertility, the Arab population is very young… youngsters aged 0-19 comprise 51% of this population, and only 3% are 65 and older. For the sake of comparison, in the Jewish population, the corresponding percentages are 34% (youngsters aged 0-19) and 11% (aged 65 and older)…[33]
Further, ‘On average, an Arab family totals 5.4 persons, almost two persons more than a Jewish family.’[34] The Report notes that the Arab population, despite massive Jewish immigration, has remained at about 19%, the same percentage as in 1948. Others have estimated that if it had not been for the substantial Jewish immigration from the ex-USSR in the 1980s and ‘90s, Arabs would now comprise 25% of the Israeli population.[35] Indeed, it is observed that: ‘Projecting into the future, if there is no further massive immigration, the Israeli Arabs will represent over 25 percent of the population within 10 years. If their birthrate continues, the Arab population will double in about 23 years.’[36] Thus, unless the regime finds some other means of attracting Jewish immigrants, or reducing the Arab community, all things being equal, Arabs will eventually become the majority.
Thus, the ‘demographic’ argument is open to the charge of racism on another count; what will the Israeli government do when Arabs reach 50% – or more? Moreover, since it seems inevitable that demographic changes will eventually lead to an Arab majority, at which point there would be no electoral obstacle to the Right of Return, why delay the inevitable? Surely it would smooth relations if the nettle were grasped now rather than later, breeding more animosity in the future?
CONCLUSION
The biggest obstacle to the Right of Return is the racist/sectarian ‘demographic’ argument. Its existence reflects the racist/sectarian character of the State. It should be noted that as a result of ‘nativist’ sentiment in the 1920s and the influence of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, America passed laws to prevent Eastern and Southern European (i.e. non-Nordic Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish) immigration, but as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, the 1965 Kennedy Immigration law was passed, leading to an influx of Hispanic Catholics. ‘Demographic’ (i.e., racist/sectarian) considerations were behind the earlier law, but the move to a civic American state ideology and identity led to the latter. The same is need in the Israeli context, backed by an international anti-racist campaign demanding equal rights for Israeli Arabs across the board.
What is essential is that the Israeli State be declared the domain of all its citizens irrespective of race or creed, for equal rights across the board, including the Law of Return, and for equal funding. This is what the Israeli Arab leader Azmi Bishara has advocated: ‘Bishara says the “state of all its citizens” would gradually dismantle a system that favors Jews and sever the linkage between citizenship and ethnicity on the one hand, and citizenship benefits and performance of duties to the state, such as military service, on the other… Bishara also advocates cultural autonomy and official recognition of Arabs as a minority, likening his model to Canada…’[37]
It has been a major failing of campaigns for Palestinian rights to relegate and virtually ignore the situation of Israeli Arabs and to focus instead on the refugees or the Occupied Territories. This has been a serious methodological mistake. After all, if the racist and sectarian nature of the State itself is erased, being transformed into a truly multi-racial, non-confessional and bi-national State, the problems of these two other spheres of the Palestinian tragedy will more easily be resolved. The time has come for a major international solidarity campaign with the forgotten Arabs who are Israeli citizens – which will also aid the Right of Return.
[1] U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, ‘Israel and the occupied territories’ 2003, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 25, 2004, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27929.htm 2004. [2] League of Arab States, Day of the Land in Palestine, (London: Arab League, 1984), p. 11. [3] Davis, Uri, Israel – An Apartheid State, (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1987), p. 13. [4] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘The State’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00k90 2003. [5] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00hb0 2003. [6] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Israel in brief’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00ks0 2003. [7] Taylor, Alan R., The Zionist Mind, (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1974), p. 157. [8] Baranasi, ‘Zionism and the Palestinian Catastrophe’, pp. 26-27. Quotes from Herzl, A Jewish State, 1896, p. 29; Diaries, Vol. 1, 1960, p. 98. [9] Segev, Tom, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, (London: Little, Brown and Co., 2000), p. 404. [10] Baranasi, Salih, ‘Zionism and the Palestinian Catastrophe’, 1948-1988 – The Palestinians: From Exodus to Uprising, (CAABU, London, 1988), pp. 26-27. Quotes from Herzl, A Jewish State, 1896, p. 29; Diaries, Vol. 1, 1960, p. 27. [11] Davis, Israel – An Apartheid State, p. 5. [12] Shahak, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, (London: Pluto Press, 1994), p. 3. [13] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Basic Law: The Knesset (1958), Updated January 2003 Prevention of participation of candidates list (Amendments Nos. 9 and 35) 7A’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00h80 2003. [14] Segev, One Palestine, Complete, p. 119. [15] Davis, Israel – An Apartheid State, p. 9. [16] Ibid., p. 127. [17] Ibid. [18] U.S. Department of State, ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm 2003. [19] Chacour, Elias, Blood Brothers, (Eastbourne: Kingsway, 1984), p. 52ff. [20] Chacour, Elias, We belong to the Land, (HarperCollins, New York, 1990), p. 79. [21] Haddad, Yvonne, ‘American Muslims and the Question of Identity’, The Muslims of America, (New York and Oxford: OUP, 1991), p. 234. [22] Chacour, We belong to the Land, p. 88. [23] Ibid., p. 92. [24] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 2002, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm 2003. [25] Chacour, We belong to the Land, p. 177. [26] World Vision UK, Issues of Justice and Reconciliation: Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, (WV-UK, 1997), p. 7. [27] Dallal, Shaw J., Israel Is Not Comparable to ‘Advanced Western Democracies’, Washington Report May 1990, Page 14, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7891/dallal_isrl_dmcr.html 2000. [28]U.S. Department of State, ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27929.htm 2005. [29] Ibid. [30] Central Bureau of Statistics, The Arab Population in Israel, (Center for Statistical Information, State of Israel, Prime Minister’s Office, 2002), p. 2. [31] Ibid. [32] U.S. Department of State, ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm 2003. [33] Central Bureau of Statistics, The Arab Population In Israel, p. 3. [34] Ibid., p. 6. [35] Bubis, ‘Israeli Arabs: Expectations and Realities’, http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp478.htm 2003. [36] Ibid. [37] Lynfield, Ben, ‘An Arab Israeli pushes Israel’s free-speech limit’, Christian Science Monitor, 3 Januasry 2003, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0103/p01s02-wome.html 2003.
