4. Palestinian Citizens in an Ethnic Jewish State

4. PALESTINIAN CITIZENS IN AN ETHNIC JEWISH STATE Nadim Rouhana New Haven: Yale University Press (1997), pp. 300, including index Reviewed by Uri Davis* Nadim Rouhana's work, Palestinian Citizens in an Ethnic Jewish State, represents an outstanding achievement of scholarship. It provides a most welcome contribution to the historical genealogy of collective Palestinian identity in Israel in the eontext of Israel's policy guidelines, regional developments and controlled internal developments. The book is a celebration of the well-established school of critical scholarship on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rouhana follows the evolution of collective PalestinianArab identity in Israel in response to the three conflicting guidelines of Israel's policy: commitment to the continued existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state in the Zionist sense of the term; endorsement of democratic values and concern with security. A comprehensive elaboration of Israel's basic fault line, the contradiction between democratic values versus the values of an exelusive Jewish state then follows. The inquiry correctly concludes that equality, in its basic manifestation as equal opportunity, profoundly contradicts the laws and statutes defining Israel as a Jewish state. Prominent among these laws and statutes (to mention some highlights), aiming, as they do, to guarantee in law an ethnic Jewish demographic majority and extensive privileges and benefits to Jews only, are the World Zionist Organization (WZO)/Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel (JA) Status Law, 1952; the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Law, 1953; and the 1954 and 1961 Covenants between the Government of Israel and the WZO/JA and the JNF, respectively.lI As it stands, the use of the single criterion of Jewishness for so many privileges and benefits, anchored in law, makes Israel an ethnocracy, where in many cases ethnic origin is the source of merit (p. 56). The study gives informed, accurate and detailed attention to the development and the changes in the collective self-identification of the people concerned - the near one million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel - as well as to the critical impact of Israeli policy guidelines, regional developments and internal developments within the group in question on their collective identity. The notable strength of work is manifested in that, among other things, it correctly underscores the critical significance of the collective self-identification label to the study of collective identity in general and the collective Palestinian identity in Israel in particular. Rouhana rightly quotes Billing2 to the effect that the choice of label "is not a matter of caprice," rather, * Dr. Uri Davis is a Research Fellow, Centre for Middle Eastern ฀Islamic Studies (CME1S), University of Durham and Centre for Arab Gulf Studies, University of Exeter, UK. He has authored numerous books including Israel: An Apartheid State and Citizenship and the State: Comparative Study of Citizenship Legislation in Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. I For an analysis of the impact of these laws, see Adalah's Report to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, reproduced in this volume. See supra, at 109 ed. M. BILLING, SOCIALPSYCHOLOGYANDINTFRGROupRELATIONS(1976). 2 the label represents the collective self-identification core of the group in question. In this connection, Rouhana properly pegs his analytical and methodological efforts onto the two letter preposition "in" upon which the collective self-identification label "Palestinians IN Israel" or Palestinian Arab IN Israel' hinges (the group in question significantly resisting the incorporation of the term "Israeli" in their collective self-identification). The work is particularly strong in its analysis of where Palestinian Arabs in Israel are at today (with the analysis unfolding against the backdrop of well informed and sensitive narrated historical context). Where it is weaker is in the paths it charts for the betterment of their situation, or more accurately, for the betterment of the situation of all the citizens of the State of Israel, Arabs and Hebrews (my term, Rouhana uses "Jews") alike. The work is divided into four chapters. First, "Collective Identity in Multi-Ethnic States" charts the theoretical parameters of the study; second, "The Collective Identity of the Arabs in Israel" draws the critical historieal frame; third "Components of Collective Identity" incorporates data analysis of national representative samples of Arab adults in 1982 and three samples of Arab high school students, university students and political leaders in 1989; and fourth "Conclusions" outlines structural options for Israel and its Palestinian citizens and examines the prospects of negotiating citizenship as a shared supra identity for both Hebrew and Arab citizens. Rouhana further illuminates the impact of Middle Eastern regional developments, from pan-Arab nationalism to the Oslo Accords, on the evolution of collective Palestinian identity in Israel. He points to the profound influence of the Palestinian Intifada on the group in question and to the growing awareness of its political implications on the development of their collective identity. Rouhana argues that for the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the Intifada signalled that their politieal future would be permanently within Israel, and the adoption of the "two state" solution by the PLO mainstream, culminating in the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the 1993 Oslo Accords, seems to have effectively settled the question at this stage as far as they are concerned. Rouhana explicates, with great sensitivity, how the development of the collective identity of the Palestinians in Israel emerged from the traumatic baseline of the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 to gradually approaching the threshold of a critical mass poised to gain position of "potential influence in the future structure and identity of Israel and the shape of Israeli-Palestinian relations" (p. 82). In the context of this progressive process of empowerment of the Palestinian collective concerned, correlative to internal demographic, educational, socio-economic and political developments of the group in question, a consensus emerged focusing on the demand for complete equality for the Palestinians as a national minority in Israel and leading to the emphatic appearance of the inclusive banner of "a state of all its citizens" as a challenging alternative to the official exclusive banner of "a state of the Jewish people." Even if the State of Israel is transformed from an ethnic Jewish state (an apartheid state),3 to a state of all its citizens, the main bulk of its territory, approximately 70 percent of the lands inside pre-1967 State of Israel, is, under international law, only minimally the property of the Arab and Hebrew citizens of Israel, and still remains primarily the property of the some three million expelled 1948 Palestine refugees and their descendants. Rouhana'sanalysis of the Palestinian and the Israeli foci of Palestinian collective identity in Israel is illuminating. He convincingly establishes that as Palestinian citizens in an ethnic Jewish state, the Palestinian element of their collective identity satisfied the affective axes of 3 See U. DAVIS, ISRAEL: ANAPARTHEIDSTATE(1987). sentimental attachment (but not the formal legal, administrative and everyday instrumentalities) whereas the Israeli element, satisfies the latter, but with no gratification of sentimental needs. In this connection, Rouhana takes issue with mainstream Israeli social science research of Arab identity in Israel historically constructed around the conflict model4 and the accommodation model.5 He also pertinently observes that "instead of examining the extent to which the system is willing to accommodate or oppose equality, many social scientists who studied the Arab minority have preoccupied themselves with the question 'To what extent are Arabs willing to accommodate or oppose the system AS IS?"' (p. 150, emphasis in the original) Against these two models, Rouhana posits what he terms an accentuated model. He correctly points out that the accentuated model he proposes poses and answers different questions and better explains the genealogy of collective Palestinian identity in Israel, suggesting that: Calling for equality within the Israeli system is not necessarily Israelization in the sense of accepting Israel as is. In fact, full equality is tantamount to de-Zionization of the state. (p. 149) At the outset of the study, Rouhana constructs a theoretical social-psychological model for collective identity of ethnic and national groups. He posits a paradigm composed of "three main cognitively organized layers - the formal legal, the political and the social-cultural organized around the core collective self-identification" (the collective self-identification label). The layers are inter-dependent and bound together by affective axes that include a sense of "loyalty to, sentimental attachment to, shared historical experience with, pride in, sense of common fate with and sense of belonging to the group" (p. 15). But the model as posited by Rouhana, the normative and analytical instrument of inquiry, fails to take as its point of departure at the normative theoretical paradigmatic level, an explicit and clear distinction between primordial collective identities (e.g., tribe, ethnic group, nation) versus instrumental (civil society) collective identities (e.g., political parties, professional associations). This lack significantly impacts the work, in particular, the conclusions. At the instrumental level, the model and the subsequent narrative further fail to make a sufficient normative theoretical paradigmatic distinction between feeling of belonging to the state or loyalty to the state (a negative affective sentiment in the view of this writer) versus feeling of belonging or loyalty to, for instance, one's cultural and professional traditions (a positive affective sentiment). In my opinion these deficiencies represent a serious normative and analytical weakness leading Rouhana to make such questionable statements as: Legitimacy granted by a group will correspond to the extent to which the system is willing to respond to the instrumental AND sentimental needs of the group. Attachment to the national system, and therefore its perceived legitimacy, is the mechanism for incorporating the systems' identity into one's own. (p. 131) 4 5 See Peres and Yuval-Davis, Some Observations on the National Identity of Israeli Arabs, 22(3) HUMANRELATIONS 219 (1969) positing the two foci in conflict and stipulating coping and juggling mechanisms to maintain a fragile balance of the conflicting elements. See SMOOHA, THE ORIENTATION ANDPOLITICIZATION OFTHEARAB MINORITY IN ISRAEL (1980) and SMOOCHA,ARABSANDJEWSIN ISRAEL: CONFLICTINGANDSHAREDATTITUDES INADIVIDED SOCIETY (1989), where the "Israelization," namely internalization of Zionist Israeli identity is stipulated. One would have thought that the only proper business of the state was to adequately respond to the human need of complete instrumental equality in law (not to sentimental needs), leaving the question of sentimental attachment to the individuals concerned as a matter of private preference (like sexual orientation or religious affiliation). One would have further thought that it is harmful to the people concerned to incorporate the identity of the state into their own national or ethnic identity just as it is harmful for them to incorporate the identity of the state into their religious identity. The job of liberal education, notably liberal education in a multi-ethnic and/or multi-national state, ought to be directed not only towards the separation of religion from the state but also, and equally so, towards the separation of ethnic/national identity from the state. There is ample evidence in the text that Rouhana is aware of this issue. Yet, he, like the protagonists of the conflict and accommodation schools with which he takes issue above, seems to incorrectly assume that for the collective identity of any given people to be complete, the formal-legal/political/social-cultural dimensions and the affective dimensions should be congruent. He seems to argue that full equality in Israel will establish such congruence, possibly leading to the development of a new negotiated common Israeli identity of civil belonging. Rouhana further seems to assume that such congruence is normatively positive leading him to argue in his concluding chapter that if the demand for full equality is met and the State of Israel is de-Zionized such congruence can be obtained and ought to be fostered. It is in order to point out, however, that Rouhana's study significantly interfaces with my own work on the related subject of citizenship and the state in the Middle East, and that my reservations regarding the paradigm he posits for the analysis of collective self-identification is informed by my work6 One normative theoretical implication of the congruence assumption above is that, assuming complete equality in law, a multi-foci non-congruent collective identity (e.g., Palestinians in Israel) satisfying respectively different human needs is to be regarded as less complete than a single focus congruent collective identity (e.g., Israeli). One could argue, as I in fact do, the opposite position, namely, that at the normative theoretical level, and assuming complete equality in law, there are distinct advantages to the positing of a multi-foci non-congruent model of collective identity as the primary analytical tool of inquiry. To my reading, the fact that the collective identity of the Palestinians in Israel hinges on the preposition "in" is a source of collective strength. It is likely to remain applicable when the negative political regime of the State of Israel as a Jewish ethnocracy is transformed to a better regime of a democratic state of all its citizens (as Rouhana advocates) or to the positive regime of a democratic state for all its citizens and 1948 Palestine refugees (as this writer advocates). In other words, in my view a paradigm of collective identity that does not recoguize at the normative theoretical level the completeness and the strength of the collective identity of a Palestinian in the future democratic Israel as being both Palestinian AND Israeli; of a Palestinian in America as being both Palestinian AND American; of the offspring of an Arab woman and a European man as being both Arab AND European; of a Jewish convert to Christianity of being both Jewish AND Christian - is a normatively and theoretically deficient model. The quest for a non-hyphenated collective identity in a globalizing world that would also be an enlightened non-oppressive identity is a mirage for all groups, first and foremost for groups locked in colonial conflict. The paradigm of open, inclusive multi-foci hyphenated 6 See DAVtS, CITIZENSHIPANDTHESTATE: COMPARATIVESTUDYOFCITIZENSHIPLEGISLATION INISRAEL, JORDAN,PALESTINE, SYRIAANDLEBANON(1997). collective identities seems to me to offer the best prospects for both the colonizer people and the colonized people to negotiate elements of common democratic collective identities to assist them in the process of the struggle for liberation from the evils of colonialism and occupation. As pointed out above, the model and the subsequent narrative do not sufficiently distinguish between the sentimental attachment of the individual to his or her primordial group on the one hand and the sentimental attachment to the national system (the state), on the other. To my understanding, at the theoretical normative level, individuals "belong" to their tribe (ta'ifa) and/or their nation - not to the law and/or the state. Affective axes such as sentimental attachment can be positively established in relation to primordial identities - but ought not be posited in relation to the state and the national system. As Rouhana would be the first to recognize, an ethnic state is precisely a state that does not constitutionally separate between the affective axes of tribal identities on the one part and the instrumental axes of citizenship (membership in the state) on the second part. To my understanding, a theoretical model that posits the state, any state, including the democratic state, as the appropriate home where human need for belonging ought to be addressed fosters fascism (state worship) not civil society. The state and the national system, being made instrumental constructions, ought not be posited at the theoretical normative level in relation to the "affective axes of the collective identities of their various ethnic groups" (p. 130). The proper theoretical and normative object of loyalty ought not be the state, but, for instance, universal values such as equality of rights, traditions of professional excellence, or family and tribal kin affiliations. The theoretically proper concerns of the state and the relationship between the individual citizens and the state ought to be instrumental in regard to the rights of each and every citizen to equal access to the civil, political, social and material resources of the state - but not to the affective axes such as loyalty and belonging. Everyone has the right to citizenship (Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and citizenship is a certificate defining the instrumental relationships between the individual and the state - but no one ougbt feel and/or be educated to feel that they "belong" to the state. As noted above, that is the theoretical definition of fascism. The most serious flaw of Rouhana's work at the normative theoretical level is its failure to take as point of departure the principle of separation of identity, including collective identity, from citizenship (the state). To my reading, because of this weakness at the normative theoretical level, although the study takes as its normative point of departure the rejection of the idea and practice of ethnocracy, it develops a significant blind spot when it comes to posit a desired alternative of civil inclusion versus the Zionist structures of ethnic exclusion. Rouhana is correct to point out that although inequality can be imposed upon groups, "equality as basic human need cannot be negotiated away because that would entail compromising ... own human worth and that of future generations;" that the quest for equality will be in the main pursued by the Palestinian-Arab generation in Israel that did not experience the trauma of the 1948 catastrophe '`and has much less tolerance for discrimination than the older generation;" and that this new generation, born and raised in Israel "is deeply influenced by Israeli democratic culture and its method" and is poised to challenge the ethnocratic status quo of inequality, using if necessary, "methods of non-violent sanctions that might violate Israeli law" (p. 226). Rouhana is further correct in pointing out that satisfying the human need for equality of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and their inclusion as equal citizens of the State of Israel requires not only the legal de-Zionization of the state but correlatively the construction of a negotiated shared collective identity for all Arab and Hebrew citizens of the state that would meet what he identified as both the "basic need of the Jewish population for security" and "the basic needs of inclusion and equality of the Arab citizens." He adds that: Civil identity seems the only possible mechanism for jointly satisfying these identity needs. Such an identity would entail profound changes in the current identity of both sides. (p. 227) He concludes his study with the examination of structural options available to Israel and its Palestinian citizens (including options where the Palestinian-Arab citizens in Israel consider departure from the "two states" solution) and an assessment of the benefits and the costs of de-Zionization of the State of Israel, transforming it from a Jewish ethnocracy guaranteeing in law an ethnic Jewish demographic majority of privileged citizens to a civil democratic state whose goals, "human and cultural mission, and its identity will derive not from one ethnic group but the civil group MADE UP OF ITS CITIZENS AND CITIZENS ONLY" (p. 227, emphasis in the original). It is at this point that an additional weakness is anchored. In the positing of the idea of Israel as a civil state made of its citizens as the proper alternative to the idea of Israel as an ethnocratic state and in suggesting that both Arabs and Jews embark upon the project of negotiating a shared new transformed collective Israeli identity that is distinct from the familiar historical Palestinian collective identity as well as Jewish collective identity in the Zionist sense of the tcrm, Rouhana seems to ignore the presence and the legal individual and collective rights of the 1948 Palestine refugees. The weakness of this alternative is not in that it is predicated on the principle of "equality and no less than equality," nor in its projection of inclusion, equal access to the power and resources of the civil state. The weakness of the alternative is that it implies the violation of the rights of the 1948 Palestine refugees to return and/or compensation and their inclusion in the de-Zionized Israeli polity as equal citizens as well. In this respect Rouhana'soutstanding work and most welcome contribution to the historical genealogy of collective Palestinian identity in Israel fails, at its most critical juncture, in that it offers the Palestinian Arabs in Israel an alternative that implies violation of the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13.2, Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country; Article 17.2, No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property). The paradigmatic exclusion of some three million people, the 1948 Palestine refugees, from the Israeli polity out of which they have been criminally expelled and the appropriation of their vast wealth, illegally expropriated by the Zionist ethnocracy of Israel, to the benefit of all Arab and Hebrew citizens of de-Zionized democratic Israel and ONLY to the benefit of its citizens seems to me a less than acceptable proposition. A better proposition, I submit, would be represented by the banner of a democratic state, labelled Israel or otherwise, for all its citizens AND 1948 Palestine refugees.