Israel officially defines itself as a Jewish state, and authorities classify Israelis by their ethnic group
Nazareth, Israel - A court decision this month that rejected Israelis' right to a shared nationality has highlighted serious problems caused by Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state, say lawyers and human rights activists.
A group of 21 Israelis had appealed to the Supreme Court to demand the state recognise their wish to be classified as "Israeli nationals".
Since Israel's founding in 1948, authorities have refused to recognize such a nationality, instead classifying Israelis according to the ethnic group to which each belongs. The overwhelming majority are registered as either "Jewish" or "Arab" nationals, though there are more than 130 such categories in total.
Critics say the system, while seemingly a technical matter, has far-reaching effects. The citizenship laws, they say, undergird a system of systematic discrimination against the one-fifth of Israel's population who are non-Jews - most of them belonging to Israel's Palestinian minority. [xxxi]
Cook also quotes Uzi Ornan, a retired linguist from northern Israel, the leader of "I am an Israeli" movement, The group includes both Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, and they argued that they should be allowed to change their nationality to "Israeli". "This ruling is very dangerous," said Ornan. "It allows Israel to continue being a very peculiar country indeed, one that refuses to recognise the nationality of its own people. I don't know of another country that does such a thing. It is entirely anti-democratic." [xxxii]
Ornan also is quoted as follows:
The "I am an
Israeli" movement objects to Israel's system of laws that
separate citizenship from nationality. While Israelis enjoy a common
citizenship, they have separate nationalities based on their ethnic
identity. Only the Jewish majority has been awarded national rights,
meaning that Palestinian citizens face institutionalised discrimination,
said Ornan.
Ornan added: "It tells the country's Arab citizens that they have no real
recognition in their own country - that they will always be treated as
foreigners and they will always face discrimination." [xxxiii]
Cook writes as follows on this issue.
Leading Israeli
politicians - including a recent prime minister, Ehud
Olmert - have admitted that discrimination against Palestinians exists.
However, they have suggested that it is informal and similar to the
discrimination faced by minorities in many democratic western countries.
Civil rights groups, on the other hand, claim that the discrimination is
structural to Israel's definition as a Jewish state. One member of
parliament, Ahmed Tibi, has pointedly commented: "This country is Jewish and
democratic: Democratic towards Jews, and Jewish toward Arabs." [xxxiv]
There certainly has been a vigorous debate within the Jewish community over the question of political Zionism, which is a political ideology, and the creation of a "Jewish State." The dark underbelly of Zionism is what to do with the Christian and Muslim Palestinian inhabitants of the land chosen to be the territory for the "Jewish State." There are many questions about what rights Palestinians are to have in the "Jewish State" and the occupied territories that the "Jewish State" declares for itself and gives at best token lip service to the civil and national rights of the Palestinians.
Ben Ehrenreich, is a prominent Jewish American author of The Way to the Spring, the chronicle of heroic resistance to occupation in a Palestinian village. He spoke at Columbia's Center for Palestine Studies and described Israel's treatment of Palestinians as an "incremental genocide." As reported by Philip Weiss a questioner asked about the Movement for Black Lives statement saying Palestinians are experiencing "genocide," and asked Ehrenreich, would you
agree? Ehrenrich said he agreed.
The question about genocide-- yes, it's an incremental genocide. And I think that's a word that gives a lot of people pause and it certainly should. We don't see the absolutely mass slaughters, although in Gaza I think we've seen something very much like it that we usually associate with genocide. But-- the attempts to erase a people, to just erase them, to erase their history, I think follow a logic that can only be called genocidal. I mean, every time someone says-- and people say it all the time, I get it on twitter all the time-- "There's no such thing as a Palestinian," or "There was nobody there when the Zionists arrived"-- these are genocidal statements, these are attempts to erase a culture, erase a history, decimate a people and I think they should be recognized as that. [xxxv]
As a result of these questions that go to the heart of the Zionist project there are many criticisms over the treatment of the Palestinians in the "Jewish State" from Jews and many others who express concern over human rights violations. Palestinians, the victims of Zionism also have many criticism on how they are treated and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the massacres, the destruction of 531 villages and the theft of their land and property for which they hold the legal title to. [xxxvi]
One major study done in Israel reviewed all of the articles and books written on the Israeli War of Independence and examined the issue of the expulsion of the Palestinians:
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