Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Government Dept.
Advisor(s)
Laura Seay
Second Advisor
Lindsay Mayka
Abstract
Palestinian citizens of Israel occupy a unique position amidst ongoing instability in the Middle East. As an ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority in the Jewish homeland, they experience the benefits of Israeli citizenship while shouldering the discrimination and hardships that come with them. This paper examines the citizenship experience of Palestinian citizens of Israel through three primary indicators of citizenship integration: education, employment, and land. Data gathered from 30 interviews with Palestinian-identifying citizens of Israel in the Galilee region finds Palestinian citizens of Israel experience diminished citizenship based on their experiences in these three realms. Understanding lived experience of Israel’s Palestinian citizens is critical to providing a contemporary classification of Israel’s political system and navigating prospects for peace in the region. Broad-based efforts to confront systemic inequities facing Palestinian citizens of Israel serve as a foundation for a just society and cultivate a path towards reconciliation as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists.
Keywords
Citizenship, Israeli-Palestinian, Integration Indicators, Israel, Arab, Palestine
Recommended Citation
Eber, Iliana S., "Palestinian? Israeli? Both?: Analyzing Citizenship Experience among Israel’s Palestinians" (2020). Honors Theses. Paper 988.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/988