Twenty percent of Israel’s population—about two million people—are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Their history begins with the Nakba of 1948: While some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their hometowns or fled, about 150,000 remained in the newly founded State of Israel and were formally naturalized. Until 1966, they lived under repressive military rule, but structural inequality persisted even after that.
To reinforce and preserve the Jewish character of the state, Israel has passed laws that discriminate against the Palestinian population, directly or indirectly – in access to housing, education and employment, in healthcare, and the choice of a spouse. The 2018 Nation-State Law grants the right to national self-determination only to the Jewish people, without guaranteeing the equality of all citizens before the law.
While the state expands and promotes exclusively Jewish residential areas, Palestinian communities are deliberately neglected. Poverty, crumbling infrastructure, poorer educational opportunities and a lack of prospects are the result – conditions that have contributed to a rise in organized crime and violence within Palestinian communities. Families in overcrowded urban neighborhoods are affected just as much as Bedouin communities in the Negev, whose villages remain officially unrecognized to this day and are now being demolished to make way for Jewish towns.
Politically, Palestinian citizens remain marginalized despite having their own parties. Since October 7, 2023, the pressure has further intensified, with hundreds arrested over statements made on social media or at demonstrations. At the same time, civil society and legal resistance are growing: NGOs are challenging discriminatory laws in court, while a new generation of historians is re-examining the history of 1948 and its consequences.
The panel will discuss historical continuities from the Nakba to the present, social and spatial realities, and legal strategies. How can Israeli citizenship be used to protect Palestinian existence? Under what conditions can Jewish-Palestinian cooperation in politics and civil society be effective? And what role does the international community play?
Photo/Credit: Land Day Monument, Sakhneen. Artists Abed Abdi and Gershon Knispel, 1978
