On Thursday April 14, 2011, the Israel Democracy Institute will convene a full-day symposium that will explore attitudes of Israeli Arabs towards the idea of the "Jewish Nation State." Conducted under the auspices of IDI's Nation State project, this event is being headed by IDI Senior Fellow Prof. Anita Shapira.

Symposium on the Arab Minority in the Jewish Nation State: Historical, Legal, and Social Aspects
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem
9:00 am - 6:30 pm

Participation in this event is by invitation only.

Rationale

The decade that has passed since the events of October 2000 has been marked by an increasing polarization and decline in relations between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority.  At the parliamentary level, several bills that have been proposed by right-wing Knesset factions have been interpreted by the Arab public as attempts to bring about national and civic exclusion by legislative measures and to reinforce the national dominance of the Jewish majority. These proposals include the Nakba bill (May 2009), the proposed amendment to the Citizenship Law (October 2010), and the bill to cancel the official status of Arabic as a national language in Israel (May 2008).

In recent years, Israeli public opinion polls have shown increasing mutual alienation between Jews and Arabs. Among the factors that have contributed to this alienation are the Second Lebanon War (July-August, 2006), the military operation in Gaza (December, 2008-January, 2009), the Jewish public's angry response to the publication of the four documents in the "Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel" series published by the heads of the local Arab councils in Israel (December, 2006 - May, 2007), the violent incidents that occurred in Pekiin (October, 2007) and in Acre (October, 2008), and the involvement of public figures from the Arab sector in the flotilla to Gaza, with the political storm that ensued (June 2010). In recent months, tensions have intensified, following the publication of a letter in which a group of rabbis ruled that it is forbidden to rent apartments in Israel to Arabs and a letter in which a group of rabbis' wives warned young Jewish women not to associate with Arab men. These developments have led Arab Israeli columnists and intellectuals to sum up 2010 as one of the most racist years experienced by Israel's Arab citizens in recent history.

The purpose of this symposium is to discuss the status of the Arab minority in the Jewish and democratic nation-state of Israel. Within this framework, its sessions will examine historical, legal, and social factors related to minority-majority relations in Israel, and will analyze how they affect the attitudes of the Arab-Israeli public towards the character of the State of Israel and their standing in it. The first session will focus on political and ideological aspects underlying the renewed national discourse in Arab society in Israel, the second session will discuss legal and social perspectives on the status of the Arab minority in the Jewish nation-state, and the third will be devoted to the nature of future relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.