ABSTRACT
The Israeli state has securitized its relationship with its Palestinian citizens, a process that has both physical and ontological dimensions. Much of the literature on Israeli national security is written by security experts. Given Israel's clear-cut military victory in the 1948 War and Palestinian defeat and dispersal, the surviving Palestinian community inside those areas controlled by the Israeli army could not really pose any serious threat. This chapter examines securitization–measures undertaken, and justified, in the name of security–in critical terms. The analysis therefore takes into consideration the asymmetry of power between the hegemonic Jewish society and the underprivileged Palestinian minority has had to face discriminatory and repressive policies ever since the establishment of the Israeli state. Corroborating evidence in the open archives shows that the country's political and military leadership were fully aware that the Palestinian inhabitants posed no serious security threat to the state or to the Jewish population.
