ABSTRACT
Israel was established with the express purpose of solving the national problem of the Jewish people and it is constitutionally defined as a Jewish state. Encroachments on equality, despite the legal system’s formal commitment to it and its response to attempts to undermine this commitment, reflect the ambiguity in the notion of Israeli nationhood. Yet “Israel” is also the name of the Jewish people, and the state may be perceived as “Israel’s” alone. The state/nation dichotomy has been exacerbated by the Arab world’s rejection of the legitimacy of Israeli nationhood and the unresolved conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Recognition of Israeli Arabs as a distinct national group is withheld, for fear of shifting an already fragile balance in the direction of a bi-nation state or encouraging demands for autonomy or even eventual secession of those parts of the country in which Arabs are the majority.
