Abstract
Chapter 4 covers the first period of the Arab Palestinian legislators’ activities, 1949–1974 (the 1st Knesset through the 7th Knesset). The chapter illustrates that in the first decade of the newly born Jewish democratic country, the Arab Palestinian legislators who found themselves a minority had to fight for their national identity—Arab rather than Palestinian, and Israeli Arabs as part of the Arab world. In the second and the beginning of the third decades the Israeli government eliminated military rule over the Arab localities and came to rule over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Within this context the political discourse changed to an emphasis on the second and third identities: religion and being Palestinian.
The chapter demonstrates that Arab Palestinian legislators have paid policy attention to all five of their identities in their parliamentary talks. Indeed, as research has established, the percentage of policy attention they allocated to these identities varied. However, in the first several decades of Israel, most of the Arab Palestinian legislators’ focus was on their identity as Arabs within Israel.
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Notes
- 1.
The fedayeen were Palestinians who infiltrated Israel from Egypt and Jordan.
- 2.
On the eve of Operation Kadesh, an Israeli border unit fired at Arab Palestinian citizens from Kafr Qassem who did not know that a curfew had been imposed on the village and all Arab villages. Those responsible were prosecuted and sentenced to long periods in prison, but their sentences were commuted, and they were released in 1960. For many years, this affair clouded Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.
- 3.
For more information about the Six-Day War read https://embassies.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/history/Pages/The%20Six-Day%20War%20-%20June%201967.aspx; https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War.
- 4.
For more information about the Yom Kippur War read. https://embassies.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/history/Pages/The%20Yom%20Kippur%20War%20-%20October%201973.aspx; https://www.britannica.com/event/Yom-Kippur-War.
- 5.
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany (“Reparations Agreement”) was signed on September 10, 1952. According to the agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of “resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees” after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for the Nazis’ seizure of Jewish property and their murder.
- 6.
- 7.
Political opposition to military rule came both from the Israeli Communist Party, which included Arab Palestinian and Jewish leftists, and from the right, especially from Menachem Begin, who stressed that the British Mandate had instituted emergency regulations that it used against Jews.
- 8.
The Gaza Strip was under Egyptian rule between 1948 and October 1956, and between March 1957 and June 1967. Officially, the Strip was administered from September 1948 by the government of all Palestine. Although it was a symbolic move, the government was recognized by most members of the Arab Legion, and it managed the Gaza Strip until its dissolution by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. Egypt did not annex the Strip due to the dissolution of the government and its resulting military rule.
- 9.
Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan ruled East Jerusalem and the territories of the West Bank, after conquering them at the end of the British Mandate. Earlier, this area was included in the Mandatory Land of Israel. During the War of Independence, the Jordanian army took control of these areas, and in 1950 Jordan annexed them. Britain, Iraq, Pakistan and other countries recognized the annexation, although there was opposition from Israel.
- 10.
Mapam was a left-wing political party in Israel.
- 11.
I chose to present the 23 subjects related to being an Arab within Israel for just a sample of legislators from the second Knesset term for three reasons. First, the trend is the same in all of the other Knesset terms in the first period. Second, the visualization of seven Knesset terms with 49 MKs creates an unreadable graph. Third, the sample of the legislators represents their variance in the parties to which they belonged—independent Arab parties, satellite parties and Zionist parties.
- 12.
Zeedan (2019) defined a negative peace as the reduction, prevention or absence of war and violence. In contrast, a positive peace involves a sense of cooperation or integration.
- 13.
A Christian legislator and member of the independent Communist Party.
- 14.
A term used to describe the career duration of an individual legislator in parliament (e.g., Pilotti, 2015).
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Akirav, O. (2024). The First Period: 1949–1974. In: Parliamentary Representation of Political Minorities. Comparative Studies of Political Agendas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53250-4_4
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