Nationalizing States and the Constitution of ‘Hollow Citizenship’: Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnopolitics

Abstract This paper claims that nationalizing states adopt political, economic and cultural policies that hollow out the citizenship of national minorities, rendering them devoid of substantive meaning, since these minorities, often by their mere existence, tend to challenge the basic vision of the state. To demonstrate these claims, this paper examines the relationship between the Israeli state and its Arab-Palestinian minority. Based on analysing recent political, economic and cultural policies, which make multidimensional analytical frameworks necessary in explaining nationalizing states?minority relations, the paper demonstrates that, in opposite to the liberalization thesis, common in certain Israeli academic circles, the Israeli state has emphasized its nationalizing character rendering the citizenship of the Arab-Palestinian community devoid of substantial meaning. The nationalizing policies of the Israeli state have led to the intensification of Arab demands for a comprehensive transformation in the structure and policies of the Israeli state, thereby feeding the conflict between the state and its minority.