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The main issue this paper deals with is the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel (Referred to in the literature using different terms: ‘Palestinians in Israel’, ‘Arabs in Israel’, ‘Arab citizens of Israel’, ‘the Palestinian minority’ and ‘Palestinians inside 1948’.) as part of what Israel considers its national security. It will examine the centrality of Israel’s Jewish character, as a component of Israeli national security, representing a model for the expansion of that which is encompassed by the concept of national security. Within this context, the minority’s presence and demands for equality poses a threat to the national security of Israel and of the Jewish majority. This concept and trend has gained traction in recent years with the ascension to power of the right wing and the ‘rising threats’ to Israel following the Arab Spring events. Majority forces within and outside the Knesset have attempted to consolidate Israel’s Jewish character by passing laws and formulating policies that identify its Jewish character as a red line – a key plank of national security. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various papers based on the study of the relationship between secularism and citizenship beyond the North Atlantic Region. It explores the relationship between formations of power and religious tradition and practice. It mentions that the paper of lecturer Humeira Iqtedar shows the complications inherent in citizenship formation for a Pakistani state which is under the control of terrorist. It further mentions the paper of poet David Lehman which is in context to Israel where minority citizenship right is ambiguous. It states that in Singapore the state plays an important role in managing every aspect of religion.

This paper deals with the causes and impact of the rise in the number of Palestinian-Arab Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Israel in the last two decades. It provides a multi-level model that combines economic, political and cultural factors to explain the shifts in Palestinian-Arab political mobilization in Israel and as a result to the rise of a complex network of Arab NGOs. The paper demonstrates the way in which the civil institutions and their intensive involvement in public social affairs generate social capital that has internal as well as external political impact. Arab civil society institutions, which operate mainly separately from civil institutions of the Jewish majority, assist in the empowerment and the development of Arab society. They provide services in different fields, such as education, health, and planning. They also advocate and lobby for the rights of the Arab citizens inside Israel and internationally. Arab civil society institutions also provide information necessary for political mobilization, identity formation, and cultural preservation. In this framework the paper claims that they play a counter-hegemonic role vis-à-vis the Israeli state. However, the paper also claims that the broad advocacy and lobbying activity of Arab civil institutions did not manage to fully democratize Israeli policies towards Arab society, demonstrating the centrality of state identity and power structure when it comes to democratization processes. On a different level, the paper reveals that, although the Palestinian-Arab NGOs network has managed to lead to a liberalization process within Arab society, this process is partial and selective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current literature on the women's movement argues that in recent decades, a schism based on the politics of identity has divided women and led to the weakening of the movement. This process, intersecting with the escalation of neoliberal trends and the 'NGOization' of civil society, has resulted in the depoliticization of the women's movement and the waning of its influence as a political force. The present paper seeks to examine whether this argument is consistent with the situation in the Israeli women's movement of the early twenty-first century. Based on the history of the women's movement in Israel, the paper posits a twofold argument: (a) the women's movement in Israel has not disappeared but has been restructured as a result of its NGOization; (b) despite criticism of the movement in the literature and on the part of activists as the result of its NGOization, the movement's political messages have remained intact and even expanded to embrace questions of social justice, including novel thinking on matters of peace and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges existing theories of radicalization and secession that are presented as "natural" tendencies of minority nationalism. It demonstrates the affinity between the strategies of national minorities and those of social movements, claiming that excluded minorities seek to reframe and expand the meaning of their citizenship, as do social movements, by utilizing the structures of opportunities available to them through citizenship and by mobilizing whatever resources possible to improve their status. Minorities utilize the opportunities embedded in their citizenship, despite its shortcomings, before ever moving to alternative strategies that may jeopardize the valued incentives that were achieved so far as citizens. The paper demonstrates its theoretical hypothesis by examining the changes taking place in the strategy adopted by the Arab minority in Israel. This minority has chosen to abandon accommodative politics and is adopting a more active and challenging strategy vis-à-vis the state. In contrast with common claims that conceive Arab politics as a tendency towards strategies of radicalization and confrontation with the state, this paper demonstrates that recent changes in Arab politics seek to expand the meaning of citizenship beyond liberal limits and adapt it to new conditions in order to meet the minority's expectations of full and equal citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper centers on the challenge that fundamentalist groups - such as the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community (the Haredim) - pose for citizenship. It focuses on two issues: challenges centering on contribution to and sacrifice for the Israeli nation-state; and alternatives that fundamentalism poses to definitions of citizenship. Empirically, it is based on research in three arenas: service in the Israeli military; a voluntary organization aiding state agencies after terror attacks (ZAKA), and a charitable association offering help in health and social welfare (Yad Sarah). Two trends - challenges to concepts of security and the state, and the weakening of the state in the economic sphere and social services - have opened up spaces for fundamentalist groups to operate in civil society and complement the state. The Haredi community has gradually developed a new concept of inclusion that both fits the state-centred view of citizenship and their own fundamentalist perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work is to offer a critique of partition, not on the basis of its impact on the relations between the sides to the dispute, but on its implications for majority-minority relations inside the (non-homogeneous) state. Using the Israeli-Palestinian example, the paper argues that the dynamics of partition idealize the notion of a homogeneous nation-state and, consequently, marginalize minorities and accentuate internal political divisions. Specifically, Israeli policymakers' 'demographic trade-off' between territorial compromise and a 'Jewish state' underscores some of the recent national tensions within Israel over the citizenship status of the minority Palestinians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper falls into two sections. In the first certain macro-social changes that have transformed the nature of collective identities in the modern period are considered. In the second, how these have had an impact on Israeli society is considered. In the contemporary era there have been taking place in Europe - indeed throughout the world - far-reaching changes and transformation of public spheres, civil society and conceptions of citizenship, in close relation to the crystallization of new patterns of collective identity - processes which entail far-reaching transformations of some aspects of what has been envisaged as the 'classical' nation-state or the decomposition of some of its components. These far-reaching changes, decline or transformation of the ideological and institutional premises of the modern nation state developed in a specific historical context. The most important characteristic of this new context was the combination of first, changes in the international systems and shifts of hegemonies within them; second, processes of internal ideological changes in Western societies; third, the development of new processes of globalization; and fourth, far-reaching processes of democratization, of the growing demands of various social sectors for access into the centers of their respective societies, as well as into international arenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the mutual relation between cultural citizenship and national homecoming. Using the case study of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel, it refines the theoretical debate over cultural citizenship by showing how homecoming migration shapes the homecomers' bargaining power over the local cultural tenets. In particular, the research examines the ways in which the 'Russian' immigrants negotiate the national ethos of homecoming that constitutes the Israeli civic, discursive field, while dismantling it into its root components: affinity to the place, collective memory, and the warrior ethos. Each of these components constitutes a sphere of action that embodies the tension between Israeliness and Jewishness, nationalism and citizenship, and the personal and the collective. Our main contention is that in the case of homecoming migration, the inextricable affinity between citizenship and nationalism shapes the homecomers' cultural citizenship: on the one hand, it secures their right to participate in the local cultural discourse and avails bargaining power, while on the other hand, it neutralizes the homecomers' subversive voice, and reduces their capacity to undermine the constitutive, national tenets. The analysis is based on immigration stories gathered via in-depth interviews that were conducted with 43 Jewish university students who immigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the beginning of the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]