Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Social and Political Status
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 08:54
AICafè
Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 8:00 PM
Palestinian citizens of Israel: social and political status with Alaa Mahajna from Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
Palestinian citizens of Israel comprise close to 20% of the total population of the country, numbering over 1,000,000. Under international instruments to which Israel is a state party, they constitute a national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority, although Israel does not treat them as such.
Israel never sought to assimilate or integrate the Palestinian population, treating them as second-class citizens and excluding them from public life and the public sphere. The state practiced systematic and institutionalized discrimination in all areas, such as land dispossession and allocation, education, language, economics, culture, and political participation. Successive Israeli governments maintained tight control over the community, attempting to suppress Palestinian/Arab identity and to divide the community within itself.
What is the social and political status of Palestinian citizens of Israel? How did the Oslo peace process impact them and what are the prospects for a future of equal rights and justice?
Adalah ("Justice" in Arabic) is an independent human rights organization and legal center. Established in November 1996, it works to promote and defend the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, as well as Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
- - -
Please join for this special event!
- - -
The AIC is a joint Palestinian-Israeli activist organization engaged in dissemination of information, political advocacy and grassroots activism. The AICafè is a political and cultural café open on Tuesday and Saturday night from 7pm until 10.30 pm. Every Thursday at 8 PM, the AICinema screens films from the Arab World and beyond.The AIC is located in the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour, close to Suq Sha'ab (follow the sign to Jadal Center). We have a small library with novels, political books and magazines. We also have a number of Films in DVD copies and the AIC publications which are aimed to critically analyze both Palestinian and Israeli societies, as well as the conflict itself.
