There is no doubting the increase in applications for Israeli citizenship by Arabs living in Jerusalem. The question is why. Here Yehudit Oppenheimer (1st) of Ir Amim argues that it is a survival strategy while Khaled Abu Toameh, 2nd, suggests Israeli citizenship confers more rights than the impotent PA is able to provide.

A quiet trend of Palestinians in East Jerusalem applying for, and getting, Israeli citizenship has been noted by Riman Barakat. Such Palestinians hope to achieve protection from harassment and sudden loss of home or job. There are several gains for Israel – in its reputation, in lessening Palestinian dissent and dividing Palestinians by status. But if these new citizens use their civic rights, the sums may be different.

Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician, was forcibly taken to Israel by Mossad in 1986 after he revealed to the Sunday Times Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. Now that the Knesset has passed a law stipulating citizenship will be revoked from any Israeli found guilty of treason, he publishes his letter asking that he be free to leave Israel and his citizenship

The rabbis in Israel have stirred up a hornets’ nest and the question of what it is to be Israeli is firmly on the agenda. Israeli society is rapidly closing in on itself and voices that anywhere else in liberal democracies would be mainstream are becoming more an more dissident in Israel. But the naked malice and racism of the recent 300 rabbis’ statement has encouraged many to speak out and reflect, particularly in the pages of Ha’aretz and we reproduce four recent discussion pieces on the interrelated themes of what it is to be a Jew, and Israeli, a citizen and indeed a mensch…

An extended debate on the right of return, sparked off by Ran Greenstein’s critique of the Israeli Law of return of 1950 as discriminatory, and labeling Israeli scholars who defended it (like Gavison and Yacobson among others) as ‘pseudo-liberal’. A long virtual debate among Greenstein, Gavison and Yacobson ensued.

A disturbing follow-up to our earlier reports on the new war against the Bedouin in the Negev, highlighting the use of high school student volunteers in what Arab Negev News publisher Ata Abu Madyam called ‘a summer camp of destruction’. Max Blumenthal writes: “The spectacle of Israeli youth helping destroy al-Arakib helps explain why 56% of Jewish Israeli high school students do not believe Arabs should be allowed to serve in the Knesset – why the next generation wants apartheid…”

Gadi Algazi writes: What are the Bedouin accused of? How did their very existence become a “real threat”? The Negev, says Netanyahu, might become a “region without a Jewish majority.” This is truly a good one: you can move from region to the next throughout the country and discover that in a particular area within Israel, there isn’t a Jewish majority, for example between Kafr Qara’ and Umm al-Fahem, or between Sakhnin and ‘Arabe. Well, then don’t we have to do something against this threat? Yes, of course, and so we do! [...]

The Israeli Interior Ministry recognizes 126 nations, but not the Israeli nation. An Israeli citizen can be registered as belonging to the Assyrian, the Tatar or the Circassian nation. But the Israeli nation? Sorry, no such thing [...]“

The New Israel fund responds vigorously to the attack made on it ads in the Israeli press a few days ago (see http://jfjfp.com/?p=10007). The group behind these attacks turns out to be “funded by the same abundant money that flows to extremist settlers’ organizations, including a sizable contribution from John Hagee’s “Christians United for Israel” [...]

Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz correspondent shows how the definition of who is a Jew is being bent in order to “improve” the Jewish demography of Eretz Yisrael. The same Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who refuses to allow the ‘guest workers’ and their children to stay in Israel is encouraging non-Jewish Ethiopians and Indians to convert and emigrate [...]