The Palestinian minority in Israel has reached the point where its old forms of organisation have lost their force. Part one of this analysis traced the labyrinth: a community between citizenship without equality and national belonging without a state. This second part asks: which form of political and social representation can lead out?
From protest to organisation
For decades the minority's political representation rested on two pillars: the party competition inside Israel and the emotional backing of the national question. Both pillars now stand on sand. Coalition arithmetic turns representation into merchandise; the fragmented party landscape of the Arabs in Israel competes for ministerial posts while the structural inequalities – education, land, planning, security – persist.
The way out begins with separating levels: inside parliament the issue is resources, laws and equality as citizens of a really existing state order. Above parliamentary politics, however, the community needs an independent, nationally legitimated representation – elected by the community, accountable to it, independent of Israeli party calculations.
Building blocks of a new representation
Conceivable are interlocking forms: an elected national assembly of the Palestinians in Israel; standing representative bodies for the key fields of education, planning and justice; networks with Arab and Palestinian institutions in the region and the diaspora. Such structures exist in embryo – they must be professionalised, democratised and put on a permanent footing.
The labyrinth has an exit, but no guide: the community must organise it itself. That is laborious, unglamorous – and the only way from an endured minority position to a shaping political force.
