Why read Citizen Strangers?

Book cover of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State

Book description

Following the 1948 war and the creation of the state of Israel, Palestinian Arabs comprised just fifteen percent of the population but held a much larger portion of its territory. Offered immediate suffrage rights and, in time, citizenship status, they nonetheless found their movement, employment, and civil rights restricted by…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Citizen Strangers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ian Lustick

Author

For the first eighteen years of Israel’s existence most Arabs in the country were ruled by a military administration. It was formally abolished only a year before the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and the establishment of Israeli military rule in those territories. The story of that early military government is not well known, except by specialists. But with the publication of Shira Robinson’s book, based on declassified archival material, we now know the details of how Arab citizens of Israel were subordinated, exploited, and manipulated, under false rationales of security concerns, in order to bolster the…

From Ian's list on origins of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.