"Back to the Future": A Comparative Ethical Look at Israeli Arab Future Vision Documents

• Published in: Israel studies forum 2008-12, Vol.23 (2), p.29-54
• Main Author: Abulof, Uriel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Case studies; Communities; Cultural identity; Democracy; Ethical aspects; Ethnic identity; Group identity; Jewish identity; Jewish peoples; Jewish-Arab relations; Palestinian Arabs; Political aspects; Political ethics; Polities; Self determination; THE VISION DOCUMENTS OF PALESTINIAN CITIZENS
• ISSN: 1557-2455; 1558-545X

Israeli Arabs "future vision" documents are an ethical-political manifesto, contextualized in academic discourse and informed by sociohistorical parallels. Hence, this article examines their political ethics in a comparative perspective, by referencing the case of Israeli Arabs along with two other distinct intra-state conflicts: the strife between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada and the struggle between Macedonians and Albanians in Macedonia. These cases illuminate two main ethical-political alternatives to the present pattern of relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Although the Canadian case indicates a renunciation of ethnonationalism in favor of civic and linguistic patriotism, the Macedonian case presents an attempt to reconcile ethno-national affiliation with democratic principles. Projecting the ethical discussion of the Canadian and Macedonian cases onto Israel, I contend that normative acceptance of the mutual and dual right of self-determination, regarding both the individual's collective identity and the collective's polity, is a precondition for reconciliation between Jews and Arabs.