Citizen Strangers - (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and) by Shira N Robinson (Paperback)

The Citizen Strangers book examines how Arabs and Jews navigated exclusion and inclusion in a new state, forced by international norms to grant citizenship and suffrage rights to its unwanted native minority after the 1948 war.

The book traces how Jewish leaders struggled to advance their historic settler project while sharing political power with Palestinians, who held a paradoxical status in Israel as citizens of a formally liberal state and subjects of a colonial regime.

Despite efforts to reduce the size of the Palestinian population or formulate citizenship as a tool of collective exclusion, the government faced a fundamental dilemma: how to bind indigenous Arab voters to the state while denying them access to its resources.

Palestinian political activists had conflicting aspirations, with some seeking the end of Jewish privilege and others national independence along with their compatriots in exile.

This book provides a unique perspective on the complex history of Israel's formation and the ongoing struggle for equality and justice in the region.