In Israel

The experience of Palestinians or Arabs in Israel creates a range of unique tensions, making it difficult to know whether or not it should be considered part of the same narrative, the same tapestry as the situation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Some of the themes are the same. The issue of internally displace persons in Israel is given little attention but is clearly part of the larger Palestinian refugee issue. The classic case of Bir'aim, in which villagers agreed to vacate their village for use by troops on the condition that they could return two week later, is typical in so much as no return has ever been allowed, despite a 1952 Supreme Court ruling in favour of the villagers. Many of the villagers now live in nearby villages and (bizarrely) are able to return to their old churches for weddings and to bury their dead.

A slightly more distinctive issue is that of unrecognised villages. According to a priest I was speaking to this morning, an estimated 170,000 people live in villages which pre-exist the establishment of the State of Israel, but which were never recognised by the government. As such they are unable to build, and live ancient houses or in shacks. They are registered in neighbouring towns and so pay taxes, but receive no amenities, and live in a precarious legal grey area. The mixed village of Ras al-'Ain in Galilee is a case in point. The Christians there are trying to build a church, not least to establish the fact of their roots in the village, to say 'we belong here'. It may prove to be something of a test case.

However, perhaps the most critical issue for Palestinians in Israel is that of education and identity. I spoke to a teacher who says he often has to persuade some of his pupils that they are Palestinian, that their roots are in the land, and that the discrimination they experience as non-Jews demands the articulation of their own story. But this is complicated. A recent law has withdrawn state funding from any organisation that allows any representation of the Palestinian story of the Nakba to qualify the triumphalist celebrations of independence day. So schools, even schools without Jewish students, are forced to avoid the defining story of Arab Palestinian identity in the 20th Century. When Holocaust denial is legislated against, it is ironic and tragic that Nakba denial is legislated for.

These are issues that will not go away even if Palestine gets its state tomorrow, and could even be exacerbated. The pursuit of a single democratic "state for all its citizens" in the Holy Land is by far the best solution, one in which conflicting narratives are taught alongside each other, in which Jews and non-Jews are equals such that demographic majority becomes an irrelevance, and in which land is viewed as a shared responsibility rather than an exclusive right. It is also perhaps the only solution in which the Palestinians of Israel can enjoy a happy ending to their story.