“Jewish Nationality”, “National Institutions” and “Institutionalized Dispossession”

by Joseph Schechla

“Jewish nationality” is a concept arising from Zionist ideology that has evolved in Israeli law pertaining to civil status, but which also lies at the base of official policy and practice. “Jewish nationality” status is a key to understanding the State of Israel’s ideology and machinery for acquiring the properties and other assets of the indigenous Palestinian people. Thus, religious affiliation, as “Jewish nationality” status is the criterion for determining who benefits from the economic and cultural assets of Palestine.  Consequently, it also determines who loses in the material, social, cultural and political sense. It is a far more fundamental criterion for distributing rights and privileges than military service, mere Israeli citizenship, or even temporal connection with the country. The ideological criterion of “Jewish nationality,” therefore, is the lynch pin of the Zionist colonization project.

This super citizenship status materially discriminates against the indigenous Palestinian people, particularly through the dispossession of their homes, properties, lands and national resources, whether they are citizens and residents of Israel or external refugees, forcibly removed from their assets, and the transfer of those assets to holders of “Jewish nationality.”

Israel also applies this special status extra territorially through its parastatal “national” institutions (World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency, Jewish National Fund, and their affiliates). Those institutions have registered and operated as charities around the world, while simultaneously functioning as extensions of the State of Israel, under Israel’s Status Law (1952) and Covenant [with] the Zionist Executive (1952). Central to the purpose of these parastatal institutions is encouraging Jewish persons (considered as “Jewish nationals”) to emigrate to Palestine/Israel from their home countries. These institutions also collect tax-exempt contributions in those same countries for the establishment and development of Jewish settler colonies across over historic Palestine.

Full article in Badil's magazine Al Majdal