FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Dr. Lana Tatour about the recent Israeli Supreme Court decision that opens a legal path for the Israeli government to revoke citizenship of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and what this decision both reflects and demonstrates about the fragile status of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
Dr. Tatour is an assistant professor in global development at the School of Social Science, University of New South Wales, Australia. She was the 2019–20 Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University. She is currently completing a book provisionally titled Ambivalent Resistance: Palestinians in Israel and the Liberal Politics of Settler Colonialism and Human Rights. Follow her on Twitter at @Lana_Tatour; her work in academic journals can be found here.
Subscribe to “Occupied Thoughts” on iTunes | Soundcloud |Spotify
Recorded July 28, 2022
Lana’s work (articles mentioned in the podcast)
Middle East Eye 7/25/22: Israel can now strip away 48 Palestinians’ citizenship
As-Safir Al-Arabi 8/15/20: Palestinians in Israel and the Illusionary Promise of Inclusive Citizenship
Arab Studies Journal 2019: Citizenship as Domination: Settler Colonialism and the Making of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel
Background on Supreme Court ruling
Israel Hayom 7/22/22: Israel may revoke terrorists’ citizenship, Supreme Court rules
Reuters 7/21/22: Israel’s Supreme Court rules ‘disloyal’ citizens can be stripped of status
Adalah 7/21/22: Israeli Supreme Court upholds law authorizing the revocation of citizenship [Adalah & ACRI response: “Although the Israeli Supreme Court did not allow the revocation of citizenship of two Palestinian citizens of Israel in the cases before it and upheld the principle that a person cannot be left without status, the Court’s decision is very dangerous as it also upholds the constitutionality of this ‘breach of loyalty’ law. This decision paves the way for the continued use of this illegitimate law, contrary to international law. The Supreme Court reached this decision, although it acknowledged in the ruling that no such law exists in any other country in the world. The current case indicates that the law is discriminatory and will likely be used exclusively against Palestinian citizens of Israel.”