Arabic and the Nation-State law in Israel: when legal liminality foreshadows political downgrade

Many have argued that the legal status of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, a national and Indigenous minority, was downgraded with the passage of the legislation with constitutional standing in 2018. This article specifically focuses on language and the way in which the law relates to the Arabic language. Arabic, here, is widely understood as a stand-in for its speakers–Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel. Following passage of this legislation, the legal status of Arabic, which, along with Hebrew, were both ‘official’ languages (de jure) now holds ‘special’ status; this leaves it legally undefined or in a kind of limbo. We claim that this change is consistent with the concept of ‘legal liminality’. Using the Palestinian minority as a case study, we argue that even groups who, on paper, are full citizens, can experience legal liminality through a downgrading of rights related to collective identity–in this case, linguistic rights. This change and others are, furthermore, indicative of general trends in Israel as related to Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, their status and future. We argue that this change to the status of Arabic foreshadows continued and intensified erosion of their universal rights to equitable citizenship and minority protections.