Citizenship Revocation Proposals as National Symbolic Struggles: The Case of Israel

This study explores expatriation laws in Israel as legal indicators of social and political worldviews. Since 1952, Israel has been legally able to revoke citizenship for “breach of allegiance.” Comparative analysis of the limited usages of this law compared to politicians’ threats to implement this policy, allow me to argue that the objectives of this practice are both punitive and symbolic. Empirical investigations of the legal history of this law in the last two decades show that proposals to revoke citizenship are attempts to revive, as a socially constructed category, the assumption that national identity should be absolute, significant, and exclusive.