Involuntary incorporation: The case of Israel

Thus, Israelis and Palestinians are destined to live in close mutual proxim ity in a land which they both consider to be exclusively theirs. Although the Jews are the majority in the Israeli state and in the areas occupied by that state, the non-Jewish inhabitants - those who are Israeli citizens and those who live in the Occupied Territories of Judaea, Samaria and Gaza - form part of a more extensive ethnic grouping, the Arabs, who dw arf the Israelis numerically in the broader regional context (Soffer 1983). This fact received special emphasis during the 1950s and 1960s, when the focus of the Israeli-Arab conflict was the hostile relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. This differs from the perspective of the 1970s and 1980s, during which the direct confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians within Palestine/Eretz-Yisrael (the Land of Israel) has been emphasized.