from citizenship to stateless citizenship153 for the civil and national fulfillment and “normal development” of the Arab citizens of Israel (Ghanem 2001, 200). Defining the ‘Israeli’ Nation Scholars such as Kimmerling (2002), Rouhana (1997) and Ghanem (2001) point to the central, and deeply controversial, feature of Israeli national identity, or Israeli nationality: its internal social contradictions and chasms. The dominance of Jewish-Israeli citizens and others granted the status of ‘Jewish nationality’ under Israeli law makes ‘Israeli nationality’ an impossibility. And this impossibility has, on numerous occasions, been upheld through Israeli court decisions. For instance, in 1970 when the registration of the children of a Jewish naval officer and his non-Jewish wife as ‘Jews’ was accepted by the Supreme Court – along with the recommendation that the classification of ‘nationality’ be completely withdrawn from the Israeli identity card – a Knesset law fuelled mainly by religious parties was passed stipulating that both parents need to be Jewish in order to register the child as a Jew (Keren 2002, 105). On April 18 of the same year, and in response to the limitations and controls this law imposes on personal status, Jewish-Israeli psychologist George Tamarin sought to challenge the official designation of his nationality from ‘Jewish’ to ‘Israeli’. The process for a change of registration requires public notice and, as such, Tamarin even filed a petition at the District Court asking it “to affirm that he had appeared before it and alleged in good faith his commitment to the Israeli nationality.”4 In considering Tamarin’s petition, the District Court Judge, Yitzhak Shilo, acknowledged the oppressive character of laws that impose an unwanted designation and even agreed that nationality ought to be determined by the individual. Yet, Justice Shilo concluded that the existence of an Israeli nation as distinct from a Jewish nation seemed to be an impossibility on account of his “living amongst [his] people,” and stated that “a person cannot create a new nationality just by saying it exists, and then say he belongs to it” (Keren 2002, 106–107).5 The impossibility of a 4 See Tamarin v. State of Israel (1970) Israeli Supreme Court, 26 P.D. I 197, quoted from United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-ninth session, Report of the Special Rapporteur … Miloon Kothari. 5 Moshe Gorali, “So this Jew, Arab, Georgian and Samaritan go to court… The state denies there is any such nationality as ‘Israeli’,” Haaretz, December 28, 2003, http://www .haaretz.com/print-edition/features/so-this-jew-arab-georgian-and-samaritan-go-to-court -1.109982.