from citizenship to stateless citizenship169 Israel does not express the Jewish majority in Israel. Israel expresses the existence of the trans-historical, trans-geographical Jewish people around the world. This notion has nothing to do with modern citizenship. It is a medieval idea. It has also nothing to do with the fact that the majority of citizens are Jews. This reality according to this view is totally unimportant, actually accidental, or if you want, it is man made; a majority is produced to meet the needs of the principle that this country is the country of the Jewish people, including those who do not live in the country. Israel does not express the Jewish majority in the country. It expresses the Jewish people, en genera, and the Jewish people are not all in Israel. …. You cannot separate a Jew from his right to become an Israeli citizen.28 With this Bishara unmasks a key element of the Zionist use of the principles of classical liberalism. As we saw in the argumentation put forward by Yakobson and Rubinstein in the previous chapter, reference to the principle of majority rule was repeatedly made so as to justify a decision-making process privileging the Jewish-Israeli population, given their demographic majority. Yet, what Bishara points to is that within this liberal-Zionist framework the democratic principle of majority rule is only secondary to a more primary objective of maintaining the exclusive ethno-national character of Israel. Put differently, practices of population management to (re)produce Jewish demographic domination are exercised so that the principle of majority rule can be applied to meet the greater interest of maintaining a state with a ‘Jewish’ character. What this implies is that the principle of majority rule would most probably no longer be applied by the Israeli government should the non-Jewish population become the majority. Again, the aim here is not to ensure that the liberal-democratic principle of majority rule is genuinely applied, but it is instead referred to because it dovetails nicely with the discriminatory aim of maintaining Jewish dominance in the state. Arab academic Raef Zreik, paints a similar picture of the civil status of Palestinians through a discussion of Israel’s borders. Pointing out that the institutions and bodies that actually created Israel are Jewish national bodies which represent not only Jewish citizens of Israel, but Jews worldwide, Zreik goes on to explain: The emerging picture is as follows: the borders of the state are almost meaningless in that being a Palestinian citizen inside Israel does not mean that you are part of the collective [national] project, while being a Jew living outside the state does not mean that you are not part of this project since, 28 Ibid. Emphasis added.