60 chapter two Inequality in Israel is manifested in various concrete ways. Social rifts in Israel exist among women and men, Mizrahi, or Eastern Jews, and the dominant Ashkenazi, or Western Jews, Orthodox versus secular Jews, Israel-born Jews (Sabar) and new Jewish immigrants (Olim), along with other dividing lines that are based on class, political expression, physical handicap, sexual orientation and gender, and area of residence.25 Granted, Israel has instituted some of the most progressive and tangible legislation and policies targeting these forms of disenfranchisement and division. Yet, as Adalah points out: Israel’s Knesset, for example, has legislated strong anti-discrimination legislation and legal protections for women and disabled persons. However, the same has not been done for the Palestinian minority in Israel. As a result, Palestinians who are also members of other marginalized groups do not receive the full benefit of such protections.26 Despite forming over 20 percent of the total population of Israel, Palestinian-Arabs are not recognized as a national group or minority in The Basic Laws of Israel. For the most part, the Arab citizenry is viewed as a threat, and often explicitly referred to as a ‘fifth column’, ‘security concern’, or ‘demographic time bomb’ by Israeli politicians and public figures. As a national non-immigrant collective forming a demographic minority on its historical lands, Palestinian-Arabs are not treated as an underdeveloped or marginalized community by the state. Instead, Palestinian citizens are confronted with intricate racialized policies of exclusion which, allied with partial inclusion in all spheres of life, only further the existing gaps between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. These policies fuel and are fuelled by the absence of a provision in Israeli law for the concept of constitutional equality. Now, a promise of full equality for all citizens is made in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, its Declaration of Independence, yet it is thoroughly absent in the form of actual legislation. Equality is not an enshrined constitutional right, and is absent from The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom which has, in the absence of a written constitution, served as Israel’s constitutional bill of rights since 1992. Hence, while the law protects the equal rights of 25 Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, The Inequality Report, 4. 26 The Women’s Equal Right’s Law (1951) and The Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law (1998) are examples of such legislation. Further, on March 30, 2011, the Knesset approved The Expansion of Adequate Representation of Women (Amendments) Law, 57712011 which requires adequate representation of women in posts of commissions of inquiry according to The Commissions of Inquiry Law, 5729-1968 and The Government Law, 57612001 (ibid., 5, 59).