Please see for more information on the above mentioned issues: BADIL Resource Center, Series on Forced Population Transfer: http://www.badil.org/phocadownloadpap/Badil_ docs/publications/wp15-introduction.pdf The idea of establishing a “permit regime” started with the first groups of Zionist colonists entering Palestine in the beginning of the 20th Century. Kibbutzim – or collective communities - were, effectively, "little fortresses" which allowed colonists to establish a physical foothold in this unknown and hostile environment as seen by the colonists. Each kibbutz was built by European Jews so as to acquire territory, and thus separate the land from its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. Over time, this strategy of acquisition and expansion would serve to establish a territory for the Jewish people. Notably, Palestinians by large were not permitted to live, enter or work in a kibbutz. In this regard, kibbutzim even “rejected” the exploitation of cheap Arab labor and used instead Yemenite Jewish agricultural workers.6 This politics of separation and conquest is still visible today in various aspects of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land including, as this paper will demonstrate, through the implementation of the contemporary permit regime. The underlying concept behind this regime is the categorization and classification of the Palestinian population. Palestinians have been divided by Israel into five main categories and several subcategories. • • • • • 6 10 Palestinian citizens of Israel: Palestinians permanently residing within Israel with Israeli citizenship. Although they are citizens of the State, in practice, individuals in this subcategory enjoy fewer rights than Israeli Jewish nationals. Palestinian permanent residents of Jerusalem: Palestinians who are registered as being permanent residents of East Jerusalem after the 1967 occupation and illegal annexation by Israel. Palestinians with a West Bank identity card: Palestinians who are registered as being permanent residents of the West Bank after the 1967 occupation by Israel. Palestinians with Gaza Strip identity card: Palestinians who are registered in the Gaza Strip after the 1967 occupation by Israel. Palestinians living in forced exile without any legal affiliation to Mandate Palestine: Palestinians (along with their descendants) who have been forcibly displaced from their homeland since the establishment of Israel. See Uri Ram, “The Changing Agenda of Israeli Sociology: Theory, Ideology, and Identity”, SUNY Press, 2012.