introduction7 Zionist citizenship regime that produces their multifaceted exclusion. Here the concept of stateless citizenship becomes a useful analytical framework. Through its various internal paradoxical dynamics, stateless citizenship helps us understand the particular mechanisms and levels of (in-)existence and (non-)representation to which Arabs in Israel are subjected. It is through Israeli citizenship that Arabs are deemed stateless; it is through inclusion within the Israeli citizenship regime that they are excluded. And it is the associated conceptual and political dynamics of this provision of citizenship that the notion of stateless citizenship seeks to emphasize and analytically deconstruct. A New Chapter of Palestinian History A brief look at their particular historical development and placement in the Israeli regime is key to understanding the existing political, social, conceptual and identity-based contradictions faced by Palestinian citizens of Israel. Indeed, an overview of their specific historical experiences accounts for the oscillation between the Palestinian, Arab and Israeli parts of their identities. As a Jewish national movement that developed out of the propagation of Jewish immigration to and settlement in historical, or Mandate Palestine, Zionism has largely been a territorial and demographic success. By now, the military campaigns leading up to the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, have been widely documented.10 The events of the 1948 war resulted in the forced displacement and devastating rupture of the indigenous Palestinian community.11 Mass expulsions of Palestinian Arabs began in including in Canada, Australia, and the United States. For instance, the exclusion of Palestinians through an inclusion into the Israeli citizenship regime can reasonably be placed alongside campaigns for the incorporation of Aboriginal or indigenous communities in the citizenship systems of the mentioned settler-colonial states. As I reaffirm below, a historical and sociological comparison of the Israeli citizenship regime with those of other settler-colonial societies in the West is beyond the scope of this book. However, as the discussions and analysis in the prospective chapters will show, many dynamics illuminated in the concept of stateless citizenship appear particular to the Jewish state. Nevertheless, future scholarly undertakings on this issue could serve as a useful extension of the present discussions. 10 For instance, these scholars have contributed to the impressive body of knowledge concerning the 1948 war and laid the grounds other critical examinations of the ZionistPalestinian conflict: Abu Sitta (2001); Finkelstein (2003); Flapan (1987); Khalidi (1988) and (2005a); Lehn and Davis (1988); Masalha (1992); Morris (2004); and Pappé (1992), among others. 11 It is important to note that the phrase ‘1948 war’ can be misleading. Numerous scholars have documented that the mass expulsions of Palestinian-Arabs by Jewish-Zionist