the israeli incorporation regime63 informal practices and new legislation ensuring Jewish dominance within the State of Israel, are based.32 Structural and Institutional Levels Arab citizens of Israel are involuntarily excluded from a wide range of Israeli institutions, public decision-making and civil power centres, including all areas of the legislative, executive, judiciary and government administration. To begin with, Arabs are excluded from the political-decision making centres. The Arab parties that are anti-Zionist or non-Zionist have historically played the role of a ‘permanent opposition’. As it stands, no Arab political party has been part of a ruling government coalition.33 This exclusion is fuelled both by the refusal of other coalition members to include Arab political parties and by opposition of Arab parties to the political mandate of these coalitions. Moreover, Arab political representatives have systematically been excluded from the important Knesset committees, such as the Department of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Defence. In fact, since its inception, Israel has only had a few ministerial positions appointed to its Arab citizenry: Nawaf Massalha was chosen as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1999, Salah Tarif was ‘Minister without portfolio’ in 2001, and Raleb Majadele was Minister for Science and Technology in 2007. In Israel, the legislative branch is represented by the Knesset and has sole authority to enact laws. In the absence of a constitution, the Knesset acts as both the legislature and constituent assembly and enacts a series of Basic Laws to fill the constitutional void in the state.34 As per the 32 In addition, on July 1, 2008, the Knesset voted to extend the validity of The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (2003) for another year to July 31, 2009. Although the law is defined as a “temporary order” it has been extended nine times to date. First enacted in July 2003, the law denies Palestinian citizens the right to acquire residency or citizenship status in Israel for their Palestinian spouses from the OPT entirely on the basis of their nationality. Since its inception, changes have been made to this legislation that add to its racialized structure. Amendments were introduced to the law in July 2005 which allowed family unification in very restricted and limited conditions, thus inflicting immense violations of rights protected by international law, mainly the rights to family life, privacy, dignity, marriage, and equality. In May 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court once again displayed its complicity in legitimating Israel’s racialized and discriminatory legal system by upholding the constitutionality of a law that denies a person’s basic rights to humanitarian connections (e.g. the right to family ties) on the grounds of her/his national belonging. See Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, The Inequality Report for more. 33 Ibid., 52. 34 In Citizens without Citizenship, Nimer Sultany explains: “In addition to functioning as the legislature and constituent assembly, the Knesset fills a quasi-juridical role. An example of this function is the immunity granted to MKs and the power granted to the Knesset to remove the president of the state and the state comptroller from their positions” (2003, 17).