The First Period: 1949–1974

Chapter 4 covers the first period of the Arab Palestinian legislators’ activities, 1949–1974 (the 1st Knesset through the 7th Knesset). The chapter illustrates that in the first decade of the newly born Jewish democratic country, the Arab Palestinian legislators who found themselves a minority had to fight for their national identity—Arab rather than Palestinian, and Israeli Arabs as part of the Arab world. In the second and the beginning of the third decades the Israeli government eliminated military rule over the Arab localities and came to rule over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Within this context the political discourse changed to an emphasis on the second and third identities: religion and being Palestinian. The chapter demonstrates that Arab Palestinian legislators have paid policy attention to all five of their identities in their parliamentary talks. Indeed, as research has established, the percentage of policy attention they allocated to these identities varied. However, in the first several decades of Israel, most of the Arab Palestinian legislators’ focus was on their identity as Arabs within Israel.