Control method in conflict management: The case of Israel

The coexistance of groups with different ethnic identities has become the problem of nation states. In conflict management, there are methods for managing differences and methods for eliminating differences. "Control", first considered as a method to manage differences by Ian Lustick, was developed to adress these differences. The performance of this method has been evaluated in this study specifically for the Arabic people living in Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestinian territories, thousands of people were injured or lost their lives in the ongoing conflict between Arabic and Jewish people for almost a century. In the historical process, the conflicts with the Palestinian society and the State of Israel have caused the Arab citizens who stayed in the borders of Israel at 1948 and the Arabic individuals who got a residence permit in the following years to choose between the Palestinian identity and the Israeli identity. As a consequence, Israel's attitude towards Palestinians who are not within its borders has also had an impact on Israel's internal dynamics. Within the scope of this thesis, Israel's symbols, the policies implemented in the public sphere, the representation of the Arabic people in the political arena and the extent and manners through which the method of control are applied to the Arabic people living in Israel through discriminatory laws are discussed. Contrary to what control theories claim, these practices could not alleviate the ongoing conflict between Arab and Jewish groups living in Israel and damaged the stability of Israeli society. In particular, the "Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law" and the "Nation-State Law" show the increasingly intense effort to protect the Jewish character of the state against minorities. The claim that Israel systematically excludes Palestinian Arabs because a lasting peace could not be achieved will be defended as the main finding of this thesis.