The Two-State Model and Israeli Constitutionalism: Impact on the Palestinian Citizens of Israel

תקציר

Partitioning historic Palestine into two states is often presented as the most plausible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article examines the potential impact of such a development on the Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI), primarily from the vantage point of Israel’s constitutional regime. The article explores three fundamental aspects of the Israeli constitutional system — its instability, the “Jewish and democratic” definition of the state, and the exclusion of the PCI from “the people” as the unit that holds sovereignty — and argues that the envisaged two-state solution will only reinforce the definition of Israel as a Jewish state and consequently provide further justification for the infringement on the rights of its Palestinian citizens.