The gap in political representation between represented and non-represented identities is defined as a “double disadvantage.” It leads to greater invisibility among representatives who belong to several disadvantaged groups and have intersectional identities, compared with those who belong to only one disadvantaged group. The Arab minority in Israel and its representatives in the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) grapple with intersectional identities such as religion, two nationalities and gender. Arab legislators in Israel operate in a unique context. Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which Arabs are a minority. At the same time, the Jewish majority in Israel is a minority in the Middle East, and the state is surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Israel is a democracy surrounded by non-democratic countries. Furthermore, it faces unique challenges. It is under constant attack from the Arab would. It is a country without defined borders and is the target hostile terrorist organizations who believe that Israel does not have the right to exist.

Furthermore, it is a multi-ethnic society with extensive ethnic diversity. The largest ethnic split is between Jews and Arabs. As of 2020, there were 9,291,000 Israeli citizens—21.1% non-Jews, mostly Muslim, Christian, and Druze Arabs, and 73.9% Jews. However, there are also substantial ethnic differences among Jews who come from different regions of the world. Among the Jews, there is an ethnic divide between two major geo-cultural groups: Jews of European or North American origin (Ashkenazim) and Jews of Asian or North African origin (Mizrachim). The latter group generally scores lower than the former group with regard to various measures of social stratification. 

In recent decades an additional distinct group of citizens have come to Israel: Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.  By the end of the century Russian immigrants constituted almost 20% of the Jewish population of Israel. Additional differences within the Jewish groups in Israel relate to religiosity. In Israel, the Jewish religious dimension is a continuum, with traditional and Orthodox Jews situated in between the secular and ultra-Orthodox poles. 

Hence, the Arab minority in Israel differs from the majority both in terms of nationality (Arab and Palestinian) and religion (As of 2020, 17% of the Arab are Muslim, 9% are Christian, and 8% are Druze), in addition to its connection to the global Arab world. While Jews and Arabs formally enjoy equal citizenship rights by law, they vary substantially in practice. 

The study analyzes the content of Arab legislators’ parliamentary activities on the floor and how they deal with their intersectional identities in their representation. In the category of parliamentary activities, I include the use of legislative and non-legislative tools. Examples include parliamentary questions, bills and legislation, motions for the agenda, one-minute speeches and debates during a vote of no confidence and regarding special events. By analyzing the use of these parliamentary tools, I can create the first comprehensive picture of minority representation and address the questions of whether, when or why intersectional identities create invisible representation. 

To visualize the composition of the intersectional representation with respect to nationality, religion, gender, Palestinians and other issues, I created an index of intersectional representation. The index is comprised of five themes (identities): nationality (Arab), religion (Muslims, Christians and Druze), Palestinian (additional nationality) and gender (female and male in a traditional society). In addition to the four identities, I included the category of “others,” which refers to the legislators’ discussions of ordinary issues such as healthcare, the economy and education.

Intersectional representation during Israel’s first decade: 1949-1959

During Israel’s first decade there were three Knesset terms, eight governments and two prime ministers. In this decade Israel absorbed massive waves of immigration, which began immediately with the establishment of the state. Within two years, these immigrants had more than doubled the population. This costly undertaking changed the residential map of the state and its demographic structure. The Israeli economy was based on major government involvement in the economy and a large public sector – for ideological reasons but also for pragmatic reasons. 

Between 1948 and 1966, Arab citizens in Israel lived under military rule, which severely restricted their freedom of movement. In general, Arab citizens were exempt from compulsory military service. However, in 1956 Israel began the compulsory draft of Druze men, after a period of them volunteering for military service since 1948. This law included Circassians, an ethnic group that lives in two villages in the north of Israel. Most of them are Sunni Muslims.

During the first decade, Fedayeen terrorist attacks increased. The Fedayeen were Palestinians who infiltrated Israel from Egypt and Jordan. In addition, Egypt harassed Israeli ships that tried to cross the Suez Canal, and there were Syrian attacks into Israeli territory. Israel protested these attacks in the UN, and of course, they were discussed in the Knesset. The Soviet Union severed ties with Israel in 1953 and began to move closer to Egypt and other Arab countries.

Operation Kadesh- an Israeli military operation against Egypt in October 1956 – was initiated by France and Britain because of the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company by the Egyptian government. They wanted to regain control of the Suez Canal. Israel joined them due to pressure from the European countries and because of the closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. Following international pressure, Israel was forced to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and most of the Sinai Peninsula, and a UN emergency force was deployed along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The withdrawal was completed in March 1957. 

The first decade of the Israeli state was challenging for the Arab minority in several ways. They lived under military rule that severely limited their freedom of movement, livelihoods and free expression. Nevertheless, they were citizens who could vote and be elected to the Israeli parliament as equal citizens. The Jewish immigrants who came to Israel in the first decade settled in abandoned Palestinian villages and neighborhoods in mixed cities such as Jaffa, Haifa and Acre. Finally, the Arabs who remained in Israel became a minority after many years of being the majority, while the rest of their people became part of other countries as refugees.

Hence, the Arab minority in Israel has several identities based on their two nationalities (Arab and Palestinian), religion (Muslims, Christians and Druze), and gender (female and male in a traditional society). In addition to these identities, they are also concerned about the ordinary issues such as healthcare, the economy and education that concern all Israelis. 

An analysis of the demographics of the Arab legislators in all three Knesset terms of the first decade indicates that the Druze and Christians are overrepresented and Muslims are underrepresented. In the first decade of Israel 70% of the Arab minority were Muslims, 21% were Christian and 9% were Druze. In the first Knesset, out of 3 Arab legislators, 2 were Muslims (66.66%) and 1 was Christian (33.33%). In the second Knesset, out of 8 Arab legislators, 3 were Muslims (37.5%), 3 were Christian (37.5%) and 2 were Druze (25%). In the third Knesset, out of 8 Arab legislators, 2 were Muslims (25%), 4 were Christian (50%) and 2 were Druze (25%). 

Figure 1 illustrates the comparisons of the three Arab legislators based on their scores on the index of intersectional representation (the first Knesset). 

It is interesting to see the differences between the three Arab legislators. Indeed, all three of them devoted most of their statements to issues related to Arab nationality. However, MK Amin Jarjoura spent more time than the other two talking about general topics such as healthcare, the economy and education. None of the Arab legislators paid much attention to issues related to Palestinian nationality.

Figure 2 illustrates the comparisons of the Arab legislators based on their scores on the index of intersectional representation (the second Knesset). 

The scores on the intersectional representation index emphasize some of the differences in the foci of the eight Arab legislators. MK Jaber Moade talked more than the others about Palestinian nationality. In contrast, MK Seif el-Din el Zoubi spoke more often about religious issues. Despite being a Muslim, he volunteered to fight with the Haganah, Israel’s defense force, before the establishment of Israel. In 1940, the Arab Supreme Court sentenced him to death due to his cooperation with the Jews. Like Jaber Moade, he convinced his family to join the Jewish side during the War of Independence. Thanks to him the Arab villages that were connected to his family (Sulam, Nin, Tamra, Taibeh and Na’oora) were saved and became part of the state of Israel.

Figure 3 illustrates the comparisons of the Arab legislators based on their scores on the index of intersectional representation (the third Knesset).

The two Druze legislators, Jaber Moade and Hassan Hanifes, present a similar pattern regarding the amount of time they devoted to discussing the two nationalities (Arab and Palestinian). They paid less attention to Arab nationality compared to the other Arab legislators (63.06% and 54.1%, respectively) and more attention to Palestinian nationality compared to the other Arab legislators (17.37% and 14.27%, respectively). MK Hassan Hanifes was also unusual in devoting 10.01% of his time to issues related to gender, a topic that was of little interest to the other Arab legislators (range between 0.93% and 2.59%). In this third Knesset, the issue of religion seems to have disappeared. 

By analyzing all of the talks on the floor of Israel’s parliament by its Arab legislators, I created the first comprehensive picture of minority representation and provided some preliminary answers to the questions of whether, when or why intersectional identities create invisible representation. The figures showed that intersectional representation exists, but within it each Arab legislator decides and acts according to the issues he wants to advance: Arab nationality, which gained the most attention in the first decade of the Israeli state, or Palestinian nationality, which two Druze Arab legislators emphasized more. Other identities disappeared.

Professor Osnat Akirav, Associate Professor at Western Galilee College, Israel

By Anna Bocking-Welch, Richard Huzzey, Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Henry Miller

Petitions and Parliament

Studies of twentieth-century Britain, whether by politics scholars or historians, have generally assumed the irrelevance of petitioning. Colin Leys opened his classic 1955 article on the subject by asking ‘is petitioning a sufficiently important phenomenon to merit attention from students of politics?’ (Leys 1955: 45). For historians tracing the development of the ‘Westminster model’, petitions seemed less important than party politics and elections. The twentieth-century was after all when universal electoral franchise was affirmed, with the development of mass (grass roots based) parties, and when the representative chain from vote to parliament to government became most firmly established. In that context, a tool such as petitions, which had in the nineteenth-century become a key mechanism to enfranchise those at the margins of the political system, seemed irrelevant. And nowhere is this clearer than in Parliament. And yet, extensive literature also shows an expansion of participatory forms of democracy in the twentieth-century (e.g. Cain et al 2003; Dalton 1988; Pattie et al 2004), particularly from the 1970s onwards. So, what does the assumed irrelevance of petitions to the UK Parliament tell us about its relationship with the people during the twentieth-century? There was a clear decline of the number of petitions formally received by the House of Commons during the twentieth century. As Figure 1 shows, there was a dramatic collapse of the number of public petitions (i.e. excluding local or private legislation) during the First World War. To put these figures in historical context, during the nineteenth-century, the Commons typically received 10,000 public petitions, and on occasion as many as 20,000 and even 30,000 public petitions in a session (Huzzey and Miller 2020: 139); with the introduction of e-petitions to parliament in 2015, those numbers would climb up to over 10.000 again (Leston-Bandeira 2019: 423). The nadir for petitioning the Commons came in the middle decades of the twentieth century.

Following a Report by the Select Committee on Procedure (1972-73), the Public Petitions Committee, which had been established in 1833 to receive, record, and classify public petitions to the Commons, was abolished in 1974. The Report had argued that the Petitions Committee was redundant given the small numbers of petitions. It met around four times a session, and some meetings lasted less than a minute. Yet the Report was something of a missed opportunity to re-imagine petitions as a tool for wider public engagement with Parliament. During the hearings, the chairman of the Petitions Committee had agreed that it should be abolished unless reformed. But his proposals for strengthening the Committee, including giving it powers of investigation, as the powers of the current Petitions Committee (re-introduced in 2015), were dismissed out of hand (Procedure Committee 1972-73). A few years later a former member of the Petitions Committee blamed party whips for refusing ‘to give us the power which would make public petitions worthwhile. The powers in authority then decided to abolish the Committee rather than make it truly effective.’ (Leslie Spriggs, Hansard, 16 March 1976, volume 907, column 1169).

Despite the clear decline in the overall number of petitions to the Commons, we must be mindful of some of the limitations of the data. The data in Figure 1 indicates the number of petitions presented, but not how many people had signed them. First, there were still examples of large, mass petitions to Parliament, in some cases signed by millions of people. During the Second World War, petitions for increased state pensions were presented in 1939, 1943, and 1945, and signed by 5m, 4.1m, and 6m people respectively (Loft 2019: 15). Given the party political truce at the time and the suspension of general elections, petitions were a particularly important method for political participation and representation during wartime. 

Second, the data doesn’t capture more informal petitions to individual MPs, which remained very common, and if anything increased, in the twentieth-century. For instance, in 1922, as part of its campaign to lower income tax, the Daily Mail organised over 500,000 telegram petitions from readers directed to MPs, but intended to pass these on to the government (Daily Mail, 2 May 1922: 8) – as a result the House of Commons wouldn’t officially record this type of petition.

Petitions to Parliament then could still be important, and there was something of a revival of the number of petitions received by the Commons in the 1980s and 1990s, as indicated in Figure 1, which anticipated the emergence of e-petitions after 2000. Noting the ‘considerable increase’ of petitioning the House, in 1992 a new Procedure Committee Report recommended modernising the rather ‘archaic’ language required in parliamentary petitions but concluded that existing ‘procedure is basically sound’ (Procedure Committee 1991-92).

Petitions: global, national, local

The decline of petitions to Parliament seems to be due to the expansion of powers of other key institutions such as the executive, local government, and administrative or judicial bodies. This meant that petitions formerly directed to the Commons, were now sent to other authorities (Huzzey and Miller 2021: 242-3). When placed in a comparative perspective, the UK experience was part of a broader trend away from petitioning national legislatures to other authorities without institutional petitions systems, as evident in France and the USA (Huzzey and Miller forthcoming).

While petitions recorded by Parliament’s institutional ‘petitions system’ declined, petitioning remained a popular, widespread, ubiquitous form of political activity directed at national, but also international and local authorities. This explains why late twentieth-century surveys of political participation repeatedly found that a majority of British respondents had signed a petition (Dalton 1988; Pattie et al 2004; Huzzey and Miller forthcoming). Research by Michael Rush shows a steady increase across the century in citizens contacting MPs, reflected in an exponential growth in post to MPs and the development of the practice of constituency surgeries (Rush 2005); in many ways this reflects the expansion of the State’s, and consequently Parliament’s, areas of responsibility in the post-war period. So, the decline of petitions to Parliament does not signify in itself a decline of citizens getting involved with politics or reaching out to authorities.

Petitions to Number 10 Downing Street became in fact a popular choice for petitioners, who recognised the growing power of the prime minister. Moreover, presenting petitions to Number 10 created spectacles that attracted media coverage for campaigns. In the early twentieth-century suffragettes attempted to gain admittance to Number 10 to personally present their petitions to the Liberal Prime Minister H.H. Asquith (Miller 2021: 338-42). Campaigners made the presentation of petitions to Number 10 as visually interesting as possible to maximise photo opportunities. For example, in April 2000, campaigners for global education, marched to Downing Street carrying petitions in the shape of life-size cut-outs of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Independent, 21 April 2000: 8).

Petitions were also frequently directed to local councils on a range of issues, including road safety, health, education, and housing. Other petitions were directed at international authorities, such as Jubilee 2000, a global campaign for the cancellation of developing world debt, whose petition was sent to the UN. The Anti-Apartheid Movement sent a series of petitions to the UN and also Commonwealth bodies in the 1970s, while in the previous decade anti-Vietnam War protestors presented petitions to the US embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Such was the ubiquity of petitioning, that petitions were not limited to formal political institutions, but were also sent to companies and other bodies. In the 1970s, for example, gay rights campaigners petitioned breweries regarding the refusal of particular pubs to serve gay customers (Gay News, 2 April 1975, p. 1).  

In explaining why people petitioned, our research suggests that we should pay less attention to authorities and institutions, or specific direct policy outcomes, and more to the uses of petitioning to campaigners, activists, and ordinary citizens. As has been recognised by US political scientists, signing petitions was and is a tool of political organisation and recruitment (Carpenter 2016), and a gateway into wider activism (Carpenter and Moore 2014). As shown by Leston-Bandeira more recently (2019), petitions play a wide range of roles in political systems, such as in linkage and campaigning, besides actual policy and scrutiny roles.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament regularly organised petitions to Parliament, prime ministers, and international authorities, from the late 1950s to the 1980s, all of which were unsuccessful if judged in terms of changing UK defence policy. Yet as CND’s Campaign newspaper put it in 1983: ‘in itself the petition is largely irrelevant, rather we use it as an enabling tool’ (Campaign 1983). The local gathering of signatures was typically combined with other activities, such as fund-raising, and leafletting. The presentation of CND petitions in Westminster or Whitehall was usually accompanied by a march and rally, with the aim of energising supporters, exerting pressure on politicians, attracting media coverage, and raising public awareness.

Conclusion

In twentieth-century Britain, petitioning was valuable to campaigners, signatories, activists, civil society actors, and ordinary people, for a range of reasons, and this remained true even if their requests were not directed at Parliament or granted by authority. In particular, the signature gathering process and presentation of petitions provided focal points that connected and underpinned other types of political activity. Although the number and importance of petitioning Parliament was diminished compared to earlier centuries and today, petitioning remained a widespread, popular, political activity across Britain. The decline of petitions directed to the House of Commons indicates instead a preference from citizens for other institutions, reflecting an expansion of powers and visibility of other authorities. It also denotes a missed opportunity for Parliament which, following the abolishment of its Petitions Committee in 1974, lost relevance for many of these ongoing campaigns.

The Petitioning and People Power in twentieth-century Britain project is funded by a research grant from the AHRC and ESRC (AH/TOO3847/1)