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This article will juxtapose the goals and implications of two pedagogical programmes that promote education for belonging in Israel. Representing the official knowledge of the Ministry of Education, the first is the ‘100 Concepts in Heritage, Zionism and Democracy’ curriculum. The second, which embodies the counter knowledge produced and disseminated by Arab civil society organizations, is entitled ‘Identity and Belonging: The Basic Concepts Project for Arab Pupils’. The article grapples with the attempts of Israel to impose a state‐standardized version of education for belonging, as well as the active resistance to this by Arab civil society in Israel which provides an alternative one. The article argues that the concepts included in the curriculum posed by Arab civil society, albeit controversial and challenging to the very definition of Israel as both a Jewish nation state and a democracy, should be considered an act of citizenship, rather than a sign of radicalization and separatism. Indeed, the alternative curriculum constitutes a political and ethical act of ‘in your face’ democracy, which is deeply confrontational and interruptive. The paper is organized into three sections. The first explicates the politics of recognition as a theoretical framework for this study. The second unit presents both curricula and compares and contrasts the two. The third and final section offers concluding thoughts regarding the interplay of the rival Palestinian and Israeli historiographies in the struggle over canonizing and standardizing a collective narrative through the Israeli education system.

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This article explores the dynamic of the Palestinian legal struggle for equal educational opportunities in Israel. It examines the tension between the Palestinians’ positions on equality, on one hand, and the way the Israeli legal system seems to define equality, on the other hand. The article argues that the Israeli legal system seems to adopt a narrow formal view on educational equality for Palestinian children, a view that is not liable to bring about societal transformation.

Family unification received public and political attention following recent global immigration crises, though less within health research. In Israel, under the Family Reunification Order, about 20,000 Palestinian women from the Occupied Palestinian Territories are denied residency and the right to universal health care services (HSC) after marrying Palestinian citizens and moving to Israel. To better understand the relationship between lacking residency and barriers to accessing HCS, we conducted in-depth interviews with 21 Palestinian women (ages 22-59) denied family unification. Our findings revealed that in addition to hindering access to HCS, lacking residency intersects with other political, social, and economic determinants of these women's health and disrupts normal family life. Lacking residency intensifies poverty (via private health insurance and legal fees, permit extensions) and leads to family separations and risky crossings at military checkpoints into the West Bank for medical treatment. Restrictions on freedom of movement engender fear of deportation and precarity. Denial of residency also exacerbates gender inequality (increased dependence on husbands) and can endanger child custody when mothers' lack of residency passes to children, violating children's basic rights. Allowing family unification to Palestinian women would remove barriers to HCS access, allow normal family life, and permit social integration.