Compromise?!

Well, now we know:-

According to a position paper written by Mossawa - the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel and presented in a conference in Nazareth on Friday, Israeli Arabs want the right to return to villages abandoned in 1948, educational autonomy and changes to the Israeli flag and national anthem.

The paper, written in close coordination with the Israel Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, was presented as part of the week-long Second Annual Days of Mossawa Festival and Nazareth Film Festival, which ended Saturday.

"Our goal is to achieve a historic compromise with the Jewish community in Israel," Mossawa Center director Jafar Farah told the conference. "The move by refugees of 1948 to their villages will not change the demographic balance or endanger the Jews. Unlike the refugees in Arab states, we are [already] here," Farah said. "The internal refugees [residents forced to leave their villages in 1948 who moved to other Arab communities within Israel] represent about one-fourth of the Arab population in Israel today."

From Mossawa's website:-

The formal legal status of the Arab citizens of Israel has always been unclear, in a large part due to the double definition of the state as both Jewish and democratic. Although one in every five Israeli citizens is a Palestinian Arab, the Israeli government has yet to recognize this group as a national minority. Instead, the government refers to the Arab minority as "non-Jews", or generally as "minorities". The tensions between the Jewish and democratic aspects of the state have existed since the Proclamation of Independence, which simultaneously declared the historic right of the Jewish people to Israel as a homeland and called upon the Arab inhabitants of Israel to "participate in the up building of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship."

The double definition of the state as both Jewish and democratic is problematic. Many theorists argue that these definitions are mutually exclusive, and point out that neither definition has been fully realized. For while Israel is defined as the Jewish state, the defining culture of Israel is secular, and the political and legal systems are largely independent of Jewish tradition. Judaism has come to play a symbolic role in Israel, expressed in the national holidays, in the flag and other national symbols, and in terms of demographics. At the same time, Israel cannot be understood as a complete democracy. Despite the electoral system of proportional representation, the Arab minority in Israel has never gained "full and equal citizenship", and a complete democracy requires equal rights for all of its citizens.

Well, I'm glad that's all clear.