FINLAND & PALESTINE Proceedings of a Joint Workshop

Hannu JuusoIa
Circassian minorities, traditionally "pro*lsraeli," have rejected
the document. 4 As opposed to other Arabic sub*groups within
Israel, the Druze and Circassians are ready to accept Israel's
Jewish character.
The "Democratic Constitution" issued by the Adalah legal Cen*
ter for Arab Minority Rights in Israel is a constitutional proposal
which should, in the opinion of the drafters, be induded in
the future constitution of Israel. The Adalah document is clear*
Iy the most specific and polished of the vision documents. The
Haifa Declaration, of Mada al*Carmel- Arab Center for Applied
Social Research, aims in its own words to be a "draft of a con*
sensual statement of a collective vision that Palestinian citizens
in Israel articulate about themselves." "An Equal Constitution"
is a position paper defining ten collective rights that must be
addressed in any future constitution.
The Background of the Documents
As for the political and sociological background of the future
vision documents, several factors are of significance. First, we
need to bear in mind what has taken place within the Israeli
Jewish population. The question concerning the character of
Israel has been very much on the national agenda since the
beginning of the Oslo peace process. As an important part of
this self-characterization process, the constitutional project
continued in the 1990s with the enactment of some highly im*
portant basic laws, the most important of them being the
1992basic law on human dignity and liberty, in which Israel
was for the very first time officially defined as "Jewish and
democratic state."
4 Abulof, 2008, 46.
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