The Adviser on Arab Affairs, The General Security Service, and Arab Student Committees in Israel, 1967-1977

This dissertation focuses on Arab student activism, primarily through the Arab Students' Committees, in Israel, and how it was viewed and approached by officials within the Office of the Prime Minister's Adviser on Arab Affairs and by the Israeli Security Services, primarily the General Security Service , or Shabak, from 1967 until 1977. During this period the number of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel studying in the state's universities rose increasingly, and with it the scope and intensity of the political activity of Arab Students' Committees. State officials in the Prime Ministers Office of Arab Affairs and Palestinian Arab citizens and the General Security service took note of these trends sought to respond to them in different ways. In considering both the activities of Arab Students' Committee Members, especially at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the reactions of certain state agencies to their efforts, this dissertation considers developments in the collective self-identification of Arab citizens of Israel in the decade after 1967 and the way in which agents of the state responsed to these trends. This dissertation contributes to the existing scholarship in part by expanding empirical historical knowledge in two areas. First, it looks at the political discourses and activities of members of student activists in the Arab Students Committees, and in likeminded Jewish-Arab factions on campus, in the decade after 1967. Second, it examines how Arab university students, and Arab Students Committees members in particular, were perceived and treated by the Office of the Prime Minister's Adviser on Arab Affairs in its broader efforts to coordinate policy towards Israel's Arab minorities, and by agents of the General Security Services who worked to combat potential sources of hostile activity within the state of Israel. On the basis of this investigation, I argue this that student activists made a distinct contribution to the political mobilization of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel on a statewide level from 1967 until 1977. My analysis contributes to the historical literature in assessing the particular way in which the members of Arab Students' Committees were positioned to contribute to broader dissident political efforts in relation to their status as citizens, as minorities, and as university students in the state of Israel