1) Bibliographic Data
Rabinowitz, Dan. (2001) “The Palestinian Citizens of Israel, the Concept of Trapped Minority and the Discourse of Transnationalism in Anthropology.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, V. 24-1, Jan.:64-85.

2) Question(s) addressed by the author and working arguments
i) Add the concept of Trapped Minority to the discourse of transnationalism, which is presented as an alternative approach to the state-centred analysis of the Palestinians in Israel (and minorities in general).
ii) Present a critique of Smooha’s rationalized concept of ethnic democracy and of Yifthachel ethno-regionalism. These critiques can help to re-frame and critique the Olso –Wye process of Israel-Palestinian reconciliation.
The dynamic nature of the discourse of transnationalism in a globalizing world encourages new ways of conceptualizing minorities and their relations to the states and regions in which they coexist. Rather than the state, it is the former margins-minorities, border areas, Diasporas, the exiled and displaced, the imploding army of migrant labourers-that are centred now. Their histories and subjectivities become the new primary objects of analysis.
The concept introduced by the author (trapped minority) is constructed upon the need of historicization. The label assumes a mother nation which stretches across two states or more. Segments of this mother nation may find themselves entrapped as minorities within recently formed states dominated by other groups.
This concept confront the mainstream vision of a Jewish Democratic State and Smooha’s “ethnic democracy”, arguing that both notions have an inherent flaw: its dehistorized character. Then he takes Yftachel ethno-regionalist arguments and criticize them because he treats Israel as a composite and discrete territory, with cultural and political impermeable borders.
The discourse of transnationalism in Anthropology could suggest that the protest is likely to shift toward redefinition of the entire public space engendered by the state and across its border into transnational, deterritorialized ethnoscapes.

3) Conceptual references to transnational-transnationalism
Transnationalism within anthropology (which could equally have been termed transtatism or post-nationalism) looks at more concrete, local , political and ideological aspects than globalization; and shifts the discussion to meaning and signification. The consciousnesses and imaginations that a new deterritoralized reality begets is a fascinating departure from the old place-related concept of identity that anthropology was so familiar with. The result thus is a transnational discourse that is at once specific theoretically and inclusive phenomenologically.

4) Conclusions or Final Remarks
The analysis of the Palestinians as a trapped minority suggest that the ethnic democracy which Smooha advocates will exacerbate their deprivation in terms of collective identity and the rights that it engenders. Likewise, viable ethno regional identities cannot develop just on one side of the future Israeli-Palestinian border, whatever political arrangement is finally worked out between Israel and Palestine.