Political studies professor Oded Haklai.

Oded Haklai’s award-winning book, Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel, is the first to examine the manifestation of Palestinian nationalism in Israel. The book has received international praise for its insightful analysis and won the 2012 Shapiro Award for the best book in Israel studies.

“I was drawn to this topic because of my concern about intensifying Jewish-Palestinian tensions,” says Dr. Haklai (Political Studies), who is credited with maintaining a purely scholarly perspective in an area of study that suffers greatly from ideological and political controversies. “Polarization within Israel is one aspect of the intensification of the conflict.”

When speaking of Israeli-Palestinian relations, most analysts have typically focused on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s relations with its Arab minority, which constitutes close to 20 percent of Israel’s population, have up until recently not received attention.

Dr. Haklai’s book explores the new movement of political activism among the Arab population but its contribution extends beyond the specific case. The book advances new knowledge on the relationships between states and ethnic or national communities and develops a novel theory of minority nationalism that is relevant to other parts of the world.

The annual Shapiro Award presented by the Association for Israel Studies recognizes outstanding scholarship in the history, politics, society, law, economics, state and culture of Israel and, pre-1948, the Jewish community in Palestine. Dr. Haklai is the first Canadian to win this award.