The Palestinians’ status worsened as a direct result of the 1948 war. The main difference between the Palestinians in Israel and Palestinians elsewhere is that the former stayed on their land and became Israeli citizens. Although some were able to keep their land, the Israeli government and its various security branches considered them an “enemy,” a security threat and a strategic threat. Israel took harsh measures to deter, control, and subdue them. An ethnic hegemony conducts a continuous “ethnic project” that attempts to construct an informal public image of separate and unequal groups. This image is diffused into most societal arenas (public culture, politics, academia, the economy), causing long-term reproduction of ethno-class inequalities. However, the Hegemonic State’s self-representation as democratic creates structural tensions, because it requires the state to go beyond lip service and to grant minorities some (though less than equal) formal political powers. The cracks and crevices between the overt claim of democracy and the denial of equality to the minority fans the tensions and conflicts typical of ethnic hegemonic regimes.