Moving from an apartheid state to a state for all its citizens is no easy task, particularly when the legacies of a settler colonialist enterprise are concerned. Since there are no easy precedents and models to lean on, and as Israel is a far more complex case than either South Africa or Algeria, creative answers to a whole set of complicated questions must be considered. The most important of these issues relates to rights. Who owns the right to a property, the person forcefully evicted from it, or the person who bought it in good faith from the evictor? Should there be any compensation schemes? Is international law of any help in this case? How easy or how difficult it is to change from the status of a "superior" citizen to merely a citizen, equal in rights and opportunities to all others? Are there any mechanisms to help in this shift in status and mental framework?
