During the 1990s, liberalization processes, both global and local, have resulted in the incorporation into Israeli society of new population groups that have further challenged the frontier incorporation regime and the republican citizenship discourse: Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU), immigrants from Ethiopia whose Jewishness has been questioned by the rabbinic authorities, and overseas (i.e. non-Jewish, non-Palestinian) labor migrants.

The incorporation of immigrants from the FSU into Israeli society has been effected largely through liberal market mechanisms from which most of them have been well equipped to benefit. Their incorporation has been justified, however, in classic ethno-national terms, that most of them seem to endorse, even though a significant minority among them are not Jewish. Thus, the “Russian” immigrants occupy a unique place with respect to the liberal–ethno-nationalist dilemma. Furthermore, since immigrants from the FSU have been motivated much more by “push” than by “pull” factors, and have arrived in such massive numbers, they may yet form an ethnic enclave within the society. Inward-looking and isolationist, even “separatist,” tendencies can already be identified among them, so it is still impossible to predict whether they will adopt one of the existent competing citizenship discourses, or develop one of their own (Nudelman 1997).