49
and the political environment, which is characterized by the
series of dramatic events going on in the Arab world and the
Middle East as a whole, starting in 2010. These have directly
impacted Arab-Palestinians in Israel in different contexts,
especially in the areas of society and politics.
The Or Commission Report, which investigated the events
of October 2000 involving Arab-Palestinian citizens and the
Israel police, in which 13 Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel
were killed, pointed to the role of the state, alongside the role
of all the sectors of society in taking part in constituting a
reasonable harmony between the majority and the minority:
“Majority and minority relations are problematic everywhere,
and especially in a country that defines itself according to
the nationality of the majority. The dilemmas that arise in
such a country do not have perfect solutions, and some
might suggest that there is a fundamental contradiction
between the principles of a majoritarian nation-state and the
principles of a liberal democracy. In any event, establishing
reasonably harmonious relations between a majority and
minority is a difficult task for all sectors of society, one that
requires a special effort on the part of state institutions,
which represent the hegemony of the majority, in order
to balance the vulnerability of the minority as a result of
its inherent inferiority – both numerically and in terms of
influence. Refraining from making an effort of this kind, or
doing so inadequately creates feelings of discrimination
and a reality of deprivation among the minority, which can
exacerbate over time. This is true for the situation of the Arab
minority in Israel, which is discriminated against in many
ways. Moreover, there are some unique factors in the case
of the Arab citizens of Israel that may further aggravate the
problematic nature of their socio-political status in Israel.”
35
The Palestinian-Israeli discourse in Israel is impacted by
various processes in Israeli domestic policy, in addition to the
Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflict. It is actually this
latter one that has yielded enduring peace agreements with
Egypt and Jordan, while the process with the Palestinians has
reached an impasse in the past decade. The peace treaties
with Egypt and Jordan appear to remain stable even in wake
of the Arab Spring. In contrast, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
is in need of new approaches, and the Palestinian citizens
of Israel may play an important role in shaping them. That
is why it is so important to understand the evolution of the
self-awareness and identity of the Palestinians in Israel. With
that in mind, I will discuss the discourses of the elites and
ordinary members of Palestinian society in Israel, and present
the relationship between these two types of discourses, and
the output that can be produced from the unique nature and
situation of Palestinian society in Israel and in the region.
35 Commission of Inquiry into the Clashes between Security Forces
and Israeli Citizens in October 2000, Taking Accounts, Vol. 1,
Jerusalem, 2003.
The Palestinians in Israel: The discourse
of the elites
In 2009, Honaida Ghanim’s book,
Reinventing a Nation:
Palestinian Intellectuals in Israel
,
36
based on the author’s
doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
was published. In her book, Ghanim discusses the unique
features and the intellectual and ideological development
of the Palestinians in Israel. She uses a central model: a
liminal, multi-axis framework involving milestone events
that have had a decisive influence on the identity of the
individual in a social, political, economic and civil context.
In fact, the theoretical framework underlying her study of the
constitution of the narrative of the Palestinian elites in Israel
is the liminal or liminality from the field of psychology, which
describes a tragic event as one that constitutes experiences
and channels the individual’s future in the political, social,
economic and civil context. In addition, Ghanim uses a
theoretical framework taken from sociology, in particular
the relationship between intellectuals and their reference
group. She describes the intellectual as representing the
quintessence of the sociological experience of the group –
in this case Palestinian citizens of Israel. She also borrows
tools from political science that have enriched the debate
about Palestinian intellectuals in the civic context of the State
of Israel, and devotes a considerable part of the discussion
to Palestinian intellectuals in Israel.
The extensive use of theoretical aspects from the disciplines
of social science enriches Ghanim’s book, which presents
a narrative based on complex and sometimes conflicting
relationships within the Palestinian intellectual elites in Israel.
The basic premise of the study is that the Palestinian citizens
of Israel have undergone traumatic experiences that shaped
their conceptual perception, and that this is reflected in
the aspirations, writings and behavior of the Palestinian
intellectuals in Israel to rebuild their nation. There is no
denying that this is a sweeping statement about Palestinian
intellectuals in Israel. Some of them did not really aspire to
build, but rather only to survive, earn a living and get closer
to the Israeli establishment, as a foundation upon which they
based their philosophy, writings and behavior. Others were
simply in a state of shock as a result of the intensity of the
events, and acted or wrote without any program aimed at
building. Instead, they described their experience and how
happy they were before 1948. However, froma comprehensive
analysis of the writings of Palestinian intellectuals in Israel,
Ghanim chose to view the work of all the intellectuals as an
aspiration towards and an act aimed at rebuilding the nation.
The book discusses the development of the Palestinian
intellectual elites after 1948. Between the discourse on the
homeland and citizenship, a third stream developed, one
that was subversive or nationalist, and that expressed itself
politically in the establishment of the Balad movement – the
National Democratic Assembly – in 1995 by Azmi Bishara.
36 Honaida Ghanim, Reinventing a Nation: Palestinian Intellectuals
in Israel, Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009.
