Ethnicity or nationalism? Comparing the nakba narrative among Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the west Bank and Gaza

The Israeli Palestinians: An Arab Minority in the Jewish State

Volumn , Issue , 2003, Pages 161-179

  Frisch, Hillel ^a  

^a BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84909119708     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203504284     Document Type: Chapter

References (20)

1. Ted Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflict, Washington, DC, 1993.
2. Two leading articles on the Palestinization radicalization thesis are Gabriel Ben-Dor, 'Electoral Politics and Ethnic Polarization: Israeli Arabs in the 1977 Election', in Asher Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel 1977, Jerusalem, 1979
3. Oren Yiftachel, 'Debate: The Concept of "Ethnic Democracy" and Its Applicability to the Case of Israel', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1992), pp. 127-8.
4. On politicization see Sami Smooha, 'Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy: The Status of the Arab Minority in Israel', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (July) 1990, pp. 389-417. and the introductory chapter to his Arabs and Jews in Israel: Conflicting and Shared Attitudes in a Divided Society, Boulder, CO, 1989.
5. Another classification relating specifically to the issue of national identity identifies three schools of thought. According to Ramzi Sulayman, director of Markaz al-Jalil lil-Abhath al-Ijtimaiyya and lecturer at Haifa University, the majority of scholars (Landau, Reiter, Reches, Tessler) believe that Arabs in Israel bear a dual identity as Israelis and Palestinians characterized by dissonance between the two. He and Nadim Rouhana feel that Arabs in Israel regard themselves almost exclusively Palestinian. Smooha represents the antithesis of the first school of thought. See, 'Interview with Dr Ramzi Sulayman on Identity and Belonging', Kull al-Arab, 7 April 1995, supplement, p. 7. Smooha's bifocal classification refers to real or expected political behaviour, in which case the first two perspectives can be elided easily into one. They should both lead to conflict between the ethnic group and the state. Needless to say, the present article focuses mainly on political behaviour rather than on identity.
6. Ian Lustick, 'The Changing Political Role of Israeli Arabs', in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1988,. Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 12021;
7. Hillel Frisch, 'The Arab Vote in the 1992 Elections: The Triviality of Normality: The Significance of Electoral Power', in Daniel J.Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Israel at the Polls, 1992, Lanham, MD, 1995, p. 122.;
8. Hillel Frisch, The Arab Vote in the 1996 General Elections: The Radicalization of Politicization?, Israel Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1997), pp. 103-20.
9. For an excellent article that challenges the new orthodoxy, see Nadim Rouhana and As'ad Ghanem, 'The Crisis of Minorities in Ethnic States: The Case of Palestinian Citizens in Israel', International Journalof Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1998), pp. 321-46.
10. For a comprehensive discussion on this transformation, see Shmuel Sandler, State of Israel-Land of Israel: The Statist and Ethnonational Dimension of Foreign Policy, Greenwood, CT, 1993.
11. Sara Ozacky-Lazar and As'ad Ghanem, The Arab Vote for the 14th Knesset, 29 May 1996, Givat Haviva, Jan. 1996, p. 12. (in Hebrew).
12. Ian Lustick, 'The Changing Political Role of Israeli Arabs', in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel, Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 115-31.
13. See Hillel Frisch, 'If Things Are So Much Better, How Come They Are So Much Worse: The Political Fragmentation of the Arab Vote and the Marginalization of Arab Politics', in Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Who's The Boss in Israel: Israel at the Polls, 1988-89, Detroit, 1992, p. 133.
14. Hillel Frisch, 'The PLO and the Palestinians in Israel: Politicization or Radicalization?', Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1997), p. 457.
15. Frisch, 'The Arab Vote in the 1996 General Elections', p. 109.
16. Smooha, 'Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy'; Smooha, Arabs and Jews in Israel, introductory chapter.
17. On the Abna al-Balad, see Aziz Haidar, Al-Haraka al-Wataniyya al-Taqaddumiyya-Abna'a al Balad: Dirasa fi al-Qawmiiyya wa al-Wataniyya fi al-Fikr al-Siyasi bayna al-Falastiniyyin filsrael (The National Progressive Movement: Abna'a al-Balad: A Study of Nationals and Patriotism in Political Thought among the Palestinians in Israel), Bir Zeit, 1995.
18. Frisch, 'The Arab Vote in the 1996 General Elections'.
19. 'Umar Ghazzawi, 'Nakba and Independence', al-Ittihad, 3 May 1998.
20. On this literature, see Danny Rubinstein, Hibuk Ha Teena: Zehut Hashiva shel Ha Falastinim (The Caress of the Fig Tree: The Right of Return of the Palestinians), Jerusalem, 1990.