Impossible Figures

This essay examines three documentary depictions of gay Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank. These documentaries often problematically assume a fundamental incompatibility between gay identities and Arab and Palestinian cultures, thereby, first, placing their subjects in the position of choosing between living in Palestine/Israel and living as openly gay; and second, producing a narrative of impossibility, in which Palestinian and gay identities can only exist in irresolvable conflict. However, Paul also argues that critical reactions to these films, as well as some broader scholarly debates over sexual identities and practices in the Arab world, also reinforce this narrative of impossibility in a way that makes little room for the diverse lived experiences of gay Palestinians. In order to move beyond this narrative, Paul rereads these documentaries with an emphasis on the quotidian experiences of the films’ gay Palestinian subjects. Through attention to queerness as a spatial experience, he analyzes the ways in which these characters inhabit urban spaces in Israel and Palestine in ways that contest and disorient dominant narratives about these spaces. Paul concludes that a focus on such experiential moments reveals queer lives that are exuberant and subversive, and he shows the necessity of moving beyond narratives of impossibility in studies of sexuality in the Middle East.

Palestinian Poet-Singers: Celebration Under Israel’s Military Rule 1948–1966

Research about Palestinians in Israel during the period of military rule from 1948 to 1966 describes them as acquiescent and primarily focuses on the mechanisms of control imposed by Israel. This article examines the role played by improvised sung poetry in Palestinian weddings and social gatherings during this period, and it assesses the contribution that this situated art form made to asserting this community’s agency. Ḥaddā’ (male) and Badāaʿa (female) poet-singers are considered as agents of cultural resilience, songs as tools and weddings as sites of resilience and resistance for Palestinians who lived under Israeli military rule. Folk poetry performed by Ḥaddā’ and Badāaʿa is identified as a form of cultural resilience and resistance rooted in Palestinians’ cultural heritage. The data signal the persistence of resilience, dignity and rootedness in the land and identity, as well as demonstrating the risks of such resilience and of resistance actions.

Working at Creating a Culture of Hatred

This chapter analyzes the culture of hatred. The Canadian sociologist Matthew Lange has found that ethnic supremacist education is a fundamental source of division in some of the most ethnically divided countries in the world. Supremacist schools are a direct cause of the hostility between Jews and Palestinians in Israel, between Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus, between French Quebecois and English Canadians in Quebec, and between hostile ethnic groups in many other nations. The places Lange writes about are dissimilar, but the causes of xenophobic education generally are the same. These lead to enduring ethnic hostility that could last for generations. The chapter then focuses on ethnic supremacist education in Sri Lanka.

Trapping yet trapped: the ‘I-society’ discourse

Despite the abundant literature concerning domestic violence against women, very little is known about battered Arab women in Israel. Using intersectionality as the overarching conceptual lens, this study drew from in depth-interviews with 36 battered Arab women and adopted a narrative approach to reveal how battered Arab women in Israel are trapped in abusive relationships within a conflicted society. Drawing from discourse analysis, the findings revealed that participants used the same words to describe themselves and to describe Arab society. This use of metaphorical language revealed the additional meaning of societal patriarchy. It illustrated Arab society’s way of dealing with its entrapment through projecting its difficulties onto Arab women who served as the society’s scapegoats, causing many to suffer not only from multiplied oppressions, but also to face life threatening situations.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>This article explores how the historical loss of land and the resulting contemporary circumstances for Palestinians in Israel who are known by the term ‘Israeli Arabs’ have affected men’s attitudes towards what they believe is left of their honour, which is now primarily symbolised by feminine chastity.</li><br /><li>Understanding the contradiction of perceiving Arab society as oppressive towards women, yet at the same time being oppressed, is achieved through exploring psychoanalytical lenses such as projection, identification and split mechanisms.</li><br /><li>Arab society’s mechanism to cope with its entrapment and traumas is mainly conducted through splitting and projecting its difficulties and losses onto a weaker target – the woman.</li></ul>

Middle East

This chapter surveys four torn states in the Middle East. Turkey and its Kurdish separatist movement regularly accuse each other of mobilizing organized crime to brutalize the other. Both are correct. The Turkish government mobilized gangsters (gunrunners, mercenaries, and assassins) as instruments of antiseparatist crackdown. Profiting on the side, these gangsters nevertheless remained patriotic and indisputably state controlled. Mafias also sustained Kurdish separatists in Turkey (through narcotics, arms, extortion, and money laundering), the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria (oil, extortion, theft, and gangs), and Gazan Palestinians in Israel (tunnel smuggling). In contrast, Yemen and the Houthis were both sabotaged in their efforts by a state dependent — but utterly disloyal — mafia operating qat and arms rackets.

Conceptualizing Palestinian Politics in Israel in the Shadow of the Arab Spring

This chapter examines the debates about the conceptualization and practices of resistance in Palestinian society in Israel. It does so in light of two important developments that have had major repercussions for this homeland minority: the social and political upheavals in the Arab Spring states on the one hand and the growing nationalist extremism in Israel, culminating in the passing of the nation-state law in 2018 and the delegitimization of the Joint List in the 2019–2020 elections, on the other. Examining the debates taking place about resistance helps us understand how political subjects active in this community define themselves and others and the meaning and implications of such definitions. Furthermore, it assists in demonstrating how Palestinians in Israel utilize the opportunities inherent in their institutional environment and the tools provided by that environment to facilitate an alternative political ethos that will guarantee it full civil equality and human dignity.