The Palestinian Novel

A Communication Study

Ibrahim Taha

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136836282
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Examines the complex relationship between the reality of the Palestinian minority in Israel and their literature through six novels, according to a literary communication model which enables Dr Taha to examine how authors who belong to this minority relate to their readers.

Chapter One

The Palestinian
Literature in Israel^*

PALESTINIANS WHO ARE Israeli citizens are in a unique position, being a national minority engaged in a complex and multi-faceted daily relationship with the Jewish-Zionist-Israeli majority, an interaction which may be termed oppositionist. This kind of minority-majority relationship, as will be shown later, creates a dual system of concepts surrounding the existence, identity, and experience of this minority. It is a duality of contrasts, parallels, and paradoxical states, and these create the subjects and the general themes of the literature produced by the Palestinian minority. This literature applies common and well defined literary techniques to present the general themes and to elucidate and sharpen the message, a method that imparts to it the specific characteristics of minority literature. The following discussion of the literature created by the Palestinian minority in Israel is based on the above-mentioned complex dual model, and is in two main stages:

1)	analysis of the relationship between literary reality and extra-literary reality, and comparison of this system with historical, sociological, and psychological research on the subject;
2)	examination of the literary techniques that shape the prevalent reality in this literature and clarification of their relation to its themes and the overall message.

The dual model presented here presupposes a distinct correlation between theme and technique in literature in general and in minority literature in particular. The correlation is a function of the relationship between the literature and the extra-textual reality reflected in it. The bolder, crueler, and more threatening this reality may be for the identity of the minority in various existential terms, the more explicit, direct, and vociferous the literary techniques become.

Analysis of Palestinian literature in Israel according to the proposed model, as the literature of a national minority engulfed in a problematic and unique reality, can evidently provide reliable answers to numerous possible questions – on the ethical or the aesthetic levels of literature – about the identity and essence of literature in general and of minority literature in particular. The value of this model of minority literature is that it requires multi-disciplinary research: historical, sociological, political, psychological, and literary. The chapter aspires to combine these fields, as will be seen, and provide a reliable, varied, and accurate picture of the Palestinian minority literature in Israel.

The strong relationship and the sharp similarity between the Palestinian literature written in Israel and the Palestinian literature of the occupied territories and exile should be stressed at the outset. However, the explicit intention of the chapter is to indicate the special characteristics on account of which Palestinian literature in Israel, written in this problematic geographical region and in unique sociopolitical circumstances, is defined as minority literature.

Who Constitute the Palestinian Minority in Israel?

Many sociologists define a minority as an ethnic group with common characteristics (nationality, religion, language, culture, society, race, etc.) that differs in various respects from the majority or any other group living in the same framework (state, society, region, etc.) and that is keenly aware of its distinctiveness and its particular position.¹ The minority’s awareness of its being a minority is an important component in the definition of a minority in respect of the majority, with which it maintains a special kind of relationship.² The greater the difference between the minority and the majority, the more friction it causes and the more it generates some conflict, whether latent, silent, and cultural, or obvious, vociferous, and violent. This struggle is perceived as one for the right of existence, power, domination, and identity. Generally, the majority is perceived as dominant, hostile, oppressive, and controlling the minority by various means, even if this perception is not always true.³ On the other hand the minority perceives itself as a threatened group struggling for its right of existence and its collective identity according to a well defined model of existence composed of various collective needs of nation, society, economy, citizenship, religion, language, and culture. The struggle, as seen by the minority, is manifested in its attempts to obtain all it believes it deserves from the majority. It aspires to achieve all the conditions that the majority reserves for itself and to which it forbids the minority access, for various and complex reasons. Thus the life and culture of the majority become a model to be copied by the minority in an attempt to bridge the gap between itself and the majority, to eliminate its own distinctiveness and difference. Paradoxically, the minority aspires to blur its distinct identity, the result of its being different from the majority, while at the same time striving to maintain its identity as a collective; this is the only way it can survive. The minority wishes to be different from the majority and yet to be accepted by it. This situation may explain, as I shall show later, the simultaneous Palestinization and Israelization processes that the Arab minority is experiencing in Israel. This duality characterizes almost any minority to some degree, and the dual identity and dual, or even conflicting, aspirations as perceived in a specific reality are a two-directional means of defense and rebellion simultaneously.

This seems to be the condition of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Created in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel, it is unique and problematic. It is a national minority that is part of a state fighting its own nation beyond the borders. This absurd situation confuses and bewilders the minority. It leads to the duality of identity just described, but it also threatens to rupture and disintegrate that identity. This minority must obey the laws of the state in which it lives as a citizen group and act according to its rules, but on the other hand it evinces emotional loyalty to the Palestinian people beyond the state borders. This chapter sets out a series of orientations and various approaches within the Arab minority in Israel. At one pole is the approach predicated on intensification of the Palestinian element in the minority’s collective identity and weakening of the element of Israeli citizenship in it;⁴ at the other pole is the approach predicated on a parallel and concurrent development of both processes, Palestinization and Israelization of the minority.⁵ Between the two poles are other approaches, some of which hold these two processes⁶ to be independent while others stress one process at the expense of the other.⁷ This medley of approaches proves and verifies the confusion in the life of the Arab minority in Israel and in its collective identity – on the practical and on the perceptual level; this is reflected in research on this subject.

Literature from 1948–1967: A Confused Arab Minority

It should be mentioned that 1967 was a decisive turning point in the life of the Arab minority in Israel in all areas, including literature.⁸ The difficult reality which suddenly fell upon the Arabs of Israel with the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, and their becoming a national minority in it against their will and their expectations, took them by surprise and found them unready. Hard feelings of confusion, alienation, loss of direction, and helplessness ensued. The encounter with a new way of life, with a foreign and hostile reality, caused great damage to the national cohesiveness of the Palestinians in Israel, and made them a scattered and torn minority. Many Palestinians left the country, with no specific destination and turned into refugees in various countries of the Middle East and throughout the world. The new reality with which the Arab minority had to cope involved economic, civil, and national institutions foreign to them, such as the heavy tax policy. There was the military government with everything it entailed, including the subject of permits and restrictions and the resulting humiliation; land expropriation; Judaization of the Galilee; the tripartite assault on Egypt in 1956; Kufr Qāsim tragedy; collaborators with the authorities; Arabs fleeing the Israeli borders as an indication of confusion, bewilderment, and fear; harsh supervision by the authorities in all aspects of life of the Arab minority in Israel; and the close dependence of the minority on the establishment.⁹ Yet another factor was the impact of an established state with a binding constitution on the lives of Arabs, most of whom were villagers unused to this situation, free of strict rules which they found entirely out of place. The discrimination against the Arab minority, compared with the evident primacy of the Jewish majority in all spheres of life, reinforced the Arabs’ feeling that they were considered second or even third-rate citizens.¹⁰ This reality reinforced the collective feelings of a threatened and oppressed minority in the Jewish state. The attitude of the young state’s authorities towards the Arabs who stayed to live in it sharpened their identity as a minority and activated various methods of oppression and domination.

Under the shadow of this new reality the Arab minority of Israel looked for various ways of coping with it, trying to activate various defense mechanisms in order to ensure their existence. Three categories of such mechanisms can be identified: first, cooperation with the state, in open or silent acceptance; second, the formation of political and ideological organizations whose purpose was to resist the policy of the Israeli government;¹¹ third, placing stress on the Arab aspect of the collective identity in the period mentioned.¹² The meager minority literature of the period expressed this reality reliably and authentically, with various emphasis and preferences. A searching analysis of the themes of the Palestinian literature written in the 1950s reveals a very small group of writers who dared to write on political subjects and criticize the authorities despite the harsh policy of the military government. Another group of writers preferred to treat various subjects that did not irritate the establishment, such as social matters,¹³ or even subjects that the state promoted, including praise for progress in various areas of life such as agriculture, industry, medicine, and so on. According to this perspective the majority is perceived as a model. This trend, which continued into the 1960s, is an extraordinary phenomenon in the history of the Arab minority in Israel.¹⁴ In the first literary period – before 1967 – another trend was present in the literature of the Arab minority reflecting a combination of political and social issues.¹⁵

The picture that emerges is one of a minority aware of the new circumstances of its life that made it a national minority in a hostile and threatening reality. It is a picture of a minority acutely aware of its new situation and of the need to act and react. Even though its reaction was not as clear cut, defined, and coherent, as reflected in the literature created during the period, it was a reaction that split into three directions: the social direction, the political direction, and a direction combining the two. The transitions of those directions show the existence of a problem in the collective identity of the Arab minority in Israel or confusion in the definition of its identity. On the one hand the intense concern with issues of society, citizenship, economy, and culture during this period attests to the wish, conscious and unconscious, of the minority to maintain a daily and developed relationship with the Jewish majority in the young state.¹⁶ On the other hand, attention to national-ideological issues reflects the inner need to stress the Arab national identity – although this issue did not attain a significant quantitative position in the literature of the minority. The third direction, evident in the 1960s, points to a possible compromise between the two aspects, the civic Israeli and the national Arab, and the construction of a model of peaceful co-existence. This direction did not acquire a central place in the literature and a clear trend did not appear.

Literature from 1967-1997: A Unified Palestinian Minority

The second stage in the literature of the Palestinian minority in Israel was characterized by many political events there and in the surrounding areas. The 1967 war between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries led to the sequence of events which left their mark on the identity, position, and future of this minority. These events and their consequences can be classified into two thematic categories:

The first category – emphasis on the difference between the Arab aspect and the Palestinian aspect of the minority’s collective identity – includes the following subjects: the 1967 war; the renewed encounter with the Palestinians outside Israel; the 1973 war; disappointment with the Arab states and their leaders. The second category – coping with the Jewish majority that was dominant in Israel – concerned the following issues: Land Day in 1976; various modes of relating to the Israeli government and nation; operating various defense mechanisms; stressing the legacy of the past and the inclination towards the roots; condemnation of groups that cooperated with the authorities; massive resistance to the attempts by the majority to treat the minority as a group made up of various communities: Moslems, Christians, Druze, Bedouins, and Circassians.

The 1967 war renewed the contact between the Palestinian minority of Israel and the other parts of the Palestinian people in the diaspora and the territories occupied by Israel in that war.¹⁷ This encounter led to a renewed relationship between this minority and the Arab world. It should also be mentioned that just before, in 1966, the military government had been abolished. This major event freed the Palestinian minority from its fear, confusion, and sense of loss, and led to a new era that differed from the previous one in many respects. The re-encounter with the other part of the Palestinian people reinforced the national-Palestinian component of the minority and intensified the feelings of belonging, and intensified identification with and support for the people living in the occupied territories and in the diaspora. This subject, the concentrated preoccupation with the re-encounter, gained great force in the 1970s and 1980s.¹⁸ An obvious manifestation of the reinforcement of the Palestinian element in the national identity of the minority was the motif of the Palestinian flag in the literature discussed in those two decades. This motif signifies the longing of a minority to live under the Palestinian flag or at least to enjoy seeing the other part of the Palestinian people living under this flag.¹⁹ In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the outbreak of the Intifada, Palestinian writers living in Israel were required to show continuous and unreserved support of the Palestinian struggle waged in the occupied territories. From the late 1960s there was a clear trend of Palestinization of the Israeli minority.²⁰

The weakening of the Arab component in the collective identity reinforced the Palestinian component. The 1973 war did not occupy so central position in the literature of the minority as had the 1967 war.²¹ The minority took the opportunity of the 1973 war to attack the government of Israel and mock the ‘invincible’ power of Israel, and to rejoice in the shattering of the myth of Israeli supremacy. However, this war did not do much for the minority and did not change the situation of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories: the occupation continued as before, and the disappointment deepened.²² Despite the mockery of Israel and the joy at the collapse of the myth of Israel’s might, the Palestinian minority of Israel still sensed the weakness of the Arab states as against the power of Israel, whic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: The Palestinian Novel in Israel: An Overview
• 1. The Palestinian Literature in Israel
• 2. Author, Text and Reader – A Model of Partnership
• 3. The Author as a Serious Comedian: The Pessoptimist
• 4. The Author as a Character: The Hell with the Lilac
• 5. The Author as a Scholar: Soul in the Crucible
• 6. The Author as a Partner: Ahmad, Mahmud and the Others
• 7. The Author as a Narrator: The Marginal
• 8. The Author as an Historian: Crying Objector
• Conclusion: Author-Reader Struggle Over Text Domination
• Appendix: Novels and Novellas Written by Palestinians in Israel (1948-1997)
• Notes
• References
• Index