Palestinian Citizens of Israel: A History Through Fiction, 1948-2010

Palestinian citizens in Israel are part of the Palestinian nation that was scattered and divided during the 1948 War (Nakba, a catastrophe), amidst which Israel was founded. Today, Palestinian citizens in Israel are not part of the emancipatory movement of Palestinians outside of Israel. The primary question, then, that this book aims to address relates to understanding the transformation in Palestinian discourse, from that which spoke of national self-determination, to a discourse that is not coherently nationalist. The study of literature aims to provide a view ‘from within’ onto Palestinian discourse. Incorporating almost the entire corpus of Palestinian novels published in Israel between 1948 and 2010, the book aims to deal with the widest possible spectrum of representation. This choice aims to complement existing sociological and literary analysis on Palestinians in Israel. The book is divided to three chapters, corresponding to political periods in the life of Palestinians in Israel (1948−1967; 1967−1987; and 1987−2010). In the first period, Palestinians in Israel adapt to life under military rule, but they also undergo a process of modernization that aimed, so they believed, to facilitate their integration in Israeli society. Since the late 1960s, during the second period, Palestinians start to question the implications of modernization on their society, highlighting the ambivalence of their life in Israel. In the third period, Palestinians in Israel start to contemplate ‘solutions’ for this ambivalence, or alienation, bringing to the fore issues relating to their relationship with Israel as well as Palestinians across the border.