Television and Cross-Media Culture Master Thesis

Home , Dahmash, Maysaloun Hamoud, Rotem Sela, Udi Aloni

Faculty of Humanities M.A. Media Studies: Television and Cross-Media Culture Master Thesis

Redefining the Narrative: An Exploration of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Reconstruction of Identity through Filmmaking

Dina Maria Farag Student Number: 12431168

Supervisor: Emiel Martens Second Reader: Reza Kartosen-Wong

Date of Completion: 28.06.2019

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Culture as a Matter of Media 3 1.2 Historical Context –The Nakba & the Palestinian citizens of Israel 6

2. THE PALESTINIAN MINORITY: OTHERING AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY 10 2.1 Israel–A Contradictory State 10 2.2 The ‘Trapped Minority’ 13 2.3 Otherness of Palestinians: Orientalism 15 2.4 The Collective Memory of the Palestinian Minority 19 2.5 Israeli Media Strategies & Palestinian Identity Construction 23

3. PALESTINIAN FILMMAKING: TAKING CHARGE OF THE NARRATIVE 27 3.1 In Between – An Overview 28 3.1.1 Behind the Scenes: The Funding and Production 29 3.1.2 Three Palestinians in Tel Aviv 36

3.2 Junction 48 –– An Overview 44 3.2.1 Behind the Scenes: The Funding and Production 46 3.2.2 Palestinian Resistance: Separate but Equal 49 3.2.3 Reception in Israel and Palestine 54

4. CONCLUSION 56

Abstract

The Palestinian citizens of Israel are an indigenous minority living within Israeli territory. Succeeding the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the resulting immigration of Jews, the Palestinians living within the newly set borders of Israel were reduced to a minority. While there are various fiction and documentary films produced on the general issue of the Israeli-Palestinian contention, the Palestinian minority and their ongoing struggles to coexist within a hegemonic host state are often neglected. As the hegemonic state, Israel developed systematic policies to discipline Arab society and indoctrinate the minority with a Jewish worldview. One of the policies includes the reconstruction of media into central socializing mechanisms seeking to control the Palestinian collective identity and memory. As the role of media is detrimental in shaping the ways in which people view their own social and political reality, this thesis examines the how the minority uses alternative media as their own tool to resist Israeli oppression. By analyzing the funding, production, content and reception of the films In Between and Junction 48, this research concludes that the minority uses alternative filmmaking to regain control of their narrative and redefine their collective identity.

Keywords: geopolitics, ethnic minority media, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nakba, Palestinian minority, Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israeli media, identity construction, collective Arab memory, Palestinian filmmaking, Junction 48, In Between

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 Culture as a Matter of Media

The decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most widely discussed and emotionally charged political issues in the world. While there is a great deal of information on the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians living in Israeli territory and their ongoing struggles to coexist as a minority are often neglected. These Palestinian citizens are a minority living amongst Jewish-Israelis in Israeli territory. As such, Israel has actively utilized ideological mechanisms to impose the hegemonic Jewish worldview amongst its citizens of Israel, including the Palestinian indigenous minority (Jamal 2009, 573). Since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 (also referred to as the ‘Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic), the Israeli state has succeeded in dominating the Palestinian political and economic ecosystem. Unwelcome within the newly established Israel, the state aimed at taking control of the collective identity and memory of the Palestinians that remained within its borders. As such, the Israeli state “attempted to discipline Arab society by colonizing the Arab mind” after it had successfully dominated the Arab economy and political system (Jamal 2009, 573). The state systematically attempted to indoctrinate a hegemonic Jewish worldview within the Arab indigenous community. One of the most impactful expressions of this attempt is through the takeover of the existing Palestinian media landscape. As such, the use of media became a prevalent tool in order to cultivate the “preferred image of the Israeli Arab" (Jamal 2009, 573). Similarly, since dominant media are used to cultivate the ‘Israeli Arab’, alternative media are also becoming increasingly important tools for the minority to reconstruct the Palestinian identity, culture, and sense of community. As such, “(...) media by and for ethnics in a host country with content in ethnic languages”, was coined the term ethnic minority media (Shi 2009, 599). Therefore, alternative media by and for minorities help stabilize the minority’s original identity and its affiliation with the former homeland (...)” (Caspi & Elias 2011, 63). In addition to serving as a foundation for maintaining the minorities’ cultural and collective identity, ethnic minority media also serve as an alternative to dominant mainstream media. It challenges the minority’s stereotyped representation commonly found in dominant

media and provides viewers with a more layered depiction of them as a people (Caspi & Elias 2011, 63).

In this thesis, I will analyze how the Palestinian minority in Israel uses alternative filmmaking as a tool to regain control of their narrative and redefine their collective identity as a way to resist Israel’s attempt to cultivate the submissive ‘Israeli Arab’. By taking charge of their own narrative, I argue that Palestinian citizens of Israel are utilizing alternative filmmaking to combat the perpetual and oppressive attempts of the Israeli state to control the collective memory and identity of an entire minority. I will do so, by analysing the two films In Between and Junction 48 and argue that these productions provide the minority with the opportunity to take charge of their own identity construction. I will also argue that the funding structures, productions, storylines and reception of the films portray symbolic meaning relating to the struggle of the Palestinian minority living in Israel. Within my analysis, I also examine the intentions and perspectives of those involved in the films (mainly directors, producers and leading actors), and explore how they regard their own identity as a part of a minority that uses filmmaking as a tool to reconstruct their collective identity. As such, a part of my analysis will include commentary I personally obtained in interviews with Maysaloun Hamoud, the director of In Between, as well as Samar Qupty, the leading actress in Junction 48. Both Hamoud and Qupty are members of the Palestinian minority in Israel, and can, therefore, contribute firsthand to certain details of each film, as well as examine how the films function in regards to their own identities as Palestinian citizens of Israel. Additionally, while the number of films revolving around the Palestinian people in the West Bank is growing, films produced by and starring Palestinian citizens of Israel are scarce. In Between and Junction 48 are amongst the most prominent films that earned international acclaim while also being produced by the minority. Tackling themes unique to them, both films employ Arab actors and actresses, producers and directors who are active members of the Palestinian minority. Addionally, the films are significant to this research due to their credible representations of the Palestinian minority and their interactions with Jewish-Israeli characters. Naturally films amplify and exaggerate certain depictions, however, the two films selected (as was stated numerous times in interviews with the directors and cast members and will be addressed in the analysis), aimed at portraying realistic representations of the Palestinian minority for the screen. In order to analyze the symbolic meaning of the films,

relating to the real struggle of the Palestinian minority living in Israel, a degree of authenticity must be met. Considering land and geography are at the heart of the Israel-Palestine contention, this thesis research falls under the scope of geopolitics. As the name suggests, the term geopolitics refers to the relationship between geographic discourses and the ‘political’ (Toal 2005, 65). Toal (2005) specifies that geopolitics can be regarded as the dynamic between geographic entities (such as rivers, mountains, locations or climate), and political and societal structures of states and communities (65). In other words, identifying and attributing meaning to geography is in itself already a political process (Toal 2005, 65). Dittmer (2010) argues that today, geography refers to the different ways meaning is inscribed into places and as such “dividing the world up into spaces with which we associate value” (11). As such, classic geopolitics is rooted in the analysis of ‘how the world is’ (Dittmer 2010, 11). In terms of perceiving ‘how the world is’, media are one of the greatest influences. In that sense, “television, newspapers, books, the Internet and cinema act as mediators of people’s experience of places” (Zimmermann 2007, 59). In terms of Israel and Palestine as well as the Palestinian minority in Israel, the issue of geography, space and location are extremely complex and emotionally charged. Since land and geography (or the loss) of it are at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the specifics are rarely fully understood by the international community. These reasons amplify the importance of visual mass media plays in contemporary society, and therefore suitable ways of analyzing mass media’s impact are required. As visual media “re-present and re-construct specific ways of seeing which carry with them historic baggage”, film are especially powerful tools for shaping viewpoints and identity formation (Zimmermann 2007, 60). For the Palestinian minority in Israel, the use of film does not only provide the international community with a glimpse of their situation as an oppressed and marginalized minority, but also allows a people traumatized by loss to reconstruct their own collective identity.

In order to set a foundation for a more in-depth analysis, I will first provide historical context regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Subsequently, as the Palestinian minority in Israel is the focal point of this research, I will discuss the state of Israel’s political structure, which serves as the framework for understanding the Palestinian minority’s position within it. Within my theoretical framework, I will conduct a critical discourse analysis including

Edward Said’s (1979) Orientalism and Dan Rabinowitz’s (2001) ‘Oriental Othering’ and ‘Trapped Minority’ theories that serve as the framework for understanding political and social circumstances the minority is greatly affected by. Additionally, I will include a discussion of the formation of collective memories and identities and draw on Durkheim’s (1995) and Halbwachs’s (1980) introduction to group identity. I then relate the theories of collective identity formation to the case of the Palestinian citizens of Israel and outline the evolution of the specific cornerstones of Palestinian collective identity. The last section of the theoretical framework will examine the policies and strategies of Israel’s dominant media toward the Palestinian minority living in Israel since 1948. Herein, I will also explore the means Israeli media utilized to accommodate the process of constructing a collective Palestinian memory void of their cultural environment and historical past. After examining how the Israeli media attempts to cultivate the image of the ‘submissive Israeli-Arabs’, I will focus on how the Palestinian minority challenges or copes with the identity and collective memory forced upon them. In the first section of my analysis, argue that the Palestinian minority, as a response, have taken innovative approaches through film production to express their own cultural and historical identities. The in-depth analysis of the funding, production, content and reception of In Between and Junction 48 will also display the obstacles the minority is faced with when attempting to express their Palestinian identity. As such, by taking charge of their own narratives, I will argue that Palestinians are utilizing alternative filmmaking to redefine their collective memory amongst themselves as well as to the global community.

1.2 Historical Context –The Nakba & the Palestinian citizens of Israel

The territory known today as the state of Israel is perceived by the globally dispersed Palestinian population as their own ancestral homeland (Rabinowitz 2001, 68). The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 on around 78 percent of the disputed territory is known as a national calamity for Palestinians worldwide (Arab. ‘Nakba’). Most of the 800,000 Palestinians who lived in these regions now included in the state of Israel before 1948, were driven out or relocated as refugees to neighbouring countries (Rabinowitz 2001, 68). As such, approximately five to seven million Palestinians are dispersed in Israel and the West Bank, as well as in the neighbouring countries Jordan, Lebanon and Syria (Rabinowitz 2001, 68). This massive dismantlement of Palestine and the following ethnic cleansing of the

Palestinian people from their homeland is regarded as the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’ within the Palestinian community. Referring to how central the Nakba is to Palestinian history, Palestinian scholar Dajani notes:

The Nakba is the experience that has perhaps most defined Palestinian history. For the Palestinian, it is not merely a political event – the establishment of the state of Israel on 78 percent of the territory of the Palestine Mandate, or even, primarily a humanitarian one – the creation of the modern world’s most enduring refugee problem. The Nakba is of existential significance to Palestinians, representing both the shattering of the Palestinian community in Palestine and the consolidation of a shared national consciousness. (Masalha 2012, 8)

The historical Nakba plays a crucial role in understanding the intricate dynamic between the Palestinian and Israeli public sphere. In addition, the Nakba itself remains an existential cornerstone of Palestinian collective memory and identity. As indicated, 1948 was “the year of rupture in Palestinian modern history. The Palestinian national being was shattered...and Palestine as a political and physical entity disappeared from the map” (Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2019, 5). While the Palestinians consider 1948 the year of the ‘catastrophe’, Israel regards it as the year of the War of Independence (Bar 2008, 1). The complexity of this conflict is marked by the immense divide between the Palestinian and some of the Israeli stances regarding the Nakba. As such, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in 1969 denied the existence of the Palestinian people as a whole. According to Meir, “there was no such thing as a Palestinian people. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people considering itself as a Palestinian people, and we threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist” (Masalha 2012, 3). While Meir’s statement is considered a classic case of ‘Nakba denial’, many Israeli historians such as Avi Shlaim consider the dismantling of Palestinians people in 1948 a form of war crime (Masalha 2012, 3). Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury (2019) argue that despite the gravity of the situation at hand, the collective and “personal traumatic experiences and their impact on memory and political consciousness have, in general, received much less attention” (5). Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury (2019) continue to argue that the Nakba as a traumatic

human experience and the “loss of home and homeland, with all its human ramifications, were marginalized in public discourse” (5). Within academic discussion on the Nakba, many historians are referring to a ‘temporal feature’ as the cornerstone of the Nakba. Although the Nakba marks the traumatic events of 1948, it is important to note that the Nakba also marks the line between two conflicting periods, namely before and after 1948. For that reason, Palestinians consider the Nakba as a continuing occurrence as their occupation by the Israeli state is still ongoing (Masalha 2012, 7). Sayigh (2013) expands on the notion of the Nakba being an ongoing tragedy by noting that “the Nakba is not merely a traumatic memory, but continually generates new disasters, voiding the present of any sense of security, and blacking out the future altogether. The Palestinian coinage ‘ongoing Nakba‘ (al-nakba al-mustamirrah) expresses this specific temporal feature” (56). While the cultural and historic importance that the Nakba holds for the Palestinian community is clear, the year 1948 has a very different meaning for the Jewish community. For the Jewish community, the creation of the state of Israel marked the date of the return to their homeland and the introduction to an age of Jewish independence (Lipshitz 1998, 1). Between 1948 and 1995, “roughly 2.4 million people immigrated to Israel (…) At the time of independence in 1948, Israel had a Jewish population of 717,000; the wave of immigration in the 1950s more than doubled the figure” (Lipshitz 1998, 1). While the international Jewish community was migrating to newly established Israel, the Palestinian people were evacuated. Rogan and Shlaim (2001) clarify:

More than half of the nearly 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs were driven from or fled their homes. Those Palestinians who did not flee the conquered areas were reduced to a small minority within the new state of Israel. At the end of the fighting, Jordan took over the areas of Palestine controlled by its army west of the Jordan River, while the Egyptian army administered the strip it retained around Gaza, adjacent to its borders. In the wake of the catastrophe the Palestinians found themselves living under a variety of alien regimes, were dispossessed of the vast bulk of their property, and had lost control over most aspects of their lives. (12)

As indicated, after the war of 1948, the majority of Palestinians who did not live in what is currently known as the West Bank or Gaza, but remained in the regions now included in the

state of Israel, were then under Israeli control and forced to accept Israeli citizenship as Palestinians (Ghanem 1998, 430). A group of Israeli scholars contend that there was “a mixture of policy orders, some of which were to encourage the population to leave some areas. They claim that some Palestinians left by choice and others out of fear of being in a war zone” (Jamal 2009, 19). Historical evidence, however, supports the argument that the evacuation of the Palestinian people should be considered ethnic cleansing. This general consensus of the international community has a heavy impact on the collective consciousness of Palestinians outside and inside Israeli borders. Jamal argues that “growing evidence of the 1948 war and of the repressive political and cultural regime that followed that war has been a strong factor nourishing the endeavour of the Palestinian population in Israel to reconnect with its cultural and national environment” (Jamal 2009, 19). The approximately 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israeli territory were mostly farmers and villagers from more remote areas, who considered leaving more detrimental than staying. As such, the educated, urban middle class who had the means to seek opportunity elsewhere almost completely disappeared from newly established Israel (Rabinowitz 2001, 68). The state of Israel is therefore composed of two central national groups, namely the Jewish majority which makes up around 82-83 percent of the population who have settled in Israel through several waves of migration, and the second group comprised of Arabs with Israeli citizenship, making up around 17-18 percent of the population in Israeli territory (Ghanem 1998, 430). Ghanem (1998) points out some differences in terminology when referring to this Arab minority. At times this minority is referred to as ‘Israeli Arabs’, ‘Arab Israelis’ or ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’ (430). In this thesis, this minority will be referred to as the ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’ or the abbreviated version of ‘Palestinian citizens’ in order to emphasize, following Ghanem (1998, 430), that “this group is historically and culturally part of the Palestinian people who live in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Diaspora”. Although these Palestinian citizens hold Israeli citizenship, Ghanem (1998) argues that the state was established as a home to the Jewish people, who are oblivious to the existence of the Palestinian minority (432). Additionally, the exclusion of the Palestinian citizens does not only exist symbolically but on a clear and intricate structural level. Methods of segregation include the exclusion of Arabs from the political decision-making centres, exemption from mandatory military service, non-employment of Palestinian citizens in senior professional positions, the

establishment of special institutions solely for Palestinian citizens and, last but not least, the discrimination against Palestinian citizens in Israeli broadcast media (Ghanem 1998, 433-434). As such, as Rouhana (1998) highlights, “the policy and practice of preferring one group of citizens over another group according to the ethnic affiliation of each group is only a derivative of the constitutional structure and ethnic exclusivity that are enacted as the embodiment of the state’ s ideology” (281). These strategic political policies discriminating and excluding Palestinian citizens from all corners of the public sphere, calls for a discussion on the nature of Israel’s political structure.

2. THE PALESTINIAN MINORITY: OTHERING AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

2.1 Israel–A Contradictory State

The political environment the minority of Palestinian citizens in Israel finds themselves in impacts the status and resulting collective identity of the minority. Generally, Jewish-Israel considers its political construct and climate to be a Jewish democratic state (Rabinowitz 2001,79). Among contemporary Zionist academics and scholars, Israel is essentially considered a liberal democracy that is burdened with unique circumstances (Rabinowitz 2001, 79). These assertions are “premised on the forgiving claim (…) that Israel is essentially a liberal democracy overburdened by external and internal security and social pressures which force it to temporarily forgo some liberal tenets... Given time and reasonable progress in Israel’s relations with the Arabs, these anomalies will disappear” (Rabinowitz 2001, 79). Rabinowitz (2001) challenges this line of thought and argues that the mere indication of Israel as “Jewish democratic” is a contradiction within itself, for, “once assigned with a restrictive ethnic adjective (in this case ‘Jewish’), a state can no longer claim to be inclusive of and even-handed towards all its citizens. Rather, the term exposes the real nature of the state: an exclusive ethnoterritorial project which serves the hegemonic group at the expense of others” (Rabinowitz 2001 p. 79). Ghanem (1998) takes a similar approach and contends that Israel is one of the prime examples of an ethnic state that utilizes cultivated policies and agendas of “exclusion and discrimination towards the Arab minority” (429). He highlights that while in theory, Israel welcomes its Palestinian citizens of Israel to “participate in its life; but under no

circumstances does it offer them equality, it maintains Jewish superiority in all fields and grants them preference symbolically, structurally and practically” (Ghanem 1998, 429). While Israel does base its relations between its citizens on ethnicity rather than on civil affiliations, it is different from intolerant ethnic states such as Iraq or Iran. Although “it does offer restricted rights to members of minority groups and integrates them to a limited degree in its politics, society, economy and media”, the state does conduct sophisticated policies of systematic exclusion (Ghanem 1998, 431). Palestinian citizens of Israel are permitted to general rights such as “the right to vote for and be elected to legislative bodies, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement and organization. At the same time, however, it follows policies of domination and control that guarantee continued Jewish hegemony and Arab marginality in all fields” (Ghanem 1998, 431). This duality is derived from the difficulty the state of Israel is tasked with. According to Yonah (2005), Israel is burdened with recognizing and implementing the Palestinian citizens’ right to cultural autonomy, while simultaneously maintaining its Jewish character (102). Due to differing political inclinations, there is much debate on how Israel should approach this twofold issue. Some scholars, including Yonah (2005) suggest that the establishment of Israel as a bi-national, or at least multi-ethnic state would offer a “‘historical understanding’ according to which the birth of Israel and the Palestinian tragedy are not two separate events, but one and the same” (102). However, Yonah (2005) also recognizes that such a bi-national arrangement is extremely complex to realize, as from a demographic standpoint, it is highly difficult to “secure either a Jewish homogeneous nation-state or a Palestinian homogeneous nation-state due to the existence of sizeable Palestinian national minority living within Israel’s 1948 borders and due to the increase in the number of Jewish settlements and settlers in occupied territories (especially in the West Bank)” (Yonah 2005, 102-103). In addition to this demographic factor, Palestinian society is heavily reliant on Israel’s economic system, in the way that they share the same labour market (Yonah 2005, 103). By contrast, Rouhana (1998) completely eliminates the option of a multi-ethnic state as a solution, arguing that “many multi-ethnic states provide a national home to the dominant ethnic group only and are defined as ethnic states” (278). By definition, an ethnic state is therefore incompatible with the framework of a democratic state, as within an ethnic state, “access to power, government, resources and state identity is limited to various degrees, not to the state’s citizens, but to members of one ethnic group” (Rouhana 1998, 278). Even though

Israel defines itself as a democratic state according to its constitution, and the majority of Jewish citizens within the state fully regard themselves as part of a democratic system, it is apparent that this same state encourages the systematic segmentation of Arab society (Rouhana 1998, 282).

As Israeli-Palestinian relations have a complex and constantly changing dynamic, recent occurrences regarding Israel’s political climate contribute to the formation of the collective memory and identity of Palestinians. In July of 2018, Israel’s government passed a new law that officially defines Israel as the “national homeland of the Jewish people and asserts that the realization of the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people” (Landau & Lis 2018). Referred to as the ‘Nation-State Bill” or ‘Nationality Bill’, the new law is largely symbolic of what has been a reality for most Palestinian citizens of Israel already. Naturally, this law was met with much criticism from the international community as well as by some Israeli celebrities. As a response to Israeli actress Rotem Sela criticizing the Nation-State Bill on social media, Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu responds via his own Instagram account, noting “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people – and only it” (France-Presse 2019). Therefore, when it comes to the Palestinian citizens, the enforced segregation and discrimination by the state strengthened their status as an isolated minority, which solidified itself within their collective memory and identity (Rouhana 1998, 286). According to Litvak (2009), Palestinians citizens of Israel developed a sense of alienation from and hostility toward the Israeli regime who were marginalizing them, as well as other Arab nations who failed to support their fight for independence (4). Regarding the evolution of the Palestinian collective identity, Litvak (2009) sets Palestinians apart from other groups of people:

What sets the Palestinians apart are the more recent developments...The... evolution of a particular identity as a result of a conflict between two groups over territory;... ‘the frequency, intensity and duration of wars between rival policies is itself a significant factor in crystallizing ethnic sentiments among an affected population’. Confrontation with an “other” always leads to enhancement of the “self”– in this case, a distinct Palestinian identity. (11)

As iterated by Litvak (2009), the case of Palestinian citizens’ identity is among other things, a result of the agonizing ‘confrontation with an ‘other’ over a lengthy period of time (11). This antagonistic dynamic plays a major determining factor in regards to the Palestinian collective identity. Therefore, due to the complexity of this dynamic, there are several concepts that are most commonly used in the discourse about Palestinian collective identity and memory. How did the confrontation with an ‘Other’ impact the evolution of the Palestinian citizen’s identity and collective memory as a people?

2.2 The ‘Trapped Minority’

One prominent concept that describes the Palestinian citizens of Israel’s collective memory and identity is a notion called ‘trapped minority’. Within the concept of ‘trapped minority,’ there are elements that characterize the realities and struggles of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Developed by Dan Rabinowitz, the concept refers to a “segment of a larger group spread across at least two states. Citizens of a state hegemonized by others, its members are alienated from political power. Unable to influence the definition of public goods or enjoy them, its members are at the same time marginal within their mother nation abroad” (Rabinowitz 2001, 64). Additionally, a trapped minority is prone to have severe difficulties assimilating, and in most cases remain non-assimilating. While this is also surely a result of the subjective choice of the individual and many purely do not have any interest in assimilation, the hosting state often reinforces political agendas to actively isolate these minorities as the ‘others’, treating them as second class citizens and less than equal (Rabinowitz 2001, 73).

Trapped minorities, or groups who live in territories they consider their primordial homeland, are also referred to as ‘homeland minorities’ (Rabinowitz 2001, 72). One reason for this relates to the current entrapment by their host state as well as their mother nation (Rabinowitz 2001, 73). In this case, the host state is Israel, whose population is comprised of around twenty percent Palestinians, and the mother nation is Palestine or the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian citizens of Israel who remained in the newly founded state of Israel after 1948,

found their homeland dramatically transformed, falling under the control of Zionist Israel. The Palestinians in it were soon granted formal citizenship and economic and administrative mercy of a regime they never chose. Relations with their people...living outside the borders and outside of control of Israel were almost completely severed [due to their different experiences of the occupation]. (Rabinowitz 2001, 73)

As such, another characteristic of a trapped minority refers to the minorities’ status in their homeland, in this case, the West Bank and Gaza. While it is clear that Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated as second class within Israel, their status in their home country is also devalued. According to Rabinowitz (2001, 74), “their residence, acculturation and formal citizenship in a state dominated by an alien hegemony implicates them. Thus, the Palestinian citizens of Israel (…) are equally suspect for Palestinians and Arabs abroad due to their citizenship of and general association with Israel.” Palestinians in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza view Palestinian citizens of Israel as being in a favourable position with the benefit of Israeli rights and citizenship, while they, who are outside of the borders of Israel, suffer from being under true occupation. For that reason, the loyalty to the Palestinian nation and their cause for freedom is questioned by Palestinians outside of Israel, and the Palestinian citizens of Israel are thus seen as a “self-seeking, spoilt collective, collaborating with the Zionist occupation of the homeland” (Rabinowitz 2001, 74). Rabinowitz (2001) therefore describes the Palestinian citizens of Israel trapped in a “dual marginality” who are held between opposite “centres of political gravity” (74). These centres contain two “conflicting national narratives” (74). Rabinowitz (2001) also notes that the Palestinian citizens of Israel are quite aware of their role within a painful situation between their national homeland of Palestine and their current host country, Israel (74). This awareness naturally has a great impact on the collective memory of the minority as a whole, as trapped minorities are especially expected to struggle with the traumatic process or event that caused their homeland being seized by an external power (Rabinowitz 2001, 74). The experience is described as the following:

The memory is often vivid, leaning on personal experiences, enmeshed in close familial history. The double bind in which they live, however, may arrest the development of a coherent version of history as a collective experience...And while memories of personal and local tragedies are rife, a vocabulary that conceptualizes and memorializes the disaster seldom develops. (Rabinowitz 2001, 74).

The double bind referred to above makes it extremely difficult for the Palestinian nation as a whole to form a coherent, collective memory due to the vastly differing experiences between the minority population and Palestinians outside of Israel. While there is a clear sense of solidarity for their mother nation, Palestinian citizens of Israel, as the trapped minority, are prone to feel “excluded from the thrust of national revival if and when it does commence abroad” (Rabinowitz 2001, 75). In the case of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, one must recognize that this trapped minority is a resulting condition of the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict that put them at the crossfire between two nations. All these factors play a crucial role in the physical and psychological entrapment of the Palestinian citizens of Israel that shape the minorities collective memory and identity. In the next chapter, I will expand on the concepts of Othering and Orientalism, which are among the commonly used notions in the discourse about Palestinian collective identity and memory.

2.3 Otherness of Palestinians: Orientalism

Palestinian collective memory and identity are very much linked to the relationship between Palestine and Israel and their political history, the Nakba and the resulting fragmentation of Palestinian society. The concepts of Othering and Orientalism provide a contextual understanding of Palestinian collective memory and its formation. As such, Othering is a direct consequence of the minority’s status as a trapped social group within both the host state and their homeland. On the other hand, Orientalism is not necessarily a consequence of the group’s status as a trapped minority, but rather a form of Othering, that refers to the minority’s general position as Arabs living in the Middle East. While these are concepts that do not exclusively apply to only Palestinians, but also to other marginalized ethnic groups, the ideas behind the concepts highlight an essential cornerstone of Palestinian collective memory.

On that note, Gandolfo (2016) connects the establishment of the Israeli-Palestinian Wall and the mobilization of certain checkpoints within the West Bank to the ideology of security (260). As such, at the core,

Security includes an element of fear and mostly commonly fear of another, or, the Other...Othering enacts a fear of that which is known – or unknown – and manifests on a larger scale through open conflict, as well as through the nuanced, yet pervasive, acts of differentiation, such as promulgation of negative stereotypes, discrimination and racism...Otherness ‘projects the imaginary figure of an alien or external collective ‘other’, who becomes ‘fantastic’ as a threatening double, or an essential enemy. (Gandolfo 2016, 260)

This notion of the ‘other’ functions not only on individual or personal fear, but also on national fear. The collective identity of an entire nation is partially defined through the perceived ‘influence’ of the ‘other’. This ‘influence of the other’ is perceived as threats to the nation, its authenticity and its independence (Gandolfo 2016, 261). Farber (2014) points out that it is entirely possible and common for Jewish- Israeli citizens to pass an entire lifetime without meeting a single Palestinian, which in return, allows suspicions and distrust of the unfamiliar ‘other’ to remain (Gandolfo 2016, 261). In this case, increased communication and interaction between Israelis and Palestinians “establish new frameworks of understanding, while ideological and physical barriers consolidate difference” (Gandolfo 2016, 261). As such, Gandolfo (2016) also remarks that on an individual level ‘otherness’ is a result of minimal contact, while on a national level the perceived ‘otherness’ is also practised by the governing apparatus (261). In the case of Israel and Palestine, the concrete wall separating the West Bank from Israel acts as a powerful, visual symbol underlining the ‘otherness’ and a clear distinction between the two communities. Newman (2006) contends how the separation wall has an esthetic and functional duality, strengthening the perceived threat of the ‘other’ within Israeli culture and public space (p.151).

One of the ways the process of Othering becomes apparent within everyday life in Israel and the West Bank, is through travel. In order to travel throughout the West Bank and in some cases past the concrete Wall, countless checkpoints have been set up by the Israeli

government to control the transit of Palestinians. Gandolfo (2016) calls this process the ‘transition zone’, where the side of the wall facing Israel is camouflaged to establish limited visual disruption for Israeli residents (261). The ‘transition zone’ is therefore defined as a place where the Palestinians in transit who are concealed but still engaged within a power struggle. This power struggle is described as the following:

The person in transit undergoes a process of acclimatization and acculturation as he/she moves through the zone of transition, so that the shock of meeting the ‘other’ is not as great as he/she feared (…) the subjects who are concealed, yet still engaged, in the power struggle in the transition zone as they become the protagonists in the narrative of the Other, as well as embodiments of the stereotypes and representations in the wider conflict discourse. (Gandolfo 2016, 261)

These images are what is observed by Jewish-Israeli when they pass these zones without difficulty and have become part of daily experiences for Palestinian citizens. This visual experience influences the construction of Palestinian collective memory, heavily impacting their sense of belonging and identity within their community. Similarly, Said (1979) suggests that, unlike the Jewish-Israelis, the majority of the Palestinians are fully aware of them as the Other being a “concrete political reality with which they must live in the future” (174). Adding to the previous comment by Said, another concept widely circulated within the discourse of Palestinian collective memory and consciousness is that of Orientalism. Coined by Said, Orientalism does not only apply to the Palestinian people. While Said (1978) proposes a theory in which he argues that the Western world has composed and continuously maintained a collective fantasy of the Orient (Said 1978, 357). Throughout this line of argumentation, Said (1978) contends that “the Orient is depicted as all the West is not: feminized where the West is masculine; weak where the West is strong; corrupt where the West is righteous; inscrutable where the West is rational; tradition-bound, where the West is progressive” (357). As such, this power dynamic serves to paint a negative image of the Orient, while constructing the West as the positive counterpart, ultimately constructing a dynamic where the Orient is the West’s Other (Said 1978, 357). Orientalism is a form of Othering. Therefore the two concepts are intrinsically linked, as Othering constitutes fear

based acts of differentiation, resulting in the development of stereotypes or prejudices about the Orient. While the concept of Othering has been outlined above, Orientalism in terms of Israel’s relationship to Palestine plays a separate role in the identity construction process of the Palestinian minority. Although Orientalism pertains to the “political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West” and Israel is geographically located in the Middle East, I will argue, following Said, that within the framework of Orientalism, Israel is indeed part of the Western sphere (Said 1979, 357). Firstly, many of Israel’s Jewish citizens have never travelled within Middle Eastern countries or even the West Bank, due to acute security measures and perpetual warnings propagated by the Israeli state and media, developing a severe unfamiliarity and fear of the Orient. Additionally, the unique nature of Israel’s establishment, with millions of European Jews migrating to Israel after 1948 and the subsequent eruption of violence, combined with a deep-seated fear of the Palestinians who are clearly constructed as the Other, justifies the logic that Israel is within this framework, part of the Western sphere (Rabinowitz 2001, 79).

Furthermore, a cornerstone of Orientalism is its connection to the field of geography, “given its inherently spatial argument. The notion that human societies typically form place-based identities wherein the ‘others’ are ‘over there’, while ‘we’ are ‘here’, along with the understanding of places and knowledge about them as ideological constructions, rather than straightforward facts” (Said 1979, 357). As already discussed above, the spatial argument wherein the West is ‘here’ and the East is ‘there’ is highlighted especially when a literal concrete Wall serves as a symbolic and corporeal separation between the ‘here’ and ‘there’, as is the case between Israel and the West Bank. In the same vein, Gandolfo (2016) notes how “living in the shadow of the wall” is an essential dimension of the spatial power dynamic between the communities on either side (262). Similarly, Gandolfo (2016) refers to Anderson (1996) who describes the spatial power dynamic and its connection to the formation of a collective identity of a people:

Frontier narratives contribute “indispensable elements of the construction of national culture” (1996, pp. 1–3), while on a tangible level, “national narratives of belonging and identity […] are continually reproduced in the processes of spatial socialization” (Paasi 2012, p. 2306) and are co-opted to promote

sentiments of belonging and identity. However, this is for a select audience, as Palestinians and Israelis invoke claims to the land and the land shapes their respective identities. The result is a perpetuation of Shalit’s concept of the schism between “‘I’ and ‘Him’ or ‘Us’ and ‘Them’” (1987, p. 369) that is realized through the physicality of the Wall and the bodies of the protagonists, as the boundaries rise and shift, and the community, family and individual is relocated, paused, diverted and spatially redefined according to political and cartographical developments. (Gandolfo 2016, 262-263)

As declared above, spatial power dynamics is one of the essential components shaping national narratives of belonging and identity. Generally, while the concepts trapped minority, Othering and Orientalism carry separate significance in outlining the construction of the collective Palestinian minority identity, these three concepts are also intrinsically linked. Orientalism is not necessarily a repercussion of a group’s status as a trapped minority, but rather a form of Othering, that refers to the minority’s overall status as Arabs living in what the West considers the ‘Orient’. These concepts work together to illustrate and describe the foundation of Palestinian identity construction. Building on that foundation of Palestinian identity construction, the consequent section pertains to the fundamental characteristics of Palestinian collective memory.

2.4 The Collective Memory of the Palestinian Minority

The concept of collective memory first took shape when Durkheim noted that “societies require continuity and connection with the past to preserve social unity and cohesion” (Taffal 2016, 208). In order for collective thought to be established within a group, individuals are required to physically come together to create a shared experience (Taffal 2016, 208). As with every group identity, memory exists at its core, and what is ultimately remembered by a community is defined by the culturally assumed identity that group bestows on itself (Litvak 2009, 1). As such, “every group develops the memory of its own past and so highlights its unique identity vis-à-vis, other groups. These reconstructed images of the past provide the group with an account of its origin and development and thus allow it to develop a historical identity” (Litvak 2009, 1). While this process of identity formation is the widely accepted

approach to understanding collective memory studies today, the field was initially explored through a biological framework. The attempts to perceive collective memory in biological terms as inheritable or in terms of ‘racial memory’, was first dismissed by Halbwachs (1980), a student of Durkheim, who established that collective memory is a result of socialization, customs and culture (Assmann & Czaplicka 1995, 125). Halbwachs (1980) also divides the concept of collective memory into the realms of communicative memory and cultural memory. Communicative memory is exclusively based on everyday communications and pertains to human interactions. Hence, communicative memory encompasses everyday situations such as a joke between friends, listening to gossip or sitting in a waiting room. These interactions have rules that regulate this exchange.

There is a ‘household’ within the confines of which this communication takes place...Through this manner of communication, each individual composes a memory which as Halbwachs has shown, is (a) socially mediated and (b) relates to a group. Every individual memory constitutes itself in communication with others. These ‘others’ however, are not just any set of people, rather they are groups who conceive their unity and peculiarity through a common image of their past. (Assmann & Czaplicka 1995, 127)

These ‘groups’ Halbwachs (1980) is referring to include “families, neighbourhoods, professional groups, political parties, associations, etc., up to and including nations” (Assmann & Czaplicka 1995, 127). As such, every individual belongs to many of these groups and thus accommodates many collective self-images and memories (Assmann & Czaplicka 1995, 127). While communicative memory is a daily form of collective memory that is characterized by its “proximity to the everyday, cultural memory is characterized by its distance from the everyday” (Assmann & Czaplicka 1995, 128-129). Therefore, Halbwachs (1980) argues that cultural memory has a kind of fixed horizon that will not change by time passing. For nations, these fixed points are often historical defeats (Litvak 2009, 1). Litvak (2009) argues that suffering together unifies more than joy and that these historical defeats play more of a role in regards to shaping the self-perception and culture of a people (1). While this is true for all cultures, this notion especially rings true for the Palestinian people. As covered in the section on historical context, the Nakba or ‘catastrophe’ of 1948 marked

the most detrimental event in Palestinian history and as such had the most significant impact on which Palestinian identity now stands (Litvak 2009, 3).

The evolution of Palestinian collective memory serves as a foundation of Palestinian national identity. While the Nakba is in no way the only detrimental tragedy Palestinians suffered, it has symbolic value and represents the loss of their homeland and the beginning of the systematic destruction of their culture (Sorek 2011, 467). Generally, regarding the Palestinian people as a whole, it can be said that the impact the Nakba has on their collective memory was intensified due to the international community’s lack of response when opposing Israel. On this note, Said clarifies,

the Palestinians have never received even the slightest official acknowledgement of the massive injustice that was done to them, much less the possibility of staking material claims against Israel for the property taken, the people killed, the houses demolished, the water taken, the prisoners held, and so forth. (in Abu-Lughod, Heacock & Nashef 1999, 11-12)

The lack of support from the international community and the devastation of the Nakba are symbolic themes that connect collective memories with national identifications (Sorek 2011, 476). Therefore, the collective memories of the Nakba and other detrimental experiences resulted in the formation of an identity characterized by trauma and victimhood for the Palestinian people (Sorek 2011, 476). In this sense, Sorek (2011) speaks to the importance of balancing experiences of both triumph and loss, by noting, “while both victimhood and triumphal myths are important for mobilizing national identification, their co-appearance is especially valuable” (476). Sorek continues to emphasize that in the case of Palestinians, this balance is especially challenging as their experiences of triumph are scarce, and instead have been overwhelmed with memories of tragedy and loss (Sorek 2011, 476). While collective memories characterized by loss, resistance and trauma impact all Palestinians, a distinction regarding the Palestinian citizens of Israel exists. As expressed in the section on trapped minorities, the case of Palestinian citizens of Israel shows how their political memory and identity is being shaped by both the state of Israel as well as their ethnonational motherland of Palestine (Sorek 2011, 467). The Palestinians who remained in newly

established Israeli territory as of the 1948 Nakba, have been granted Israeli citizenship. More than just a document, the imposing of Israeli citizenship has established itself as a cultural, political and socio-economic framework for the Palestinian community in Israel (Yiftachel 1997, 292). As such, nearly all Palestinians within Israel are bilingual, speaking Arabic and Hebrew. They “consume Israeli media and culture, and most professional Arabs attend Israeli universities. Repeated surveys show that even if an independent Palestinian state was established in the territories, the vast majority of the Arab minority (80-95 percent) would prefer to stay in Israel” (Yiftachel 1999, 292). While it is questionable whether the same survey would garner a similar response among Palestinians today, it is undoubtedly the case that Palestinian citizens of Israel are fully tied to the norms and regulations of Israeli society. This is mostly due to Palestinian citizens of Israel being “extremely limited in their ability to develop independent institutions” since they lost a substantial percentage of their “urban elite” during the Nakba and were subjected to military rule until 1966 (Sorek 2011, 467). Additionally, scholars who in fact are Palestinian citizens of Israel such as Rouhana (1997) strongly contend that the Israeli part of their identity is void of any kind of emotional bond to Israel (Yiftachel 1999, 292). However, Palestinians citizens of Israel are arguably also lacking an emotional bond with their homeland and as such with the Palestinians outside of Israeli borders:

The two Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the first Intifada from 1987–91 and the second Intifada from 2000–4) gained much sympathy and solidarity among Palestinians inside Israel, but with the exception of a few days in the fall of 2000, they did not actively join the uprisings. At the same time, these revolts were incorporated as heroic milestones in the collective Palestinian narrative, including among Palestinians in Israel. (Sorek 2011, 468)

As the decades passed subsequent to 1948, it became clear that the Israeli state would remain. Therefore, the Palestinian citizens of Israel “gradually turned to the Israeli political sphere to cope with their predicament” (Sorek 2011, 468). As a direct result, Sorek (2011) notes that surveys conducted by Smooha (1999) between 1976 and 1995 among the Palestinians in Israel show that the ratio of the people who view themselves as both Palestinians and Israeli, tripled.

At the same time, however, the same publication containing the survey by Smooha (1999), also reads,

As an indigenous population, they feel firmly attached to the land and have strong claims to the country (…)They differ from the Jewish majority in language, religion, nation, culture, and ethnic descent. They do not wish to assimilate into Jewish majority, and the Jews do not want to assimilate them. They have separate schools, communities and institutions. They keep their own identity and struggle to remain separate but equal. (Smooha 1999, 9-10)

The struggle of the Palestinian citizens of Israel remains a complex issue as they continue to face their predicament of living as a trapped minority. Sorek (2011) summarizes their unique circumstance by observing, “while their Arab-Palestinian identity places them in the position of ‘an enemy within’ for the Jewish majority, they are simultaneously considered suspicious – ‘Israelified Arabs’ – by Palestinians outside Israel” (468). Feeling like they belong nor here nor there, their identity as Arab-Palestinians contradict their geographical location and their official identity as Israeli citizens.

2.5 Israeli Media Strategies & Palestinian Identity Construction

As the Arab minority within Israel fell under Israeli control succeeding 1948, the Israeli government utilized disciplining policies to normalize the daily life of its Jewish citizens (Jamal 2009, 20). The Palestinians who remained within Israel were framed as a military threat which justified subsequent policies established towards them and their treatment as a potential danger (Jamal 2009, 20). One crucial measure taken to ensure the safety of the Israeli state and further solidify the Palestinians’ role as the intruder was through the implementation of media policies. The structure of Israel’s media system and its policies towards its Arab minority demonstrate how a minority living in a hegemonic state has responded to the complex circumstances that construct their existence and collective identity. Before the specific media policies of the Israeli state towards the Arab minority are examined, I will convey contextual information to gain a solid understanding on the role these policies had in influencing the collective identity formation of the minority.

Mass media’s power lies in its ability to conceptualize and transmit political notions and emphasize hegemonic orders, therefore also constructing individual and societal worldviews (Zimmermann 2007, 59). In addition to playing a pivotal role in shaping the construction of people’s worldview regarding foreign places, visual mass media also influence identity formation on different levels (Zimmermann 2007, 59). As such, the impact different media, such as newspapers, television or radio, have on socio-culturally diverse populations such as Israel is “key to understanding political dynamics in multicultural societies” (Jamal 2009, 2). As I will be examining media policies implemented after the Nakba of 1948, this section will focus on media strategies pertaining to newspapers, which was the leading information medium of the time. Similar to other hegemonic regimes intending to exert control over their minorities, Israel’s media policies were also intended to control and (re)socialize the Palestinian community (Jamal 2009, 29). The justification of the media policies towards the Palestinian minority is based on the notion that the creation of the state of Israel calls for a new “category in the history of the region, that should be accommodated and accepted” (Jamal 2009, 29). The occurrence of the Nakba introduced the suspension of Palestinian history, and as such, space was created for the Israeli government to create a new historical image of the Palestinians, as well as a government-controlled reality for the Arab citizens (Jamal 2009, 29). Most importantly and at the forefront of these efforts lies the intention of inculcating awareness and acceptance of this new imagined reality throughout the Arab population, for the purpose of suppressing any form of resistance or opposition (Jamal 2009, 30). In essence, the Israeli media policies towards the Palestinian minority

attempted to construct an Arab collective memory divorced from its cultural environment and historical past. Moreover, this policy aimed at extolling the cultural supremacy of Jewish society, while implying the cultural, economic and social backwardness of Arab society. All these ploys were contrived to justify the cultural, political, and military colonization of Arab society and its geographic space. (Jamal 2009, 30)

The impact the new Israeli media policies had on the Arab population was especially effective since the Palestinians lost control over all their established cultural institutions after 1948. As

a result of the war, the majority of the Palestinian cultural, political and cultural elite was exiled, in addition to all Arab urban centres destroyed and seized by force of the Israeli army (Jamal 2009, 30). As described, this led to the destruction of all of Arab public institutions, including Arab mass communication structures and systems already established within Palestine prior to 1948 (Jamal 2009, 30). Jamal describes that conditions during the 1948 war created a “deep cultural and communication vacuum (…)that severed the local population from Palestinians and Arabs living in neighbouring countries, as well as from the surrounding Arab landscape. This isolation intensified the population’s sense of crisis and powerlessness” (Jamal 2009, 30). As a result of this communication vacuum and perceived sense of helplessness, complete dependency on information distributed by the Israeli ‘propaganda machine’ became the new status quo for Palestinians (Jamal 2009, 31). Therefore, one major policy implemented was the establishment of information organs and new newspapers by Israeli institutions, which were specifically tailored to reach Israel’s Palestinian population (Jamal 2009, 31). The most notable information organ was Al-Yom, a daily newspaper that acted as a major propaganda tool to further Israeli attempts to discipline its Arab population. The daily newspaper issued not only a daily version for adults but also two biweeklies for children called Al-Yom for Our Children, in an effort to control the contents that shaped the Palestinian youth (Jamal 2009, 32). Instead of acting as an informative organ, the central aim was mostly psychological, wherein the implementation of news organs such as Al-Yom intended to demonstrate “that the newly established state could not be defeated and that ‘good Arabs’ have a better chance to live in peace and prosperity than ‘troublemakers’” (Jamal 2009, 31). As a general contention, Avraham (2003) argues that media commonly tend to distort the image of minority groups, and include “the use of stereotypes and generalizations, the faulting of the groups for their situation, the depiction of their members as a threat to the natural order, and the differentiation of society into ‘them’ pitted against ‘us’ with ‘them’ being inherently different from ‘us’” (1). Similarly to the notion of Othering discussed earlier, the collective identity of an entire minority group is somewhat defined through the perceived ‘influence’ of the ‘other’, which in turn, is perceived as a threat to the hegemonic nation and its independence (Gandolfo 2016, 261). In order to carry out this information policy, the establishment of new, state-controlled, Arabic newspapers calls for as the recruitment of Arab speaking journalists. As such, another media policy refers to the active recruitment of the Israeli government to

find Arabic speaking Jews who immigrated to the newly established state, who are experienced within the field of journalism (Jamal 2009, 32). Arabic speaking intellectuals, journalists and other media specialists were integrated into various newspapers, press houses, information centres, the Arabic department of the Voice of Israel Radio as well as later, into the Israeli television networks (Jamal 2009, 33). Jamal notes, that for many years following 1948, these Arabic speaking media professionals gained the trust of the Palestinian minority and as such greatly shaped the character of the Israeli Arabic media environment (Jamal 2009, 33). One influential contributor was Nissim Ragwan, who was a writer for Al-Yom and who also became its editor at a later point, and is considered a significant figure of what Jamal (2009) calls the “state propaganda machine” (33). The Israeli government directly recruited intellectuals like Ragwan who are well versed in Arabic culture and as such quickly became influential parts of the Israeli-Arab media sphere. Their central aim was to convey information “in Arab society that aimed at reconstructing its collective imagination and reshaping its historical memory” (Jamal 2009, 34). In many cases, journalists were strongly animated, “or even pushed to write against the spirit of critical opinions...concerning governmental policies toward the Arab population. Columns (...) aimed at presenting daily social issues in a creative form that counterbalanced criticism expressed by Arab journalists or politicians in other Arab sources” (Jamal 2009, 34). Generally, the content created for the Palestinian population of Israel always aimed at portraying Israel as a tolerant and rational state that welcomes criticism and debate, while simultaneously promoting the state as one that must be feared and respected (Jamal 2009, 34). A large part of the content also presented the efforts and intentions of the Israeli state to enhance Palestinian living conditions. Moreover, Jamal (2009) adds that both the contents of these Israeli controlled, Arabic newspaper, in addition to “evidence provided by people who operated it (...) sought to propagate a frame of mind that accepts Israel as a fait accompli that cannot be overturned and should be feared, lest it be forced to adopt fierce policies” (34).

In addition to the establishment of information organs by the Israeli government to target the Palestinian minority as well as recruitment of Jewish, Arabic speaking media professionals, another strategic media policy pertains to the distribution of the media content. To maximize the potential audience reach, newspapers employed several strategies to strengthen their readership among Palestinians. Firstly, newspapers such as Al-Yom, were distributed free of

charge in all large Palestinian residential areas and villages (Jamal 2009, 35). Additionally, those running these newspapers also used

connections that functionaries in the newspaper had with officials in various governmental ministries to put pressure on Arabs, who needed various permits from the ministries, to read the newspaper on a daily basis. Another method used was to approach different government functionaries, seeking to get their sympathy to financially support segments of Arab society in order to facilitate abonnement. Another method was to look for potential readers among the Arab educated elite. For instance, the manager of the newspaper approached the Hebrew University asking for the names of Arab students, in order to contact them and encourage them to read the newspaper. (Jamal 2009, 35-36)

The implementation of Palestinian targeted news organs, the recruitment of Jewish Arabic speakers or the free circulation of content are just a few examples of the means utilized to create consent among Palestinians. Historically, Israeli media is a close collaborator of the Israeli government, ultimately working together to gain control of the collective Palestinian memory and delegitimize the role of the Palestinian minority (Khalil 2007, 149).

3. PALESTINIAN FILMMAKING: TAKING CHARGE OF THE NARRATIVE

In this section, I will analyze the two films In Between and Junction 48. Both films show Palestinian citizens of Israel interacting with the Jewish-Israeli counterpart. While the social-realist narrative and aesthetic depict the marginalized treatment of the Palestinian minority within Israel, the production and reception, funding and filmmakers commentary provide even more insight on how popular culture texts can serve as vehicles for the Palestinian minority to take charge of their collective identity. Additionally, I will argue that films like these raise awareness regarding the realities this trapped minority is faced with. As discussed in the previous section, media are an essential tool for the Israeli government to silence and control the Palestinian minority and their sense of belonging and identity. For the minority, alternative filmmaking proves to be especially important due not only to their status as a minority within Israel, but also due to constant and perpetual attempts

by the Israeli government to dominate and control Palestinian identity and culture. As such, the Palestinian minority within Israel “have developed a hybrid identity as Israeli citizens who identify with cultural and political centres outside of Israel” (Caspi & Elias 2011, 65). In that sense, as will become evident throughout the analysis of the films In Between and Junction 48, alternative filmmaking can be a powerful tool for the minority to redefine their collective identity and voice their cultural, political, economic and everyday needs (Shi 2009, 599).

3.1 In Between – An Overview

The film Bar Bahar (English version: In Between), which translates from Arabic to ‘Land and Sea’, follows the story of three Palestinian women sharing an apartment in Tel Aviv. It depicts how they cope with the inequality of Israeli society and their roles as Arabs living in Israel. Although Tel Aviv is deemed one of Israel’s most liberal and open-minded cities for Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel alike, the film unravels the complexity of coexistence between the two cultures. As Palestinian citizens of Israel, these three young women, of which one is Christian and two Muslim, seem at first glance to be faced with very different challenges. Laila is a criminal defence lawyer, originally from Nazareth. She is also an independent, chain-smoking party girl who values her freedom as a woman over all else. Generally, with a strong disregard for any form of convention, she deliberately opposes all forms of conservative tradition as well as any kind of discriminatory treatment by Jewish-Israeli citizens. The second flatmate, Salma, is a bohemian and closeted lesbian who aspires to become a DJ. She barely manages to pay her bills through waitressing and kitchen work. After telling her traditionally Christian family from Nazareth that she is a lesbian, she is abandoned by them and struggles to make ends meet. She goes from job to job while simultaneously discovering her sexuality as a lesbian within a fairly conservative environment. Both Salma and Laila are part of the Palestinian underground party scene of Tel Aviv which includes alcohol, drugs and sex. Lastly, the third flatmate Nour, is a religious computer science student from the conservative Muslim town of Umm al-Fahm. She moves in with Salma and Leila through a distant relative and is unaware of their differences in lifestyle, beliefs and conduct. As a very quiet and reserved hijabi, she is highly alarmed and disgusted by her sexually open, boozing and drug-using flatmates.

While there appears to be a great rift between the two party girls and the conservative Muslim girl, the three of them grow close over the course of the film, mainly through the occurrence of a rape suffered by Nour, committed by her conservative fiancé. Subsequently, Nour suffers a nervous breakdown in the bathroom and is found by Salma and Laila. Without proof, Nour is unable to call off the engagement with her fiancé Wissam due to his stellar reputation as an Imam (the worship leader of Muslim prayers in mosques). Consequently, the three women decide to take action against Wissam and concoct a plan to lure him into a trap. As a religious fanatic, Wissam has strong ties to the Muslim community in Tel Aviv. Laila uses this opportunity to call Wissam, pretending to seek advice on how to escape her hopeless situation as a victim of domestic abuse by her violent husband. They agree on a meeting, while the three women are counting on Wissam to take advantage of Laila’s situation and ask her to remove her clothes so he can ‘inspect’ her bruises. Nour and Salma capture the incident on camera and proceed to blackmail Wissam to call off the engagement to Nour, threatening to expose the videos otherwise. While this aspect of the plot has less to do with the Jewish-Israeli discrimination towards the minority, it does show how their shared identity as Palestinian women brings the three women together. Each character is faced with different issues and struggles, however, their shared identities as Palestinian citizens of Israel unites them and crosses religious and ideological boundaries. Although this thesis focuses on the aspects of In Between that revolve around socio-political relations between Jewish-Israelis and the Palestinian minority of Israel and their resulting identity formation, this issue is only a background narrative of the film. According to the director and various reviews, the film’s central narrative revolves around the patriarchy in Middle Eastern society. In the next section, I will explore the intricacies of the film’s funding and production, and why the film’s central narrative matters to the Israeli government.

3.1.1 Behind the Scenes: The Funding and Production

The issue of how In Between was funded has come up countless times throughout discussions, interviews and reviews of the film. Although In Between revolves around three Palestinian women and the hardships of living within Israeli society, the film is an Israeli-French co-production and financed by the Israel Film Fund. Such collaborations are common for films released under the Israel Film Fund. On the official website of the Israel Film Fund, the

organization emphasizes that they are eager to collaborate with the international film industry, noting, “international co-productions are of great importance to the Israel film industry in terms of creating international cooperation and partnerships, in creating better production conditions, in stimulating a creative atmosphere and in terms of budget allocation” (Israel Film Fund 2019). Additionally, while In Between was written and directed by Maysaloun Hamoud, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, it was produced by Jewish-Arab Shlomi Elkabetz, who is of Moroccan descent and played a major role in the funding process. Hamoud clarifies that Elkabetz’s role as the producer of In Between made the process of receiving funding much easier (De Marco 2017, 5). Having a Jewish-Israeli producer such as Elkabetz involved in the film, has proven to be beneficial. Hamoud explains that Elkabetz’s Jewish name was used to apply for funding and discuss budgeting details (Felsenthal 2018, 19). The Israel Film Fund’s website has an entire section outlining ‘Guidelines for Support’, reading

The Israel Film Fund support is given to full length Israeli films of no less than 80 minutes long, intended primarily for cinema release. The average budget of an Israeli Feature Film is between $500,000 to $1,000,000. The Fund can invest up to 2/3 (two thirds) of the approved budget. [Those who can apply are] Israeli producers, directors, scriptwriters with a proven professional background, who are Israeli citizens or permanent residents as defined in the ‘New Cinema Law’. (Israel Film Fund 2019)

Although the ‘Guidelines for Support’ clearly indicate that those applying for funding must be media professionals with Israeli citizenship, Hamoud remarks that even though she meets these conditions, she believes the funding would not have come through if she would have applied on her own (Felsenthal 2018, 19). In total, Hamoud and Elkabetz received funding of 2 million Israeli Shekel, which translates to approximately $500,000 U.S. dollars (Israel Film Fund 2019). When asked about the difficulty to secure funding for her film during an interview with Cineurpa, Hamoud remarks,

(...) It’s not that easy to be a director or an artist, because the Palestinians in Israel are discriminated against. I don’t have any problem with Jews, but I do with the Zionists, and they also have a problem with me. The Jewish producer of the film,

Shlomi Elkabetz (...) is a true genius (...) with whom I have a very strong relationship. It was a real boon for my film, and the partnership between us was a powerful one; it made it a lot easier to secure funding. (De Marco 2017, 5)

While having Shlomi Elkabetz as part of the production team undeniably helped secure the necessary funding, Hamoud only received the minimum amount of $500,000 U.S. dollars. Cultural ministries such as the Israel Film Fund granting only the minimum amount to a film whose director, cast and storyline are inherently Palestinian, illustrates the government’s position in supporting Palestinian filmmaking. In an interview with The Times of Israel, Hamoud replies to the question whether the Israeli government is supportive of her film by clarifying, “yes, well, of course! They want to feel good with themselves! ‘Yes, yes, we let her do that movie.’ But they always try to cover the criticism among the Israelis inside the movie. Even if it is the background and not the main issue” (Hoffman 2018, 25). The criticism among Israelis within the movie which Hamoud refers to, pertains to three scenes within the film that are explicitly critical of Israeli society. Apart from these three scenes, the film does not display any other critical expression towards the Israeli state or the minority’s status as the ‘Other’. Rather, the film is classified by the Israeli government and Hamoud herself, as a film predominantly confronting issues like the patriarchy, chauvinism, feminism, conservatism and religion. Hamoud explains that while there is criticism of Israel within the film, socio-political conflicts between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian citizens of Israel are deliberately not the main focus of In Between, and rather remain in the background (Felsenthal 2018, 12). Hamoud explains,

The spotlight is not on the Israelis. We can be mature enough to deal without thinking about Israelis as main characters. That’s the point of the setup. The movie is against the patriarchy in all different ways. It’s screaming that women in solidarity is the key for changing reality. Social activism is very important. I am struggling for my rights as a Palestinian, but I am struggling as a Palestinian woman, too. There is no priority of struggling. I need to try to change my community, my society, to be better. Then we can be stronger. (Felsenthal 2018, 12)

Hamoud is not alone in acknowledging that her film is not primarily about Israeli-Palestinian relations or the Palestinian minority, but rather a statement against the patriarchy in Arab society. Various reviews of In Between, including one by The New York Times titled “Review: ‘In Between’ Tells of Three Women Fighting Patriarchy in Tel Aviv”, summarizes, “the plots and subplots of this busy film coalesce around the single, multifarious problem of patriarchal authority, which each of the three main characters confronts in a different guise” (Scott 2018, 4). As such, Hamoud remarks that in order to receive funding from the Israel Film Fund, it was extremely important to frame the screenplay in a way in which the socio-political issues between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians are in the background, and critical commentary towards the Israeli society is kept to a minimum (Hoffman 2018, 21). Rather, the film is categorized as advocating the feminist agenda, which is a matter considered less alarming or threatening to the Israeli government than the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel. This is further underlined when Hamoud’s interviewer comments, “there is very little in your film that is explicitly critical of Israel because it feels like it is a given. Obviously, these characters aren’t too keen on Israel, so why bother talking about it. But I suppose that since it isn’t on the surface, the government isn’t too upset”, to which Hamoud replies that the government is accepting of the ‘feminist part,’ as it does not denounce Israeli society (Hoffman 2018, 21). While the opportunity to receive funding for artistic projects is scarce for Palestinians in Israel, artists like Hamoud are heavily criticized for accepting financial support. Ekram (2018) comments on the absurdity of the funding structure of In Between by noting that “ this very Palestinian film, which tells the stories of three women struggling with the repercussions of their Palestinian identity, was funded by the Israel Film Fund” (12). Especially the director and producer, Hamoud and Elkabetz, have been heavily criticized in Arab countries including the Palestinian territories, for accepting ‘Israeli money’ from the Israel Film Fund. As discussed in the section titled Israeli Media Strategies & Palestinian Identity Construction, the Israeli government has perpetually used dominant media to develop strategies intended to exert control over the Palestinian minority. Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Israeli media and the government have been close collaborators working together to gain control of the collective Palestinian memory and delegitimize the role of the Palestinian minority. Therefore, accepting funding from the very media institutions that are also intended to control and socialize the Palestinian community is heavily condemned by other

Palestinians, primarily from the West Bank. Hamoud rejects the criticism and argues that as a citizen of Israel, she was entitled to this type of funding:

It’s not ‘taking Israeli money’; we pay taxes as citizens who work and live, and we deserve to get advantages from those taxes as any citizen of the world would. Unfortunately, we are discriminated against, so we don’t really take our share of the cake. I’m taking my money. It’s not Israeli money. It’s not a favour or a bone [thrown] toward me. It’s money I deserve. If somebody says something like that, I have to say: Put an alternative on the table for us as Palestinian artists. Then you can say anything you want. There is no alternative, no other funds where we can get budgets to create art. (Felsenthal 2018, 11)

While it could be considered contradictory to accept Israeli funding for a film about Palestinians struggling with the repercussions of Israeli society, artists such as Hamoud hardly have any other opportunities to realize their projects. When asked about this issue in a personal conversation with Hamoud (personal communication, June 3, 2019), she refers me to an interview she had with Vogue Magazine. In the interview, Hamoud remarks, “every year on average, the amount of movies made in Israel is 30 to 35. Some years there aren’t any Palestinian movies. In the good years, there will be two movies” (Felsenthal 2018, 10). Although there is awareness of the scarcity of art funding, Palestinians from the West Bank are especially critical of artists like Hamoud for accepting Israeli funding. To them, members of the minority should join in boycotting the state of Israel, which includes the rejection of Israeli funds as a means to protest and resist Israeli occupation. As such, the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), is one of the most influential and internationally known movements advocating the boycott of Israeli companies, cultural and academic institutions that are involved in the violation of Palestinian human rights. While generally, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are supporters, Palestinian citizens of Israel who are Israeli citizens by default, unable to fully support the cause. While the Palestinian minority live as ‘equal’ citizens in Israel, they cannot fully relate to the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank. This rift in daily social and political experiences further create a rift between the members of the Palestinian minority in Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank. Trapped in between the Israeli society where a completely successful integration is near impossible,

and the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank, the minority’s identity remains ambiguous. Hamoud describes the rift between Palestinians artists from the West Bank and Palestinian artists from Israel by referring to her film’s soundtrack selection. Hamoud put together soundtracks featuring original music by different Palestinian artists. While artists part of the Palestinian minority in Israel were happy to collaborate, Palestinians from the West Bank were less cooperative. According to Hamoud, the Palestinians outside of Israel, “ultimately felt that their reputation would be in danger if they worked on a film funded by Israeli government institutions” (Matar 2017, 21). As mentioned earlier, Palestinians outside of Israel tend to be advocates of the BDS movement, while members of the Palestinian minority in Israel are less devoted, creating a definitive rift between the two. Hamoud also adds,

(...) The state is giving me money, because I deserve to make films from the money I fucking pay [in taxes]. I’m not ashamed, and I deserve even more. And still, I would have taken money from elsewhere in order to lift the cloud of a boycott, but there’s nowhere else. So I took from the state, and the film will be screened as an Israeli-French movie, despite it being mostly Arab-Palestinian. (Matar 2017, 21)

The organizer of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival, Alison Sterling, comments on the BDS movement and the issue of Palestinian films funded by Israel, stating they always try to take BDS guidelines into consideration when selection Palestinian films to screen (Ekram 2018, 19). Sterling also clarifies, “we try to take into consideration the broad guidelines of BDS, and one theory put forward by Omar Barghouti [BDS co-founder] holds that Palestinian artists who live in Israel pay taxes, and therefore this funding is their right. Especially given that they are not supportive of the state. If these films were promoting Israel, we would not have screened them” (Ekram 2018, 19). Receiving backlash and criticism for accepting funds from a government that one is a citizen of only underlines the minority’s role as the outsider and the ‘Other’ not only in the Israeli society they live in, but also in their own homeland. Besides the funding process of In Between, the details of the production also highlight the intricacies of the minority’s identity.

As the film tells the story of existing in between two worlds, the production of In Between is greatly based on actual experiences of director Maysaloun Hamoud as a Palestinian citizen of Israel. Hamoud explains that she purposefully set out to “shock the system” with her portrayal of how Palestinians live among Israelis (Ritman 2017, 1). In an interview with Vogue Magazine, Maysaloun explains, “everything you saw in the movie is realistic. Those scenes with Israelis. those scenes with the families (...) We are 20 percent of the population, but we don’t really take anything close to little pieces of what we deserve. This is the umbrella of discrimination” (Felsenthal 2018, 6). Hamoud continues to explain that In Between is meant to function as a form of social activism that enables her voice as a Palestinian citizen of Israel to be heard by those oblivious to the minority’s status, including the the international community, Jewish-Israelis, as well as fellow Palestinians in the West Bank (Felsenthal 2018, 9). Referring to the status of Palestinians in Israel and the relationship with Jewish-Israelis, Hamoud (Maysaloun Hamoud, personal communication, June 3, 2019) notes, “(...) even when we live around them, we are still invisible to them. They cannot see us as human beings. They immediately think we are Jewish. If we are Arabs, we are Christian (not Muslim)” (Felsenthal 2018, 9). To Hamoud, In Between acts as an extension of her activism, in which she sets out to raise awareness on how the Palestinian citizens of Israel live as trapped and discriminated minority in Israel (Ritman 2017, 7). Examining the intentions behind the production of a film like In Between allows us to understand how this pop culture text enables the minority to reconstruct their own narrative and regain control over their identity. As discussed earlier, one aspect that characterizes a minority as trapped, refers to their rejection in their home country, in this case, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Due to their status as Israeli citizens, the minority is regarded as privileged by the West Bank and Gaza, who regard themselves as those truly suffering from the occupation of Israel. Hamoud explains, “we will never be considered as equal, so we are in between...Out of the society that we came from, and not really part of the Israeli society in equal ways in the places we live” (Felsenthal 2018, 4). Due to this duality of belonging nor here nor there, films such as In Between are crucial in allowing the minority to express themselves and establish a sense of self and identity. Additionally, pop culture texts like In Between also act as a vehicle of awareness for the global community. While the international community is largely aware of the

Israel-Palestine conflict as a whole, the Palestinian minority in Israel is often not part of the discourse. To clarify, the minority is concerned with similar issues as the Palestinians in Palestinian territories consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both their identities are shaped by the trauma of loss, oppression and diaspora. However, for the Palestinian minority, there is another layer of complexity added to their existence due to their status as citizens of Israel. While they still identify as Palestinians, this small detail causes much difference to their Palestinian identity as a whole. As active members of Jewish-Israeli society, the minority’s identity as Arabs is not as absolute. As such, films such as In Between provide the international community with insights of the reality of a minority, while simultaneously providing the minority itself with an outlet to take charge of their own narrative and express the duality of their existence. As indicated earlier, although the minority’s status as the ‘Other’ is not the central narrative of In Between, the film depicts instances of the Palestinian minority coping with the injustice of Israeli society. In the next section, I will analyze these instances and how they further underline why films like In Between are significant to the Palestinian minority’s identity formation.

3.1.2 Three Palestinians in Tel Aviv

As the English title In Between indicates, the three young women struggle with their Palestinian identity within the predominantly Jewish-Israeli city of Tel Aviv. At the start of the film, the viewer is quickly given a glimpse into what appears to be daily reminders of the minority’s status as the ‘Other’ and the subsequent marginalizing treatment by the Jewish- Israelis. As Laila and Salma enter a clothing boutique in the centre of Tel Aviv, they begin to discuss the dresses on display whilst having a friendly conversation amongst each other. When asking where the dressing rooms are, they are treated crassly by the clerk who clearly has no interest in assisting them. As a reaction, Salma gives a quick smile, indicating to the audience that this is a common occurrence, and proceeds to remark, “We don’t bite” in Hebrew (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016). The language Salma uses during the incident already indicates that she clearly distinguishes between “us” and “them” or the Arabs and the Jews. Even though Palestinian citizens of Israel are bilingual and speak Arabic and Hebrew, this remark also highlights that the distinction between the “us” and the “them” not only exists in the discriminatory treatment of the Jewish Israeli towards the Palestinians, but also in the

subsequent reaction of the Palestinians. Both groups are dissociating, wherein Gandolfo (2016) notes that “ psychological borders manifest through fear of the Other that is articulated physically as well as verbally (...)” (258). Disassociation through language is everyday practice between the Palestinian minority and the Jewish-Israelis, and a common theme within In Between, ultimately strengthening prejudice. In Between also refrains from purely blaming Jewish-Israelis for the exclusion of the Arab minority, and manages to portray a balanced and realistic image of Israeli society. As such, the film also displays how members of the Palestinian minority can be equally prejudiced and unwilling to engage with the Jewish-Israeli community. In another scene, Laila and her fellow colleague Jonathan, a Jewish-Israeli state’s attorney, are standing outside the courthouse negotiating a deal for Laila’s criminal defendant in Hebrew. As the nature of the discussion is flirtatious, it appears that Laila and Jonathan have been involved romantically in the past. As Jonathan agrees to Laila’s terms, he remarks, “this includes the dinner you promised but never delivered, habibti”, to which Laila replies, “habibi, give me a break, we both know it’s a waste of time. Your mother, Mrs. Halevy, God bless her, won’t rest until she gets a kosher Jewish bride” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016). In an attempt to lighten the situation, Jonathan replies, “come on Laila, let’s go with the flow. Who knows, tomorrow peace might erupt..”, to which Laila sarcastically responds, “and we’ll hit the street and do Palestinian folk dances together? Jonathan, let it go, you’re not built for it” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016). While this scene is laced with sarcastic undertones and surely evokes a laugh from the audience, it is also charged with political commentary. Firstly, the irony of a Jewish-Israeli state’s attorney attempting to incarcerate a defendant represented by a Palestinian lawyer, is symbolic for the constant Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice. Secondly, the dialogue between the two displays how aware the Palestinian citizens of Israel are of their “Otherness”. However, Laila is the one rejecting Jonathan’s invitation and attempt to get to know her, assuming that his Jewish heritage will make a potential relationship impossible. To the Palestinian minority, the notion of a Jewish Israeli marrying a Palestinian woman is absurd and will never be accepted within either community. In the case of Laila, she immediately dismisses any kind of future with Jonathan. She also sarcastically plays on the absurdity of Jewish-Israelis supporting or standing in solidarity with the Palestinians, for their fight for liberty and justice in case of the war ending, as she asks whether Jonathan will dance to a Palestinian folk song. As elucidated in the chapter Otherness of Palestinians,

members of a trapped minority such as the Palestinian citizens of Israel, usually remain non-assimilating, often due to their own choice. (Rabinowitz 2001, 76). This non-assimilation is prevalent not only in political terms, but also extends to any kind of involvement with the Jewish-Israelis. Unlike the first scene in the clothing boutique, this scene illustrates how it is not always members of the hegemonic group, but also members of the marginalized community that play a role in psychological segregation. Apart from trauma, loss and oppression, resistance and defiance are integral components of Palestinian identity. Due to decades of war and apartheid, Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank are accustomed to operating under oppression and occupation. As the Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel are still impacted by occupation and oppression, these aspects of Palestinian identity are still extremely prevalent. As such, the next scene highlights how an instance of oppression by a Jewish-Israeli is met with resistance by Palestinian citizens of Israel. When Salma is reprimanded by her Israeli manager for speaking Arabic instead of Hebrew during her day job as a cook in a restaurant, the manager exclaims, “you know the rules! I don't want to hear Arabic. It's unpleasant for the customers who just want to enjoy their meals, but hear you yelling in Arabic! Enough!” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016). To what Salma replies, “are the customers ‘who just want to enjoy their meals’ allergic to Arabic?” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016) The manager rudely replies, “Salma! Shut up and go back to work. Neither of us makes the rules around here!” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016) Salma approaches her manager angrily and retorts, “If you dare talk to me like that ever again, you don’t know what I’ll do! The manager then proceeds to mock her and responds, “what will you do? Go on a hunger strike?” (Maysaloun & Elkabetz, 2016) Ultimately, a heated fight ensues and Salma quits her job with her middle finger held high as she walks out of the restaurant’s kitchen. This scene represents the Palestinian resistance and struggles for equality. Similar to the scene in the clothing boutique, language also plays an important role in this scene. After the manager warns Salma that his guests do not want to hear Arabic, he exclaims, ‘Enough!’, in an extremely condescending tone, in Arabic. While Jewish-Israelis typically do not speak Arabic, they usually know basic words that are used often. By switching to Arabic to speak down to Salma and give her the last warning, he is creating a barrier between him and her, ultimately treating her as the ‘Other’. As is the case with the first two scenes discussed, this scene as a whole clearly underlines the minority’s role as the “Other”, being chastised and reprimanded for speaking their mother tongue of Arabic at their

place of work. However, what differentiates this scene from the others, is that it clearly displays how attempts of Jewish-Israelis to silence and control the minority’s Palestinian culture, language and ultimately their identity as Arabs. As is evident in the scene, the perpetual and constant attempts of the Israeli government to dominate and restrict the Palestinian minority and their sense of belonging does not only exist on a political and legislative level, but also takes shape within society and everyday interactions. In the following section, I exhibit how the reception of In Between and the themes it confronts, accentuates how polarizing films shed a light on the minority’s status as the ‘Other’ in Israel as well as their motherland of Palestine, underlining their role as a trapped minority.

3.1.3 Reception in Israel and Palestine

After its release in late 2016, In Between has been celebrated and screened at a number of film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival and the Haifa International Film Festival, winning a total of 15 awards and 16 nominations (Brown 2017, 10). One of the reasons In Between garnered international praise and acclaim is due to the unique perspective few other pop culture texts provide. The film grants a rare glimpse into the daily lives of a minority living in duality. In an interview between the Jerusalem Post and Hamoud, she explains that the audiences are fascinated with a minority who are creating a new life and sense of belonging “in between the worlds of dominant Jewish Israeli culture and traditional Muslim and Arab life” (Brown 2017, 3). This intriguing duality is also represented in the film’s Arabic title Bar Bahar, which translates to ‘neither on land nor sea’. The title symbolizes the feeling of a generation of Palestinian citizens of Israel that do not know if they want to be ‘here or there’. While the minority seeks freedom from discrimination and oppression, it also seeks the preservation of its Palestinian identity (Brown 2017, 5). Torn between the dominant Israeli society they grew up in and their Palestinian identity, the young generation of the minority is as the title of the film suggests, stuck in between. Notably, the film was considered a hit in Israel, receiving a standing ovation at its premiere at the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel, where it also won the best feature film award (Monsky 2017, 2). The Haifa International Film Festival, gained a reputation as a crucial international cinematic event, attracting around 300,000 visitors. Celebrating the

artistic achievements in new Israeli cinema, guests include members of the Israeli and international film and television industry (Haifa Film Festival 2019). According to The Berkshire Edge, the Israeli audience at the Haifa International Film Festival was fascinated by the way the film portrayed the daily lives of the Palestinian minority (Monsky 2017, 2). Providing an intimate glimpse into aspects of the minority’s lives, “the curiosity was intense to see the lives portrayed that many Israelis were unaware of” (Monsky 2017, 2). Similarly, the Gulf News writes, “the film has also caught many Israeli audiences by surprise, exposing them to a vibrant world of fiercely independent young Palestinian women” (A.P. 2017, 2). Although the Jewish-Israelis and Palestinian-Israelis are citizens of the same society, they are both members of very exclusive communities. Receiving such a candid impression of the minority was a novel experience for most Jewish-Israelis, and according to a journalist of the Jerusalem Post who visited the Haifa International Film Festival, left a lasting impression (Monsky 2017, 7). The Jerusalem Post remarks,

This movie has touched a chord throughout the world and especially in Israel. This acclaimed first feature film definitely challenges our preconceived notions of Palestinian life in Israel. It is not just about terrorism, politics and hatred. It has really helped to humanize Palestinians in the eyes of the world [the international community, including Israel], and especially in their own stomping ground. Palestinians and Israelis live very separate lives and this film helps to open up one aspect of Palestinian-Israeli life. (Monsky 2017, 7)

While the reception of In Between in the Jewish-Israeli community was sweepingly positive, challenging Israel’s preconceived impression of the minority, this feedback is to some extent a result of the way the film’s narrative was framed. As such, The Times of Israel reported on the reception of In Between by the Jewish-Israeli audience. In an extensive review, Hoffmann (2017) remarks on how well the Jewish-Israelis were made out in the film, noting, “the answer is… not too bad, at least compared to most movies about Israel’s non-Jewish minorities. Though the film is set in Tel Aviv, Jews are pretty much absent from this story. When the topic comes up, it’s mostly in the form of micro-aggressions. (...) But this is all background noise to what the movie is really about: three women on a personal journey.” (10). As discussed earlier, the minority’s role as the ‘Other’ in Israeli society is not the film’s

central narrative. Rather, as Hoffmann (2017) remarked, this narrative remains in the background, and when a confrontation between the two communities is shown, they are in the form of ‘microaggressions’. Arguably, this may be the very reason why In Between was received so well by the Jewish-Israeli community. The film portrays three Palestinian women part of the minority and their personal struggles to break free from the patriarchy, whilst struggling to find themselves between two opposing communities. By framing the film’s central narrative in a way where the confrontation between the two communities is kept to a minimum, and the Jewish-Israeli community was not depicted as overly aggressive or villainous, Hamoud managed to make a strong political statement while remaining true to the film’s central narrative. Though scarce, the political statements found in In Between do not lack meaning. Whilst the three scenes analyzed in the content section, Three Palestinians in Tel Aviv may be categorized as ‘micro-aggressions,’ they are small indicators of a much bigger, systemic issue of methodically segregating the Palestinian minority within Israeli society. As such, a Palestinian film that addresses Israel’s systemic issue, that is watched and celebrated by Israeli society, contributes to revealing an injustice that many Jewish-Israelis are oblivious to. Additionally, the narrative of the film can arguably be subject to discussion depending on who the audience is. Whilst the Jewish-Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel perceives the film as a story about revolting against the patriarchy, it is logical to assume that those supportive of the Palestinian cause may perceive In Between as a film largely about the Palestinian struggle for equality within Israeli society. Therefore, it is also logical to assume that those supportive of the Palestinian cause, especially Palestinians in the West Bank, would also be supportive of the film itself. Interestingly, although it is logical to assume that Palestinians in the West Bank would be supportive of In Between, feedback from the West Bank is charged with opposition and hostility.The film tackles themes extremely vital to the Palestinian cause and fight for freedom, yet was it was widely rejected by Palestinian conservatives and liberals alike. Palestinian conservatives rejected the film for portraying a negative depiction of Palestinian women and the religion of Islam. Palestinian liberals and activists on the other hand disapprove of In Between due to the source of funding, and feel that boycotting the state of Israel, including rejecting funds for filmmaking, is a fundamental cornerstone of resisting Israeli occupation (Ekram 2018, 12). Palestinian conservatives also condemned the film due

to the open depictions of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality and rape, as well as the portrayal of a ‘righteous’ Muslim man as the film’s villain. The most unsettling scene in the film occurs when the religious fanatic Wissam rapes his fiancé Nour in her bedroom. Importantly, the characters Nour and Wissam are from the most conservative town in Palestinian-Israel, Umm Al-Fahm. A rape scene between these characters sparked a huge uproar within this town and the Umm Al-Fahm municipality subsequently banned In Between from being screened, viewed or distributed (Kermode 2017, 7). As the second largest Arab city within the borders of Israel, Umm Al-Fahm also asked the Israeli culture ministry to ban the film in all movie theatres in Israel (Lieber 2017, 1). According to The Times of Israel, the letter to the culture ministry argued,

the film is ‘propaganda’ that ‘distorts the traditional, conservative, and religious lifestyle in Arab society.’ It further argued the film ‘in its essence is offensive, is offensive to the religion of Islam and to the residents of Umm al-Fahm in particular.’ The letter to the municipality was co-signed by the Islamic Council, the most senior Muslim body in Israel. (Lieber 2017, 4)

The above statement is made by Jewish-Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel, reporting on the reception of the film in Palestinian cities in Israel. In comparison, While the statement was reported by a Jewish-Israeli newspaper, similar reportings are made by the Arabic media. The online newspaper Kuwait News (in Arabic) which is read by many Palestinians in the West Bank, remarks that the film is involved in controversy for sparking contentions due to controversial issues in conservative Arab society in Israel, namely homosexuality, rape, in addition to wild parties, drug and alcohol abuse (F.B. 2017, 1). However, the wild underground Palestinian party scene is central to the aesthetic of the film, and a reality lived by many young Arabs and Jews in Tel Aviv. Similarly, the city of Umm Al-Fahm within Israel is not alone in its heavy criticism towards In Between. Online newspaper Arab48, established especially for Palestinian citizens of Israel called the film (translated from Arabic), a “fabricated fuss”, adding, that “it does not rise to the lowest standards of integrity” (Arab48, 2017). For both the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank, the biggest issue remains the film’s depiction of a righteous Muslim man as a rapist. Hamoud and the producers were accused of corrupting

Palestinian women by giving Islam a bad name and even received several death threats from fundamentalists (Kermode 2017, 7). Consequently, director Hamoud also garnered the first Palestinian Fatwa in nearly 70 years, which is a religious order issued by a religious leader which functions as a legal warning (Kermode 2017, 7). Hamoud relates the occurences in Umm al-Fahm to the lack of representation of Palestinians in films as well as a lack films being circulated in Palestinian towns. Hamoud explains,

Umm al-Fahm is a very conservative, religious town, maybe the most conservative, for us as Palestinians in Israel. They’re not used to going to the movies. The cinema doesn’t represent them. The cinematic language is realistic, and they got confused. They thought it was a documentary. They took it as an insult that the rape happens between people from Umm-al Fahm. (Felsenthal 2018, 15)

The lack of representation of Palestinians in Israeli film and shortage of movie theatres in Palestinian towns contributes to conservative Palestinians renouncing revealing films like In Between. While In Between was largely condemned in the West Bank, Palestinian towns in Israel and other Arab countries, Israel’s mostly positive reception of the film is beneficial to the minority and its goals. As stated, a Palestinian film that addresses Israel’s systemic issue, contributes to revealing an injustice that many Jewish-Israelis and the international community are oblivious to. The discrepancy in the film’s reception in Israel, Palestinian towns in Israel and the West Bank, further underlines the minority’s status as a trapped. Not accepted in their own Palestinian towns in Israel or their motherland of the West Bank, a film about the Palestinian minority was surprisingly celebrated the most in the state that oppresses and marginalizes that same minority. As mentioned, Israel’s positive feedback is largely due to the narrative of the film revolving mostly around the characters’ journey as women fighting male oppression. As such, whether the film would have garnered similar success amongst the Jewish-Israeli community if the central narrative were to be about the oppressive Israeli society, is doubtful. However, the film is critical of the Israeli state and addresses the minority’s status as a marginalized group. Therefore, the minority’s use of filmmaking enables them to shed light on their situation and be the authors of their story. The Guardian claims, “In Between has been rapturously received, with Hamoud receiving the ‘Women in

Motion Young Talents Award’ at this year’s Cannes festival” (Kermode 2017, 1). Additionally, Haaretz writes, “the fact that Maysaloun Hamoud won the prize for a feature debut (at the Israeli Feature Film Competition at the Haifa Festival) and was the audience’s favourite is encouraging not only because it enables the public to be exposed to original Palestinian works, but also because these are films made by women and describe the unique problems of Palestinian(s) who live under a double burden of occupation and a life of discrimination in Israel” (Berman 2016, 2). Additionally, films like In Between are an opportunity for the Jewish audience to listen to voices that are usually swallowed up in one-sided, political discourses. The judges of the Haifa Festival referred to In Between as a powerful work depicting the Palestinian citizens of Israel who are “fighting to shape their own destiny by means of confrontation” (Berman 2016, 3). Films like In Between allow an invisible minority to take charge of their narrative within a society that perpetually attempts to control it. While the storyline, themes and content of the film shed light on the discriminatory treatment Palestinians living in Israel endure, the production, funding and reception highlights that the Palestinian people of Israel are not only marginalized as second class citizens in Jewish-Israeli society, but also rejected within Palestinian territories. The reception of In Between exhibits that the minority is not fully accepted as a part of either society, living in duality within Israeli society, yet also rendered the ‘Other’ amongst Palestinians in their own homeland.

3.2 Junction 48 –– An Overview

Produced in 2017, another film representative of the Palestinian minority's double burden is Junction 48. Set in the small, crime-ridden city of Lyd, near Tel Aviv International Airport, Junction 48 tells the story Palestinian-Israeli rapper Karim and his singer girlfriend Manar, who use music to resist the oppression of Israeli society. Lyd is a mixed ghetto with Jewish and Arab inhabitants and fueled with drug gangs and police violence. Together, Karim and Manar fight to realize their dream of producing hip-hop music that expresses the complexity of their torn identity. They struggle to endure the conditions of a crime-ridden ghetto and Israel’s systematic oppression and use music as a tool to express the conflicts they are witness to daily. Karim works as a customer service employee and lives with his parents and brother, leading an aimless life, he has no passion for. He spends most of his free time in his home

ghetto of Lyd coming up with politically charged song lyrics whilst smoking weed with his friends. Most of his friends have found no other option but to turn to sell drugs in the ghetto, through defunct ATM machine holes and in abandoned buildings. While this is Karim’s reality, he dreams of producing meaningful rap music about his life as a member of a minority living in between a discriminatory, Jewish society, and a conservative Palestinian family. Similarly, Karim’s girlfriend Manar is a passionate singer, yet suffers due to her conservative family’s strict rules regarding her public performances with Karim. Karim’s parents continuously worry about Karim’s future and his questionable life choices as he spends nights with his friends galavanting through the streets of the ghetto. After Karim’s father tragically dies as a result of a car accident, he is devastated and grows closer to Manar. Together they develop a new found excitement for life and begin to pursue their musical careers professionally. Karim, Manar and the music group start to perform songs at neighbourhood events, birthday parties and gatherings and eventually receive the opportunity to perform their songs at a well known hip-hop nightclub in Tel Aviv. While Manar refuses to perform in a Jewish nightclub, Karim and his music group quickly garner attention for their politically charged songs. In the nightclub, Karim and his group are confronted with violent, nationalistic Jewish-Israeli rappers who oppose their performance, and a fight ensues. Nevertheless, Karim is quickly recognized as the ‘first Israeli-Arab rapper’ and gains some recognition as he is asked to participate in an Israeli news program. Although he insists that he nor his music are not political, his lyrics are charged with political commentary about his personal reality living in duality in a Jewish-Arab ghetto. Meanwhile, Manar’s family fears her performances jeopardize their family honor and threaten Karim with an ultimatum. He is cornered by Manar’s male cousins who and threaten to hurt Manar shall he continue to allow her to perform songs with him and his group. Karim agrees in fear of what her family might do to his girlfriend, and forbids Manar to perform with him, creating a rift between the couple. Parallel to this storyline, Karim’s best friend Talal and his family are in danger of losing their family home due to government regulated gentrification laws. The Israeli government has scheduled for the demolition of Talal’s family home, ironically to make room for the construction of a Museum of Coexistence. Above all, Junction 48 is the story of a Palestinian-Israeli youth who resort to music to express their identity and seek normality within an oppressive society.

3.2.1 Behind the Scenes: The Funding and Production

While public information regarding the funding of Junction 48 appears to be somewhat ambiguous, it is still charged with political commentary. According to The New York Times, the film was partially funded by the Israeli Film Council (Anderson 2017, 4). However, unlike the film In Between, which expressed criticism towards Israeli society in the background by depicting micro-aggressions, Junction 48 strongly addresses Palestinian resistance against Israeli oppression. As Junction 48 was eventually partially financed by the Israeli Film Council, discussion surrounding the matter took place on a political level within Israeli society. Israeli Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev maintained on "separating the freedom of expression from the freedom of funding," adding that "the state has full liberty to decide what to finance and what not" and that "artists who undermine the state, slander it and hurt its legitimacy should not be funded by its taxpayers" (Regev 2016, 13). Simultaneously, spokesman for the Consulate General of Israel in New York, Shimon Mercer-Wood comments on the film’s funding process, noting that Israel continues to be interested in funding, “a wide, diverse range of artists” (Anderson 2017, 5). Similarly, Mercer Wood also insists that while the Israeli government, may be careful about who they provide funding for, they are in no way limiting artistic expression (Anderson 2017, 5). Even though the Israeli government denies its role in limiting artistic expression, the administration under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has according to Mercer-Wood “taken a stricter approach to (...) fund a certain artist if we feel this artist is using the arts to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel” (Anderson 2017, 6). While Junction 48 received partial funding, the film’s executive producer James Schamus remarked, that this will no longer be possible in the future. According to him, “the possibility of a film like this getting state funding in Israel — that’s over, there’s no way. In some ways, ‘Junction 48’ represents a future, it really does. But right now it represents the past” (Anderson 2017, 4). Arguably, the Israeli government will continue to help fund Palestinian films whose main narrative does not focus on criticizing Israeli society, as was the case with In Between. If this will be the case in the future for films like Junction 48, where the central narrative clearly revolves around the resistance of Israeli oppression, is questionable.

Udi Aloni, Jewish-Israeli director of Junction 48, refers to the irony of Israel insisting on its interest to support a diverse range of films, yet simultaneously reserving the right to withhold funding to films critical of the state (Regev 2016, 8). Aloni is the son of former Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni, a strong supporter of Palestinian resistance (Brown 2016, 3). Following his mother’s footsteps, Aloni campaigns for Palestinian rights and is an advocate of the establishment of a bi-national state in Israel, referring to the Israeli government in “terms of ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’” (Dalton 2016, 3). In addition to the film’s funding structure, examining the intentions behind the production of a film like Junction 48 also allows us to understand how this pop culture text enables the minority to reconstruct their own narrative and regain control over their identity. The film’s setting of Lyd was selected as it carries a strong statement within itself. Lyd was “the site of mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, when Israelis drove out large numbers of Arabs and massacred many more. Now officially part of Israel, new Arab immigrants slowly filtered back in, forming a home in what’s basically a de facto ghetto” (Humphries-Brooks 2016, 3) With Lyd as the setting of the film, it represents the hopelessness many members of the minority find themselves in, unable to escape and find opportunities to thrive as a community. Additionally, Junction 48 does not have one single, dominant storyline. In contrast to In Between, it depicts many different stories through the eyes of the main character Karim. According to Aloni, the film is “a horizontal narrative, not a vertical one (...) It’s a film about people trying to function in a confused, crime-ridden world without losing their humanity, even finding solace in rebirth, in the creation of a new type of music” (Humphries-Brooks 2016, 5). The film was loosely based on the personal experiences of the Palestinian rapper from Israel, Tamer Nafar, the actor starring as Karim. The film is significant to the Palestinian minority in Israel as it is one of the few films produced in Israel where the Palestinian minority is the subject (Anderson 2017, 8). Aloni explains how, “usually, the Arab is the object and the Jew is the subject. In this, I wanted the Arabs to be the subject — which is why the worst person in the film is also an Arab” (Anderson 2017, 8). Similarly, Samar Qupty, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and the actress portraying Karim’s girlfriend Manar, reveals the following,

We still have a lot of censorship and attempts to control us Palestinians from speaking of our narrative. Usually, Palestinians in Israeli cinema are the objects and then the subjects. Junction 48 is one of the few films where Palestinians are the centre of the film. It’s our narrative and no one else’s. The Palestinians are the good, and the Palestinians are the bad in the film. I think it gave us the space to express our reality in a more real way. That we also had the ability to create our own society. This is a film that speaks about our narrative. When I received the script, one of the reasons I accepted the role was that for the first time, I felt like this was a story talking about my life and my reality. (personal communication, May 27, 2019)

Along these lines, Junction 48 grants the Palestinian minority in Israel the freedom of creating Palestinian characters for the screen that are multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. This opportunity is as necessary as it is significant. As discussed in the chapter on Orientalism and Othering, the West is quick to reinforce one-sided portrayals of Palestinians. Often, they are regarded as either a persecuted and oppressed minority, or an accumulation of terrorists and troublemakers. Therefore, popular culture texts like Junction 48 are imperative for the Palestinian minority to take control and reconstruct their narrative of a multi-faceted people seeking equality and freedom (Humphries-Brooks 2016, 1). Furthermore, Aloni notes that his film speaks in the special language of coexistence and that hip-hop, is "an easy and catchy way of communication," and had “helped Junction 48’ deliver ‘universal messages on particular stories’” (Regev 2016, 4). Along the lines of coexistence, Junction 48 is a film made by a “‘gang of Jews and Palestinians’ –– the crew was split 50-50 –– and one that flips the usual lens of Israeli cinema” (Anderson 2017, 7). It is not only the director’s intentions or the content of the storyline that are important factors promoting coexistence between Jews and Palestinians, but also the production crew itself serves as a testament to the possibility of peaceful coexistence. In an interview with Quantara, Aloni remarks that he encounters many Europeans who ask him to explain the difference between a Palestinians and an Israeli, to which he replies to them, “(...) but what if the Palestinian is, at the same time, a citizen of Israel?” (Tkatch 2017, 6). Junction 48 attempts to portray that double burden of duality Palestinian citizens of Israel are subject to, while simultaneously depicting a potential for coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Samar Qupty (personal communication, May 27, 2019) also recognizes this as the film’s objective, however, adds that the film cannot be fully representative of the minority’s reality. According to Qupty (personal communication, May 27, 2019),

It does, however, manage to portray daily situations that show the overall wound of the Palestinian people. Some Palestinian citizens of Israel have a kind of identity crisis, because we cannot be fully Palestinians here in Israel. We identify ourselves as Palestinians, but we still have to be part of the Israeli system. We still have an Israeli passport and citizenship, and this even applies to art. When you produce a film here, the film is under your identity which is Israeli according to the papers, which you didn’t even choose.

The identity crisis Qupty refers to is a significant aspect of the minority’s identity as Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. As such, the film’s funding and production process highlight the importance of expressing this double burden of the minority’s identity. While the funding process shines a light on the backlash the minority receives for a film directly criticizing Israeli society, it also displays how selective the Israeli government is in supporting Palestinian art. Similarly, the film’s production highlights how the minority’s need to express their reality, is partially due to the double burden of carrying Palestinian and Israeli identity. Ultimately, Junction 48 displays how the power of music is a forceful expression and allows the youth to reconstruct the narrative of the Palestinian experience. In the following section, I will analyze instances in the film where direct criticism towards Israeli society is expressed, as well as instances that highlight how the minority copes with the injustices of Israeli society.

3.2.2 Palestinian Resistance: Separate but Equal

As Junction 48 indicates, the title refers to the main railway junction in the town of Lyd and the year of 1948, when the state of Israel gained its independence and thousands of Palestinians were exiled from Lyd in order to resettle the town with Jewish immigrants. Contrary to In Between, where the audience is given a glimpse into daily reminders of the

minority’s status as the ‘Other,’ Junction 48 tackles the roots of this marginalizing status at the core. The following scene displays how Israel’s hegemonic and oppressive government is mirrored in the behaviour of its Jewish citizens. Karim and his rap group have received the opportunity to perform their songs at a Jewish nightclub called The Marley in Tel Aviv. The first performance is held by a group of nationalistic Jewish rappers, who sing, “the nation of Israel lives! Have no fear, Israel, your symbol is the lion cub. And when the lion roars, everyone is fearful. My nation is my blood, my drug. My mic is like a gun, you can’t run. Since ‘48, I’m invincible, war is not a game, don’t mess with me” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). Subsequently, Karim and his group commence their performance, singing, “hummus, salad, fries on the side, you like to eat at our restaurants –– But when you see too many of us, coexistence turns into a demographic threat. I am not political, I am not political! Barbarian Arab, Indian Arab, stinking Arab! I sing in Arabic, to fight your racism, but you don’t play Arabic on your radio” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). During the performance, the Jewish-Israeli rap group start insulting Karim’s girlfriend Manar. Karim pauses his performance and asks Manar on stage to perform one of her songs, as an excuse to get her away from the rappers. She starts, to sing, “I have no place, I have no land, I have no country. I light a fire with my fingers”, whilst in the crowd, the Jewish-Israeli rappers are showing her the finger. Manar continues, “I sing to you from my heart. The strings of my heart cry out. I was born in Palestine” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). Manar is then violently pushed off the stage by the same Jewish-Israeli rappers, who exclaim, “respect, my honest respect. But I want to remind you of one thing. These guys can go to Mumbai, to Dubai, to Iran, to Japan. This here belongs to us! This is Israel. This is for Jews. This is Tel Aviv. This is ours!” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017) It is apparent that there is not only a clear distinction between, ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in the eyes of the Jewish-Israelis, but that this distinction is also met with racism and hostility. While the Palestinian’s lyrics are predominantly about their own status as a minority and the pain of losing their land, it becomes clear that any kind of expression of Palestinian identity is not tolerated. In a similar manner, this reminds of Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev’s statement regarding the film’s funding, who maintained that "artists who undermine the state, slander it and hurt its legitimacy should not be funded by its taxpayers" (Regev 2016, 13). Similarly, the Jewish-Israeli rap group could tolerate Karim and his Palestinian group to perform in the nightclub when their songs did not criticize the Jewish state. However, once Karim and

Manar’s songs began to reflect on Palestinian identity and the trauma of loss, the Jewish-Israeli rap group took immediate offence and interrupted their performances, a similar approach taken by Israel’s Culture Minister Regev who insists on withholding funding, and censor films critical of the state.

Junction 48 also introduces the audience to the conditions in the occupied West Bank, whilst highlighting the distinction between the Palestinian minority in Israel, and the Palestinians in occupied Palestine. During a party, the same Israeli rapper who assaulted Manar, tells Karim a story about his friend who is a soldier at a checkpoint in the West Bank. As the West Bank is occupied by the Israeli state, Palestinians travelling within the West Bank are forced to go through Israeli controlled checkpoints. The rapper explains that his friend has official orders to check everyone going in and out of the checkpoint. According to his instructions, anyone causing problems, must be pulled to the side. He continues,

Once there was this old Palestinian man with his grandson. A real Palestinian, not like you. The real deal from the West Bank. It was a hot day, he was bored, he wanted to pass some time, play a little game. He asked the old man to run, from where he stood to the guard tower in 30 seconds. No problem, a very easy task. He did it in 45 seconds, so they asked him to do it again, but to try harder. And he looked fit, a construction worker or something. But no! He won’t cooperate, he sits on the ground and won’t move. As if he was protesting. My friend was nice to him, he asked him to stand up. Because protesting is not a good thing to do. Suddenly, his grandson becomes weirdly emotional and decides to attack my friend from behind. So they had to teach that son of a bitch a lesson. And now he’s rotting in jail for assaulting a soldier. And I think to myself, isn’t it a shame? All that old man had to do was get up on his feet. (Aloni & Arndt, 2017)

Importantly, the distinction here is made between the ‘real Palestinians’ in the West Bank and those in Israel who carry Israeli citizenship. However, Jewish-Israelis are not alone in distinguishing between the two. As noted earlier, one of the characteristics of a trapped minority is the rejection in their motherland. While there is a clear sense of solidarity for their mother nation, Palestinian citizens of Israel, as the trapped minority, are prone to feel

excluded and misunderstood by Palestinians from their motherland (Rabinowitz 2001, 75). This duality makes it extremely difficult for the Palestinian nation as a whole to form a coherent, collective identity due to the vastly differing experiences between the minority population and Palestinians in the motherland. Qupty (personal communication, May 27, 2019) comments on this duality, adding,

I would say that we feel that we are the same people, with the same issues, fighting for the same rights. But I cannot deny that Palestinians living in Israel have more rights than the Palestinians in the West Bank. This is just due to the fact that we have an Israeli passport (...) That is a privilege if you compare it to Palestinians living in the West Bank or the Gaza strip. As somebody who has an Israeli passport, I feel like I have the responsibility to fight for my case as a Palestinian because I have more freedom and rights. I have more space to move, more flexibility.

Although the sentiment of fighting for freedom and equal rights is the same between those in the West Bank and in Israel, there are still major differences in terms of legal rights between both groups of Palestinians. As such, the minority’s role as the ‘Other’ is not only applicable within Israeli society, only reinforcing the importance of reconstructing their own narrative as a trapped minority.

While Junction 48 portrays the minority's role as the ‘Other’ and the duality it finds itself in, it also exhibits how resistance is a cornerstone of Palestinian identity. In a subplot, Karim’s best friend Talal and his father are in danger of losing their family home due to the government scheduled demolition of Talal’s family home. Ironically, the Israeli government has plans to begin the construction of a Museum of Coexistence for which the land on which Tala’s house stands, is required. Talal’s father hires a Palestinian lawyer to help oppose the decision, who tries to explain the likelihood of Talal’s family winning this case in court. The lawyer clarifies, “it is not looking good. The evidence the state has provided according to its own laws, is very strong. If you flee the country, the state considers your house abandoned property and sells it to the Jewish National Fund”(Aloni & Arndt, 2017). Talal’s father asks, “Why to the Jewish National Fund?”, to which the lawyer replies, “because it sells and rents

only to Jews. They are claiming that you fled to Jordan in 1948. According to the state of Israel, your presence here is illegal. A present absentee” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). Talal’s father explains, “we didn’t flee, they kicked us out. there was a massacre in the Dahmash mosque, next to our home, they told us that we are next. It was our only option. I was the youngest boy. I snuck back here to take care of the goats. (...) There was a hole in the fence, I got in, and I found the goats inside the house” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). The lawyer, responds, that since the goats were the property of Talal’s family, they might still have a chance to win the trial. Talal’s father adds hopelessly,

I started rebuilding in the yard 60 years ago. I’ve been here for 60 years. I didn’t arrive yesterday. But two years ago, they told us that they want the house, in order to build a Museum of Coexistence. To show that there is coexistence between Jews and Arabs, Ethiopians, Russians, Bedouins and whoever else. That is why I have to evacuate the house for demolition. This house is mine. I have the papers to prove it. They laughed, they said to me, maybe it belongs to the goats, but it’s not yours. (Aloni & Arndt, 2017)

Ultimately, the demolition of Talal’s family home is granted and Karim and Manar organize a protest around the property. Although Talal begs the soldiers surrounding the property to retrieve the last of his belongings from the house, however they do not let him step onto the property. The camera focuses on Talal’s father, a small, old man, watching his home demolished with an excavator, as a sign is put up, reading, “Museum of Coexistence”. A few hours later, Karim and Manar organize a concert with their friends and members of the neighbourhood as they gather on the ruins of Talal’s demolished house. Together, the community sings, “peace be upon you, the land of my ancestors. Where I find pleasure, in my home and my song” (Aloni & Arndt, 2017). The image of the Palestinian minority peacefully gathering to mourn yet another loss is symbolic of the collective memory of the entire Palestinian people. The minority uses music as out outlet to express the complexity of their torn identity and to peacefully resist and protest against oppression in Israeli society. Ultimately, Junction 48 displays how the power of music is a forceful tool to fight social repression and allows the youth to reconstruct their narrative of the Palestinian experience.

3.2.3 Reception in Israel and Palestine

After its release in 2016, Junction 48 has been celebrated and screened at a number of film festivals, including celebrating its premiere at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. Jewish-Israeli director Aloni considers it “the movie of the new resistance”, after seeing how positively Palestinian audiences reacted during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City and the Berlin International Film Festival (Anderson 2017, 1). Unlike In Between, which garnered criticism mostly from Palestinians, there is little controversy in Middle Eastern media regarding the reception of Junction 48 by Palestinian and Arab audiences (Reuters 2016, 11). According to The New York Times, Aloni received immense positive feedback by young Palestinians and women during the Berlin International Film Festival, who consider the film to be ‘empowering’ (Anderson 2017, 1). Notably, the positive feedback by Palestinians is due to the film’s central narrative. Unlike In Between, Junction 48 chose to tackle themes of Israeli oppression and prejudice against Arabs in Israel at the forefront. As these themes are determining aspects of the minority’s identity formation since 1948, the film’s approach to confront these issues clearly resonates with the Palestinian people. Not only do Palestinians identify with the characters and storyline of Junction 48, but they also feel like it is a realistic depiction of their daily lives in Israeli society (Reuters 2016, 4). According to the Gulf News, Samar Qupty notes that, “it should be easy for Palestinians to identify with the movie,” and that it is a revolutionary film because it does not adhere to the stereotypical way Palestinians are usually represented in film (Reuters 2016, 6). Qupty adds that, as Palestinians artists, they are representing themselves, including the good and the bad, and that the film depicts a new and real generation of Palestinians who are trying to present their reality without making it look any better or any worse (Reuters 2016, 8). Similarly, Qupty’s co-star Tamer Nafar, who plays Karim and also wrote the script for the film, told the Gulf News that the film was inspired by his experiences growing up in the ghetto of Lyd (A.F.P. 2016, 29). Nafar also stresses, “everything I have done came from the reality in the streets of Lod, from that ghetto (...) my job is to document my generation” (A.F.P. 2016, 29-30). Although correlating a film to a complex reality is clearly ambitious, the production of the film is inspired by events that are realistic given the political and social climate (Samar Qupty, personal communication, May 27, 2019). Qupty (personal

communication, May 27, 2019) also remarks, “our life here is not less dramatic than the film. Sometimes even our reality does not seem realistic because it can seem extreme at times”. As such, the positive feedback from Palestinian audiences can be accredited to the film’s ambition to portray a realistic depiction of life as a minority in Israeli society. As films tackling themes of Israeli oppression whilst representing the Palestinian minority are scarce, Junction 48 qualifies as a bold and daring statement regarding Israeli society. Accordingly, Junction 48 sparked a controversy in Israel, especially amongst its political leaders. (Anderson 2017, 2). The most notable altercation due to the film’s critical nature occurred during the 2016 Israeli Film Academy Awards called the Ophirs. Considered the ‘Israeli Oscars’, the Ophir Awards is an annual event organized by the Israeli Film Academy to recognize merit in the Israeli film industry (Anderman 2016, 2). During the ceremony, the actor who portrays Karim, Tamer Nafar and Jewish performer Yossi Tzaberi “appeared on stage in a presentation that included a short excerpt from Darwish’s poem, ‘Write it down, I am an Arab’” (Anderman 2016, 4) Darwish is one of the most prominent Palestinian poets and authors, and considered the national poet of the Palestinian resistance. Celebrated as a national treasure, Darwish’s work predominantly focuses on Palestinian identity, tolerance and coexistence. The famous poem read on stage by Nafar and Tzaberi was written in 1964, when Darwish was living in Israel as a member of the Palestinian minority. The poem titled,

‘Write it down, I am an Arab’ is addressed to an imagined Israeli bureaucrat dealing with Israel's Arab population. It is also an exhortation from the poet to himself to write the experience of his community. The poem ends: ‘I do not hate people, And I do not steal from anyone; But if I starve, I will eat my oppressor’s flesh; Beware, beware of my starving; And my rage.’ (Anderman 2016, 8)

As a result of the reading, Israel’s Culture Minister Miri Regev storms out of the auditorium, only returning to present the Best Film award after the poetry reading was concluded (Anderson 2017, 2). In her presentation of the award, Regev declared, “Israeli cinema will not be a closed club”, and that the ceremony has “crossed several red lines,” specifically referring to the reading of ‘Write it down, I am an Arab’” (Anderman 2016, 9). Regev’s reaction was met with an uproar by some members of the audience who accused Regev of making political

capital at their expense (Anderman 2016, 6). In a news conference later that week, Regev announced that “things will be put in order” regarding the representation and transparency of her ministry’s funding for the Israeli film sector in 2018 (Anderman 2016, 12). Regev’s intentions to toughen regulations regarding the ministry's funding structure mirrors her previous statements regarding the funding of Junction 48. While the incident at the Ophirs is likely the most controversial reporting surrounding Junction 48, the film generally received mixed reviews within Israel (Anderson 2017, 10). Israeli critic Yair Raveh of the Israeli website CinemaScope notes, “Well, it’s watchable (...) And, with about 50,000 admissions, it did O.K. business here. The best thing in it is the presence of Tamer Nafar. His music is fantastic and gives the film the groove and tempo the filmmaking lacked” (Anderson 2017, 11). Ultimately, the reception of Junction 48 in Palestine and Israel underlines the importance of creating popular culture texts that provide the minority with opportunities to reconstruct their narrative. While the Palestinian celebrated Junction 48 for being one of the first films to realistically depict their reality, the Israeli feedback revealed Israel’s reluctance to fully accept them as a part of their society.

4. CONCLUSION

Today, culture is considered a matter of media, and as such, cinema and film are helpful in providing alternative insights into our surroundings (Zimmermann 2007, 59-60). While the growing availability of feature films grants a glimpse into other cultures and societies, cinema and film also prove to be powerful tools capable of much more than just providing a new or unique perspective (Zimmermann 2007, 59-60). In the case of the indigenous Palestinian citizens living within Israel, cinema and film provided the minority with the opportunity to autonomously create a representation of themselves that will impact not only the way they perceive themselves, but also the way the international community will. This opportunity is considered a treasured commodity by a people that have been oppressed and marginalized since the establishment of its host state in 1948. Throughout the course of this thesis, I have demonstrated how Israel has systematically attempted to silence and control the Palestinian minority and their sense of belonging and identity. As a part of the critical discourse analysis, I showed how the Israeli state developed strategic media policies targeting and manipulating the Palestinian minority in

Israel by distributing free newspapers or producing content specifically intended to discipline them. As such, it is apparent that the Israeli government has perpetually utilized dominant media to cultivate the preferred image of the ‘Israeli Arab’. While Israel’s oppressive climate is not necessarily a new point in question and was discussed at length in the section on Israel’s contradictory nature, the more surprising conclusion was drawn only after an in-depth analysis of the corpus in relation to the concepts of trapped minority, ‘Othering’ and ‘Orientalism’. It came to no surprise that the Palestinian minority was rendered the ‘Other’ due to a deep-seated fear within Israeli society, which resulted, among other things, in the subsequent ‘entrapment’ of the minority. However, what did appear surprising throughout the course of this research, is the minority’s rejection in its own motherland. The discourse analysis of the concepts as well as the analysis of the two films conclude that there is indeed a clear sense of solidarity for the mother nation, however, the minority is prone to be excluded and misunderstood by Palestinian territories due to their privileged position as Israeli citizens (Rabinowitz 2001, 75). This unexpected duality has proven to make it extremely difficult for the Palestinian population as a whole to form a coherent, collective identity due to the vastly differing experiences between the minority population and Palestinians in the motherland, rendering the use of alternative media to reclaim control of their identity even more significant. On that note, films such as In Between and Junction 48 provide the minority itself with an outlet to express the duality of their existence, while simultaneously presenting the international community with insights into the reality of an invisible minority. Ironically, as the Israeli state used its dominant media and information structures to normalize the daily life of the Arab minority in a hegemonic, Jewish state, that same minority uses alternative media (decades later) to regain control over their narrative as a marginalized group. Ultimately, the in-depth analysis of the funding, production, content and reception of In Between and Junction 48 demonstrated that even if the Israeli government attempts to censor Palestinian expression by withholding funds or publicly expressing disapproval as Culture Minister Regev did, the Palestinian minority has managed to rise above challenges and create alternative media that allows them to freedom to redefine their collective identity and voice their cultural, political and economic needs. Living in duality within Israeli society as ‘Arab-Israelis’, yet also rendered the ‘Other’ amongst Palestinians in their own homeland, the minority is longing for an impossible normality. While the production of films like In Between and Junction 48 certainly cannot erase decades of oppression and the trauma of loss

from the foundation of Palestinian identity, they might contribute to allowing them, for once, to reclaim some autonomy and sovereignty.

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