Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World

with Maha Nassar

hosted by Susanna Ferguson

| 1948 marks the year that Israel gained independence, and for Palestinians, an experience of mass exile known as the Nakba. The displacement of Palestinians and subsequent conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors had immense consequences. But how did the Palestinian Arabs who remained and make up roughly 20% of Israel's population today fit into a Middle East region defined by the "Arab-Israeli conflict?" In this podcast, we speak to Maha Nassar, whose first book Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World casts new light on a community historically marginalized both within Israel and within broader discussions of contemporary Arab history. We discuss how Palestinian citizens of Israel were cut off from friends, relatives, and compatriots after 1948, and how they used literature as means of forging new transnational connections during the era of Arab nationalism and decolonization. Through the insights born out of their paradoxical experiences, Arab-Israeli authors of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction would come to occupy a prominent place not only within both Arab and Israeli literature but also global political thought.   

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1948 marks the year that Israel gained independence, and for Palestinians, an experience of mass exile known as the Nakba. The displacement of Palestinians and subsequent conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors had immense consequences. But how did the Palestinian Arabs who remained and make up roughly 20% of Israel's population today fit into a Middle East region defined by the "Arab-Israeli conflict?" In this podcast, we speak to Maha Nassar, whose first book Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World casts new light on a community historically marginalized both within Israel and within broader discussions of contemporary Arab history. We discuss how Palestinian citizens of Israel were cut off from friends, relatives, and compatriots after 1948, and how they used literature as means of forging new transnational connections during the era of Arab nationalism and decolonization. Through the insights born out of their paradoxical experiences, Arab-Israeli authors of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction would come to occupy a prominent place not only within both Arab and Israeli literature but also global political thought.   

Contributor Bios

Dr. Maha Nassar is an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, where she specializes in the cultural history of Palestine and the modern Arab world. Her award-winning book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017), examines how Palestinian intellectuals inside the Green Line connected to global decolonization movements through literary and journalistic writings. Her scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, The Arab Studies Journal, and elsewhere. Dr. Nassar’s analysis pieces have appeared widely, including in The Conversation and +972 Magazine. As a 2022 non-resident fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, she joined FMEP in developing public programming for their Occupied Thoughts podcast. Dr. Nassar’s current book project examines the global history of Palestine’s people, with a focus on religious pluralism in Palestinian society.

Suzie Ferguson is Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at Smith College. She writes and teaches on the history of gender, sexuality, and political thought in the modern Arab world.

Credits

Episode No. 558

Release Date: 8 January 2024
Recording location: Tucson, AZ; Northampton, MA

Sound production by Susanna Ferguson and Chris Gratien

Music: Chad Crouch - Charcoal; A.A. Aalto - Canyon

Images and bibliography courtesy of Maha Nassar

Further Listening

	Shira Robinson	273 10/20/16	Both Citizens and Strangers in Post-1948 Israel
	Greg Thomas	366 7/11/18	George Jackson in the Sun of Palestine
	Rashid Khalidi	553 11/19/23	The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
	Suja Sawafta	414 6/14/19	The Environmental Politics of Abdul Rahman Munif
	Emily Drumsta	493 2/8/21	Nazik al-Malaika's Revolt Against the Sun

Images

Map of Arabic-speaking localities in Israel. Source: Wikipedia



Palestinian woman showing her travel papers at an Israeli checkpoint. Source: Courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces and Defense Establishment Archive via Shira Robinson/Ottoman History Podcast



Israeli military policemen inspect a suspicious sack of onions found in possession of Palestinian citizens, in 1952. Source: Beno Rothenberg/National Library via Haaretz.



Samih al-Qassim delivers remarks at the 18th conference of the Israeli Communist Party (Rakah) in Haifa. Also pictured are Emile Habibi (first row on the left), and Tawfiq Ziyad (second row on the left); December 15, 1967. Source: The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive



Famed Iraqi poet Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri stands between Samih al-Qasim (right) and Mahmoud Darwish (left) at the 1968 World Youth Festival in Sofia Bulgaria. Source: The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive

Select Bibliography

Dallasheh, Leena. "Surviving the Nakba: On Palestinians’ Political Possibilities and Limitations in 1948." The American Historical Review 125, no. 2 (2020): 564-570.

Manna, Adel. Nakba and Survival: The Story of Palestinians Who Remained in Haifa and The Galilee, 1948-1956. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022.

Nassar, Maha. “Equality vs. Freedom: Continuity and Change in the Demands of ’48 Palestinians.” Arab Studies Journal 29, no. 2 (2021): 148-154.

----. “Between Two States and One: Palestinian Citizens of Israel.” In Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, edited by Leila Farsakh, 253-276. Berkley: University of California Press, 2021.

----. “Non-Zionists, Anti-Zionists, Revolutionaries: Palestinian Appraisals of the Israeli Left, 1967-1973.” In The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies 1950s-1970s, edited by Laure Guirguis, 169-186. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

----. “Looking Out, Cheering On: Global Leftist Vocabularies among Palestinian Citizens of Israel.” In The Global Sixties: Conventions, Contests, and Countercultures, edited by Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney and Tamara Chaplin, 255-272. London: Routledge Press, 2017.

----. “‘My Struggle Embraces Every Struggle’: Palestinians in Israel and Solidarity with Afro-Asian Decolonization Movements.” The Arab Studies Journal, 22, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 74-101.

----. “Palestinian Citizens of Israel.” In Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, edited by Asaf Siniver, 320-335. London: Routledge Press, 2022.

Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej. "Settler Colonialism and the Archives of Apprehension." Current Sociology, 72, no. 1 (2022): 25-47.

Shlaim, Avi. Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2023.

Somekh, Sasson. Life after Baghdad: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew in Israel, 1950-2000. Liverpool University Press, 2012.

Sorek, Tamir. The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020.

Tatour, Lana. "Citizenship as Domination: Settler Colonialism and the Making of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel." The Arab Studies Journal 27, no. 2 (2019): 8-39.

Thomson, Sorcha, and Pelle Valentin Olsen, eds. Palestine in the World: International Solidarity with the Palestinian Liberation Movement. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.