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Abstract
The symbolic economy of refugeeness is interconnected with wider discourses on demography, citizenship, and nationality in the complexity of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. By restructuring their image, elites in Israel were able to ‘neutralize’ the South Lebanese Army (SLA), changing the perception of them from aggressors to victims. Israel could justify the absorption of Muslim Arabs if they were refugees. However, the close propinquity to the ‘Palestinian Refugee Problem’ compelled this label to be removed from the SLA. Rather than an essential description of a social situation, the notion of refugees is a symbolic signifier added and removed in line with its political resonance. The road to Israeli citizenship was mediated through the symbolic construction of the SLA as refugees. Thus, citizenship in each country is not a constant ideal as it is influenced by both global trends and internal social structures.
Notes
1. Nevertheless, contrary to the Zionist ethos which discourages the entrance of non-Jews to Israel, Israel decided to accept non-Jewish (and non-Palestinian) refugees in five instances: from Vietnam (1977, 1979), Bosnia (1992), Kosovo (1999) and South Lebanon (2000) (Herzog Citation2009). In the last few years, Israel did accept the entrance of a few hundred refugees from Darfur, but only in 2007 did it introduce humanitarian considerations as a rationale for naturalization.
2. Examining the frequency of the interpretive packages of the SLA refugees in the media discourse during the month surveyed elicits that there is a difference between the two papers – Yediot Aharonot and Ha'aretz. While in the former there was an initial reaction that related to the SLA refugees as allies, which over time was replaced by interest-group framing, in the latter the two dominant conceptual patterns continued to appear alternately throughout the entire period.
3. The constant perception of conflict led to the development of ‘cultural militarism’ in Israel. This does not mean military domination of the state, but portrays Israeli-Jewish society as a ‘Nation at Arms’, rooted in the hegemony of militaristic and masculine discourse and lack of distinction between state/society. Some scholars have claimed that Israel is marked by the tendency to identify military options as the preferred form of social policy (Ben-Eliezer Citation1998).
4. In 2003, representatives of the government, military and several medical agencies produced a report on the capacity of the medical system to absorb the SLA three years earlier. Apart from providing information on the absorption of the SLA, this report suggests that the arrival of refugees was anticipated by the Israeli establishment (although on a smaller scale).
5. A total of 4201 refugees were sent to 11 centers, which included army facilities, hotels, youth hostels and kibbutz guest houses: five in Acre, three around the Sea of Galilee and three in Safed. Most of the other refugees were sent to Netanya and Ashkelon. Following the initial distribution, many refugees who remained in Israel moved north, closer to South Lebanon (Cohen-Dar et al. Citation2003).
6. In the last week of May 2000 alone, there were three lengthy discussions in the plenum (23, 25, 31 May 2000) as well as a serious debate in the Committee on Foreign Workers regarding the absorption of the SLA refugees (30 May 2000). Analytically, I included in this phase four follow-up deliberations that took place in the subsequent months, including two discussions in parliament (19 June, 4 December 2000), a meeting of the Education, Culture, and Sports Committee (25 July 2000) and a meeting of the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee (11 December 2000).
7. The only difference between the two bills related to parliamentary jurisdiction. While proposed bill 2534 gave advisory responsibility to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, proposed bill 2493 identified the Labor, Welfare and Health Committee as responsible. This distinction suggests different views of the SLA – as a security and social issue.