Minority Identity Discourse: The Impact of Viewing the Play An Arab Dream on the Identity Crisis of Palestinians in Israel

Abstract

This article was written as part of a comprehensive research study whose main goal was to explore and assess the effectiveness of Israeli drama as an instrument to change young Israelis' perceptions and positions toward the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The article will present the findings of the qualitative study of two distinct audiences: Palestinian students in the Israeli education system and senior Jewish education officials who view the theater play An Arab Dream. The findings show that for the Palestinian teenagers theater offers an opportunity to address sensitive and complex issues of minority group identity and serves as a trigger for social, emotional, and intellectual discourse. However the Jewish education officials were unable to allow the voices of a national minority to be heard within themselves, as they perceived the play as a provocative play of no educational value and they even believed it could harm the Jewish Israeli teenage audience.

Keywords:

• Palestinian–Israeli conflict
• minority identity discourse
• edutainment
• Palestinian students
• senior Jewish education officials

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was funded by grants from the Vidal Angel Post-Doctoral Fellowships for Research against Hate and Bigotry at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University and the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peach Research (TSC) at Tel Aviv University. The author would like to thank Prof. Nurit Guttman and Prof. Moshe Israelashvili for their involvement in the research.