Everyday resistance among Palestinians living in Israel 1948–1966

Abstract

Contemporary research often either overlooks Palestinians who experienced life under Israeli military rule (1948–1966) or describes them as acquiescent. This interview-based study draws on wide-ranging sources and the testimony of Palestinians in the Galilee and Triangle to provide multiple examples of people’s everyday resistance to the extension of Israeli military rule. The objects of this research are the acts of nonviolent resistance undertaken by Palestinians to preserve their own existence first and foremost rather than to endanger that of others. The testimony gathered signals the persistence of resistance, dignity, and identity, but it also speaks to how contingent and difficult acts of nonviolent resistance are.

Keywords:

• Everyday resistance
• Palestinians in Israel
• Israeli military rule
• military occupation
• nonviolence

Acknowledgements

For helpful comments and suggestions, the authors are grateful to Siobhán Burke, Colin Gordon, Mona Lilja and members of the Research Group Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University as well as the anonymous reviewers for this journal.

Notes

1. This number excludes the Palestinian Jewish population.

2. Palestinians living in Israel, Arabs in Israel, Israeli Arabs, Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians from inside, Palestinians from the 1948 areas, and Palestinian Israelis are all terms that refer to the same population but their use reflects different political perspectives and contexts. Not all of these Palestinians were granted Israeli citizenship during the period 1948–1966; some were only granted citizenship after the end of military rule.

3. Interview with Tawfiq Tubi by Marwan Darweish, 14 July 1991.

4. Interview, Shafa A’mer, 25 June 2013.

5. Developed by Foucault during a lecture course at the Collège de France between January and April 1978 (Foucault 2007). See also (Foucault 1991).

6. Yagil Levy has taken a similar approach to expose the way in which the pattern embodied by the Israeli media is control of the military, not of militarism; that is control over the performance rather than over the political goals served by this performance (Levy 2010).

7. Umm Al Fahim, Mua’awiya, A’ara, A’ra’ra, Kufr Kara’, Nazareth, Kfur Kana, Ibillin, Shafa A’mar.

8. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 25 June 2013.

9. Extracts from a story written by Ghassan Fawzi and an interview with his mother, Ifat Sharef. Interview in Umm al Fahim 6 June 2013.

10. Interview, Nazareth, 11 June 2013.

11. Interview, A’ara, 20 June 2013.

12. Tawfiq Tubi was elected to the first Knesset in 1949.

13. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 18 June 2013.

14. Interview, A’ara’ra, 20 June 2013.

15. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 18 June 2013.

16. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 25 June 2013.

17. Interview, Nazareth, 9 June 2013.

18. Interview, Nazareth, 11 June 2013.

19. Interview, Nazareth, 9 June 2013.

20. Interview, Umm al Fahim, 22 April 2012.

21. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 13 July 2013.

22. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 13 July 2013.

23. Interview, Ibileen, 20 June 2013.

24. Interview, Ibileen, 20 June 2013.

25. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 2 April 2014.

26. Interview, A’ara, 20 June 2013.

27. Traditionally mukhtars enjoyed significant social status, but under the military regime they came to be seen by many as collaborators.

28. Interview, Umm Al Fahim, 18 June 2013.

29. Interview, Nazareth, 11 June 2013.

30. Interview, A’ara, 20 June 2013.