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At home, we speak Arabic mixed with Hebrew. We deal with Israeli law, Israeli institutions and can participate in the Israeli political system. But we are always aware of our Palestinian heritage.
Everything becomes more difficult every time I cross borders. The in-between of my identity is lost. For immigration officers, government officials and school administrators, only the nationality shown on my passport is important.
During my trip to Morocco last year, security escorted me from the airport – for my protection, because of my Israeli passport – and greeted with "Shabbat Shalom". When I told the airport officer, "thank you, but I am not Jewish. ", He replied," it does not matter. "
In 2013, I applied for a visa to conduct research in Egypt. The request has been pending since. I did not really know what was going on until recently when my Egyptian friend, whose address I had used in the petition, finally told me that intelligence officers Egyptians had come to her home and asked her about her relationship with "this Israeli student", so I wrote my name in Arabic on the application. My Israeli passport has defeated my Palestinian heritage.
I find myself regularly obliged to explain how some Palestinians have obtained Israeli citizenship: in 1948, Israel granted citizenship to the indigenous Arabs who survived the disaster. Nakba– the Palestinian exodus following the declaration of independence of Israel – and remained within its newly established borders. Suddenly isolated from the rest of the Arab world, the Palestinian community inside Israel was subject to military rule until 1966, while the government expropriated vast tracts of land belonging to it, as well as its own land. 39 to other Palestinian refugees.
Because our schools are controlled by Israel, our Palestinian identity is usually passed down to us, where we discover our history and our culture. Our sense of otherness is further reinforced by racist rhetoric and the discriminatory policies of Israeli society and government. High-level politicians regularly propose plans to push Arab citizens and villages out of Israel to resolve the conflict. The Jewish nation-state law is another, more recent, reminder of the fragility – and inferiority – of our civic identity.
We have learned to face all these challenges. We attend universities located mainly in Jewish cities and work with Jewish Israelis, we make friends with them and sometimes we get married with them. This has never seemed a contradiction for me. I saw it as part of my reality and my identity. We are proud of our Palestinian heritage, but that should not necessarily prevent us from interacting with the Israeli Jewish community.
When I first came to the United States to study, I told people that I was coming from Israel. It did not take long to understand how complex this answer is and how polarizing it can be. Many Americans would assume that I am Jewish. Some would then feel comfortable telling me how much they "love Israel" and how "the best solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to kill all Arabs". I started to introduce myself as a Palestinian Israeli citizen.
I find myself obliged to explain my identity not only to foreigners, but also to Jewish Israelis and other Arabs. At a conference in the United States earlier this year, an Israeli Jewish participant was confused as to how I could be both Palestinian and Israeli. Israel uses the term "Israeli Arabs" to define us, a term that I avoid because it ignores our heritage and tries to disconnect us from the Palestinian struggle.
At the same conference, a Jordanian participant confronted me for spending time with an Israeli participant from Tel Aviv University and for criticizing Hamas. Last year, at a Turkish airport, I met an Egyptian who, after discovering where I came from, told me, "I thought you were not speaking Arabic. "While I was looking for a job, someone in Doha asked me," How can you justify working for the Zionist state? "
The more friends I make in the Arab world, the harder it is to explain why I sometimes use Hebrew words here and there, why I have Israeli citizenship and why I can not personally boycott Israel. I found myself obliged to defend my identity and clarify my position on the conflict. I expect that I will support any group resisting Israel, regardless of their ideological and religious views. I am also supposed to boycott Israel, even if it is where my house is, where my family lives and where I can have a more significant and meaningful impact.
The forced projection of these identities – and the expectations and assumptions that accompany them, whether Jews, Arabs or Westerners – deprives us of our right to define ourselves. This worsens the marginalization that we experience on our country by moving away from ourselves, our history and our experiences abroad. It is up to us, the people living the conflict, that we should interpret our own experiences and determine our identity accordingly.
Anwar Mhajne, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at Stonehill College. Follow her on Twitter @mhajneam. This article was originally published on +972 Magazine.
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