Borders and Their Discontents
Israel’s Green Line, Arabness and Unilateral Separation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23249201 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D Rabinowitz (0000-0002-4827-6028, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Pages | 217-231 |
| Publication date | 2003-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Culture and Cooperation in Europe’s Borderland (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789401201391_011 |
| OpenAlex | W2511623508 |
| ISBN | 9789401201391 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
This essay looks at the central role played by the proximity of Arabs – as individuals, as an essentialised culture and as a political entity – in the formation and consolidation of an idealised Israeli identity. Informed by recent theoretical preoccupations with genealogies of Othering (Baumann 2002; Gingrich 2002), and by notions connecting national projects and emerging notions of identity (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Anderson 1991), I look at borders as loci in which identities are most intensively recognised, invented and contested. Israel’s borders, and in particular the recent fascination of many in the Israeli mainstream with the notion of unilateral separation from the Palestinians, is used as a case in point. Realities in Israel/Palestine since 1967 have consistently obscured and obfuscated the demarcation lines between Israelis and Palestinians – an ambiguity exacerbated with mutual transgression characterizing the violent events of 2000-2002. The quest of Israelis for the border, their obsession with psychological differentiation from the Arabs and their desire for a coherent Israeli identity emerge as aspects of one, ostensibly coherent national project, not unlike the sentiments that underwrite the ideological project Fortress Europe and the operational measures that accompany it.
Aesthetics · Ambiguity · Art · Identity (music) · Ideology · Mainstream · National identity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,35 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2020 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |