Hello Haitham,

I’m mailing from Haifa, we had corresponded once before (Who knows ‘Arab-Israel’?), and I wanted to update your readers on what is happening recently (a group event) and respond to some of your wonders, questions and statements mentioned in the former blog post (my own individual analysis), but first, here’s a video of our latest event:

The naming ‘Israeli-Arabs’, is likely to have evolved from ‘up above’, the state (Israel) tried throughout the years to ’switch’ the Palestinians within its borders to function as Israeli’s, knowing that the Arab identity couldn’t be broken instantly, they went for the less troubling (due to its generality) ‘Arab’ (not Palestinian) Israeli (to tie us down morally/legally) identity.

Unfortunately, this approach worked quite fine, due to several reasons, and as I always say, everyone’s at fault: On the one hand, Israel detached us from the rest our people, we abide to Israeli Law, courts, life style (more on that later), work places, housing, education system, all are minimally influenced by the Palestinian national movements (In Israel) - Thus the naming became relevant, as the bond became more and more shaky -

Add to that the never-ending Muslim/Christian front, where the State tries to continually break (whats left of) the national identity of Palestinians by en fueling religious feuds, whether through land, state endorsements to one party or the other - this creates even more tension within Palestinians themselves (tied to a more global phenomena of religious fall backs in the Arab world due to the stagnation of National liberation and democratization movements)

Another reason that should be mentioned, is the Palestinians outside the homeland (Gazza and the Westbank, and even in the rest of the world), do not seem to consider us part of the Palestinian people (there are some recent positive changes), throughout the last 20 years, especially after Oslo, many of us felt left out, somehow the PLO (specifically, in Oslo), gave up on us, as if we were redundant - this detachment, over time, created alienation between us (within) and the rest (outside) - it seems where ever we go in the Arab world (where we can that is), we’re considered more Israeli than Arab/Palestinians - that by itself creates a resonance, and a sort of ‘If everyone thinks this way, maybe I AM what they think I am…’ feeling, and the detachment grows.

To conclude things, there are many sects Palestinians belong to, some are more clear, others are less - The nationalist political parties have failed miserably in building up, the Religious Islamic movement has been growing in power (its a 50-50 split or so), we live in a society much more open to variation than ours, with alot of influence from the West, on life style (for better and for worse, usually we pick up the worse part…) -

All is not lost though, in recent times, and with the availability of new communication channels such as the internet, Al Jazeera and other outlets for involving us, the Palestinians within, it seems that there is some hope of reviving the nationalist movement, and it is our hope that Youth groups that work through self-organization, self-efficiency and volunteering will help move us forward.

This has been another 20-cent (Ersh :>) in reaching out to our brothers and sisters in the Arab world generally, and Palestinians specifically - what I’ve written represents my own personal outlook on things, and not the group I work through, for more info on that, check www.HaifaAlFatah.org

Cheers,
Ala