התרבות הערבית בישראל

The Politics of Palestinian Cultural in Israel

Amal Jamal

Tel Aviv University

In his book Culture, Terry Eagleton argues that “culture is not always a medium of power. It can also be a mode of resistance to it”. This dual nature of culture and its dialectics are the subject matter of this research. On the one hand, it explores cultural policies and cultural production as instruments of power and domination, aiming at disciplining and submission. On the other, it also examines cultural creativity as a powerful means to subvert power and resist domination. To that end, it delves into instrumentalizing culture to achieve goals beyond its aesthetic dimension, such as orchestrating selective collective amnesia, aiming to veil a historical trauma and disguising the ongoing coercive power of the state, while alternatively functioning as the aesthetic and artistic commemoration of a lost form of existence. In order to avoid an overly theoretical and abstract consideration of this dialectical relationship, the research explores its manifestations, articulations and implications in a concrete context, namely, the interaction between the cultural policies of the state of Israel and the cultural activism of its Palestinian citizens. The tragic conflictual circumstances into which this interaction was born and still persists, forms an appropriate context in which the incongruity between divergent perceptions and policies of culture are explored. Assuming that the interaction between the state of Israel and its Palestinian minority is a juncture of power relations, the research provides new insights on cultural politics that go beyond the conception of culture in binary terms. The research demonstrates that, although the state cultural policies towards its Palestinian minority seek to maintain the hegemony of Jewish culture, these policies do not aim to completely dismantle their Arab cultural identity. In this sense, state cultural policies entail some accommodation of Palestinian culture, especially artistic production that does not clash with the hegemony of Jewish culture. Simultaneously, although some of Palestinian artistic creativity aspires to maintain the nostalgic memory of a lost national past and preserve its aesthetic manifestations in the present, it does not turn its back on the impact of the Israeli experience on the collective consciousness of Palestinian citizens of Israel. This unique cultural interaction between Israeli cultural policies towards the artistic production of its Palestinian citizens and the latter’s cultural activism, articulating their Palestinian heritage and identity, engenders cultural manifestations that bridge the dichotomy between culture as a medium of power and as a mode of resistance.

This is the first research to explore this unique interaction and provide thorough empirical data in order to advance an inclusive theoretical argument about the politics of culture in conflictual contexts. Thereby, it sheds light on two interrelated dilemmas. The first is Israeli; the dichotomy between dismantling the Palestinian cultural heritage, long considered the backbone of Palestinian national identity and indigenousness, while meeting the state’s self-definition as a constitutional democracy, obliged to satisfy the cultural rights of its Palestinian citizens. The second dilemma relates to the Palestinian citizens of Israel who, while protecting their cultural heritage, demand the support of the state for their cultural activities, consenting thereby to its intervention in their cultural production through funding and regulation, and enabling the state to partially determine the type of art they produce.