Contemporary Israeli Literature as a Mirror of the Arabs' Images and the Perception of the Israeli־Arab Conflict in Israeli Society

The research of the perception and images of Arabs in Israeli society and in the State of Israel is one of the keys to understanding the Israeli־Arab conflict. One of the discoveries available to the historian researching the historical development of images are literary works, and novels in particular, as a source of prevailing perceptions for addressing this issue through time. The unique sensitivity of the writer as observing the 'Zeitgeist' ("spirit of the times"), documenting world views and images of his or her generation, creates moving texts which often provide far more significant perspective than customary historical sources.

 

In recent years, many novels engaged the Israeli־Arab conflict were published. From this great selection, this article focus on three novels written by some of the most famous and important Israeli writers of recent times: Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness (Keter, 2007); David Grossman's Until the End of the Land (HaKibbutz Ha'Meuchad, 2008); Yoram Kaniuk's 1948 (Yediot Achronot, Sifrei Hemed, 2010). All these books are very popular, sold in great numbers and translated to several other languages. The three books together portray a broad attempt to embrace the Israel־Arab conflict, which is already 130 years old. The books contain biographical material and reflect the author's personal experiences. All three aspire, to an extent, to engage in the self־criticism of Israeli society.

 

In the research of the above-mentioned novels, this article uses the fruit of the historiography discourse and rely on three major approaches: New Historicism, Neo Cultural History and History of Sensibility. Three basic concepts - "Image", "enemy" and "Threat" were used in the analysis of the images and for drawing conclusions. Surprisingly, the three novels express very pessimistic mood about the chances of peace between Israel and the Arabs. Despite the fact that the three novelists are devoted supporters of peace, they express deep fears and strangeness towards the Palestinians, the Arabs and the surrounding Muslim world. The Israeli society, according to these novels, is more aware than ever before to the subjective integrity of the Arab and Palestinian narrative, and at the same time lost the feeling of destination and justice that motivated it in the first decades. After Rabin's assassination and the stagnation of the Oslo process, Israel, according to the images in these novels, is in a double deadlock because of the severe internal disagreements and the continuous deep fears of external threats of the Palestinians, the Arab states and the Muslim world.

 

This article was written within the framework of the research group Between East and West: The novel as a new way of thinking about the Middle East in the Modern time, under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem during 2012-2013. I express my deep gratitude towards Prof. Fruma Zacks and Prof. Sharon Halevi as well as the other participants for lively and fruitful discussions. Naturally, the knowledge, the insights and ideas that we shared during two years of working together are imbedded in this article. I would also like to express my gratitude to my son, Yoav, for his tremendous help and encouragement in the making of this article.