The Arab in the Mirror: The Image of the Arab in Israeli Fiction

YOCHAI OPPENHEIMER The Arab in the Mirror: The Image of the Arab in Israeli Fiction Severed Language THE STATUS OF THE ARAB in Hebrew fiction is an interesting test case for a cultural and cognitive maturation process. To be explored here is the extent to which Hebrew literature recognizes the Arab's independence and otherness: to what extent does it allow him to have a separate identity, which is not subservient to the Zionist one and to its accepted scheme of values? I shall examine the ability of Hebrew literature to produce a heterogeneous scheme of values and to live in a self-conscious world, which not only acknowledges the existence of the Arab as an independent entity, but also searches for a language that would represent him. The figure of the Arab has appeared in Hebrew literature since the beginning of the century. Though that period (1900-1948) is not the concern of this paper, a few features that characterize the representation of this figure till 1948 should be mentioned.1 First, the most important authors, such as Moshe Smilansky, Yosef Hayyim Brenner, Yitzhak Shami, Aharon Reuveni, Yehuda Burla, and Meir Steinberg see themselves as belonging to the Jewish minority, describing the Arab majority. The minority consists of an immigrant population, while the majority consists of natives. Some of the authors were European-born, and others came from the Middle East. We are thus able to distinguish between the distant attitude of the former, as opposed to the more understanding attitude of the latter: the Middle Eastern authors emphasized their proximity to the Arab majority rather than the gap between the two cultures. Second, the PROOFTEXTS 19 (1999): 205-234 C 1999 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 206YCXTHAI OPPENHEIMER figure of the Arab is stereotypical, following a characteristic pattern that can be found even in extra-literary descriptions of the Arab in that period. Third, the situations in which the Arab appears lack the dimension of conflict between majority and minority. There is certainly no political conflict; rather, the situations described deal with daily routine, society and its customs, and local culture. Dramatic conflicts, which no literature can afford to do away with, also find their place within this framework. Fourth, beyond the sociological distinctions between Bedouin, farmer, effendi—each with his own mental characteristics—the Arab was conceived as an admirable model. He symbolized the very cultural values that were opposite to the Jewish experience of the Diaspora: his rootedness and his attachment to the land through agricultural labor, his cruelty and belligerence, his vital existence, unspoiled by modernity. Not only did the Arab conform to the Romantic European norms regarding the exotic East, but the Oriental way of life was connected in the minds of many authors to the world of the biblical fathers. The Arab played the stereotypical role of the noble savage, while being used as a model for imitation and not as representing a strange, inferior, and inaccessible world.2 The Hebrew literature following the War of Independence marks a reversal in the place and status of the Arab in the literary world. First, it is clear that the relations between majority and minority changed starting with the founding of the State of Israel. The Arabs begin to be perceived as a minority as far as their strength. Second, the context in which the Arab appears becomes political, and the war experience, which led to a new political order, turns the Arab out of his homeland; his original status lost, he is an exile in his own country. From this moment, the trauma of war is the starting point of every reckoning and every relationship to be formed between Jews and Arabs. It goes without saying that the admiration for the Arab, which was characteristic before 1948, is replaced by guilt toward him, mingled with the author's critique of the majority, as a result of the latter's immoral attitude toward the defenseless minority. Third, early writers such as Orloff, Shemy, and Burla explored the figure of the Arab out of a need to internalize and study him, while the object of description stands at the center of the narrator's world...