Intimate Relations Between Israelis and Palestinians in Fiction by Israeli Women Writers

This article focuses on stories written by the Israeli women writers Savyon Liebrecht, Emuna Elon, and Michal Peleg during the last two decades of the twentieth century, in which an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab from the occupied territories draw close to some form of intimacy. The article explores how each author assesses the possibility of closer relations between Israelis and Palestinians in the real world and the barriers to such intimacy. These stories share similar features: (1) It is work which brings the Israeli and the Palestinian characters together. (2) Israeli male characters cling more to prejudiced views of Palestinians than do Israeli female characters. (3) When Palestinian characters assert themselves, they destabilize the usual patterns of Israeli-Palestinian relations and open up the possibility of some intimacy. (4) The intimacy develops gradually on the levels of inner thought and actions. (5) The intimacy is not sustained, largely because the Palestinian character feels slighted by the Israeli character.