Shaping Israeli-Arab Identity in Hebrew Words—The Case of Sayed Kashua

Most research and surveys that deal with the complex identity of the Arabs in Israel refer to the Arab, Palestinian, and Israeli components in their identity. Kashua adds the Jewish-Zionist component to the discussion and explores its dominance in shaping the identities of the Arabs in Israel. I use the term Jewish-Arab as a mirror image of the Arab-Jew in order to analyze the conflicted identity of Kashu’s Arab characters. The use of the identity of Arab-Jew by the third generation of Mizrahi writers functions as a challenge to the hegemony of Zionist discourse. Kashua’s Herzl Disappears at Midnight (2005) and Second Person Singular (2008) create a realization of the term Jewish-Arab and take the situation of the conflicted identity to an extreme and provocative end, in order to emphasize the dead-end situation of Arabs in Israel.