Negotiations of State-Led Boundary Work: On Arab Christians in Israel and Their Maneuver Through the Israeli Policy Landscape of 'Us' and 'Them'

Abstract

Arab Christians in Israel are categorized in different ways by recent Israeli minority policies. On the one hand, Arab Christians are considered as an elevated, non-Arab minority which is an integrated part of Israeli society. On the other hand, they are categorized as unentitled non-Jews in an exclusively Jewish nation-state. This thesis aims to understand how Arab Christians deal with this state-led boundary work. In order to answer this question, both policy developments and the boundaries they draw around the Arab Christian community are analyzed. In order to understand the negotiation of this state-led boundary work, seven Arab-Christian students were interviewed about how they experience and deal with the policies. The analysis of the policies uncovered that they form a complicated coexistence. By including them in Israeli society and simultaneously deteriorating their collective rights, the policies create a push-and-pull dynamic which problematizes the position of Arab Christians in Israel society. Analyzing the interviews showed that Arab Christians use a variety of discursive strategies to deal with this state- led boundary work. These different strategies all implicate that none of the participants have internalized the policy claim that Christians are non-Arab, Israeli citizens. They do not seem willing to identify with a state in which they feel like marginalized players. The interview analysis also showed that all participants have experienced being treated differently than other Arab communities, which illustrates that the policy aim of separating Christians from the Arab collective is felt in daily life. This thesis thereby concludes that state-led boundary work trickled into the daily life of the seven participants, making it even more complicated to deal with the complex challenge of being an Arab Christian in Israel.