Dissident Discourses

This chapter explores the dissidents’ strategies for reconciling their personal identification with concern for the Other. Varying degrees of embeddedness into their society and its hegemonic identification lead the dissidents to either retreat from concern for the Other or shift into different ways of talking. This gives rise to contradictions, omissions and side steps, which I conceptualise as discontinuities. I suggest that the dissidents make use of six available national identification discourses: hegemonic ressentiment Zionism and five alternatives, which attempt to subvert it. However, the alternative discourses have developed in the context of the ethnocratiser state and the hegemonic ressentiment discourse. Due to this, and because of some contingencies of the Israeli case, the alternative discourses are unable to simultaneously satisfy identification, overcome ressentiment , and work towards inclusion and equality. This places dissidents in a potentially unresolvable bind.