Meet the Dissidents

Israeli laws and policies privilege Jews and render their hegemony as natural; accordingly, the dominant nationalist discourse interprets Others’ resistance as irrational. Israeli Jews seeking to interpret their Other differently must therefore negotiate the dominant discourse to reconceptualise this relationship; we are about to meet 11 individuals who attempt to do this. All are Israeli Jews, either by birth or by immigration, though not all of them still live in Israel or identify as Israeli. All take the view that Israel is somehow oppressive or unjust to ‘Palestinians’ or ‘Arabs’. The variations in their responses to their dilemma demonstrate that there is no single path for dissent. Instead, individuals have a range of options available to them and the remainder of this book examines what these options look like and what their implications are. By looking deeply at a small number of individuals, I am able to interrogate, in some detail, the inconsistencies within their narratives, which are emblematic of their contradictory context.