“Israeli Arabs,” “Palestinian Citizens of Israel,” or “Israeli Palestinians”?

Dear Hanin Majadli,

Until a few weeks ago your name was as unfamiliar to me as it is to my readers. And, since I’ll never mail you this letter and you’re not a Mosaic subscriber, you’ll probably never see it. Still, after reading your June 2 op-ed in the Hebrew daily Haaretz, in which you explain why you prefer to call yourself “a Palestinian citizen of Israel” rather than resorting to any more frequently used term, I feel compelled to address this column to you rather than simply writing it about you.

Let me begin by saying that I understand you completely. The question of how both Jews and Arabs in Israel should refer to the country’s Palestinian population has been a vexed one since the state of Israel was created in 1948. There was a time when this population was commonly referred to by official Israel, and even by the Israeli media, as b’nei ha-mi’utim, “the minorities,” as if the very words “Arab” or “Palestinian” were illegitimate in such a context. For their part, these “minorities” have often spoken of themselves, and been spoken of in the Arab world, as “the Arabs of ’48” or “the Palestinians of ’48,” as if mentioning the name of the country they lived in was equally taboo. Each usage was the mirror image of the other, each attempting to efface inconvenient political realities.