Introduction

However, a critical examination forces us to question the term “mixed city,” which might originally suggests the integration of society, while instead the reality is controversial. As in other cases of ethnonationalism, a clear spatial and mental division exists between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and hence the occurrence of “mixed” spaces is both exceptional and involuntary. Rather than occurring naturally, it has resulted from a historical process during which the Israeli territory, including cities that were previously Palestinian, has been Judaized. This book attempts to discursively undermine the term “mixed city,” which raises images of mutual membership while ignoring questions of power, control and resistance. By focusing on the spatialities of power, this book uses the case of one particular Jewish-Arab “mixed city” as the platform for wider theoretical discussion and political analysis.3