ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to examine the meaning of being both "ethnic minority" and "terrorist enemy" for the construction of Palestinian Israeli identity. It outlines the emergence of Palestinian nationalist movements in Israel on the organizational level. Although cooptation has become increasingly difficult, state practices of repression and infiltration have created a culture of skepticism that poses severe constraints on the ability of these bodies to develop the moral authority necessary to transform local political structures. The core of the chapter is an ethnographic example of this political culture on the local level. It also illustrates increasing resistance to Israeli domination, the coexistence of both the national community and the patriarchal hamula as meaningful political concepts for Palestinian Israelis, and the potential for violence created by the manipulation of ambiguous identities. This analysis is based on thirteen months of fieldwork in a Palestinian village in the Galilee between December 1987 and January 1989-the first year of the intifada.
