בין זהויות במזרח ירושלים: תפיסות פלסטיניות לגבי תושבות קבע וקבלת אזרחות ישראלית

This article examines how Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem perceive the permanent resident status and naturalization in Israel, and in particular the way in which formal identity – permanent residence or citizenship– influences their Palestinian national identity, in their view. The article examines, among other things, the practices they use to express their attitude to their identity, Israeli institutions and the Palestinian Authority,in light of the prevailing view in literature, according to which identities,including national ones, are not rigid but constantly reshaped. The article is based on in-depth interviews with 10 men and 5 women, residents of East Jerusalem, between the ages of 18 and 65, in 2019-2020.The article points to the inner tension in the question of status in Israel and affinity with Israel. On the one hand, the interviewees acknowledge the material benefits that accompany a formal status in Israel and the opportunities that receiving an Israeli citizenship can offer them. On the other hand, their identification with the Palestinian collective )although not necessarily with the Palestinian Authority( is high, and a status in Israel – to some extent, that of a permanent resident, and in particular receiving an Israeli citizenship – is perceived as contradictory to this identification. The article indicates the strategies that the interviewees have adopted to cope with and settle this tension, which focus on the perception of residential status as a forced inevitability and of status in Israel as a frame work that grants material and other benefits but does not involve emotional identification with the Israeli collective and nation. The findings open a window to the stability of the self-determination of Palestinians in Jerusalem, even in view of a government effort, varying in intensity, to “Israelize” the eastern city residents. Thus, the findings contribute to the understanding of the variety of identity perceptions in a city that has been engaged in an ethno-religious conflict for over one hundred years, a few years after the initiation of a government effort to expand the integration of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. The sample is not a representative one and the main contribution of these findings is to describe the range of identities, and not necessarily to reflect the perceptions of the entire Palestinian population in the city.