Date of Award

3-1-2011

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

Josef Korbel School of International Studies

First Advisor

Karen Feste, Ph.D.

Keywords

Mizrahim and Israeli-Arabs, Social identity formation, Political narratives

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the minority status of Mizrahim and Israeli-Arabs and their political narrative, identity, and action, including their divergent and collaborative views of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. I examined the possibility that minority groups, once established as viable separate collectives with some leverage and political narrative, have just cause for combining their political action in order to influence governing elites. In order to explore this question, I investigated whether the factor of shared grievances in social identity formation provides a basis for multi-group political narrative and subsequent collaborative action in confronting dominant political forces, the results of which could bring pressure for change. On the basis of scholarly literature and an analysis of political activity, I discovered that political narrative and identity are interactive for both Mizrahi and Israeli-Arab collectives and that many features which affected the development of both are similar if not shared between the two groups. Despite this, Mizrahim and Israeli-Arabs have developed two autonomous political narratives and identities and therefore, their expressions of political action are divergent. Therefore, I conclude that shared grievances are not sufficient in uniting minority groups to act collaboratively for heightened political influence.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Kristin L. Hissong

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

118 p.

Discipline

International relations

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