Originally published in Lebanon’s THE DAILY STAR on August 12, 2008.

"Who are we?" asks Manal Badarna in an editorial in Panorama, an Arabic weekly published in Taibeh. Her simple question, which carries a painful and deep scar, is asked by many "Palestinians" in Israel, who don’t know how to define their own identity. Badarna is a young newspaper editorialist from the Galilee. The Israelis refer to her as an "Arab-Israeli," as she is part of the Palestinian community that remained in the new state of Israel in 1948. But nowadays what does being an Arab actually mean? It doesn’t define a nationality. Maybe it defines an ethnicity, but it is not enough to provide an identity or a deep sense of belonging to a people. Pan-Arabism has failed and the Arab world is fragmented. Hence, the term "Arab" by itself defines only something vague.

Furthermore, the term "Arab-Israeli" defines a minority in Israel, one not even fully integrated into Israeli society. The Israeli national anthem mentions "the soul of a Jew," but there is no reference to the soul of an Arab-Israeli. Hence, when Badarna asks in her editorial, “What does the blue [Israeli] ID means to you [Arabs]?" the question doesn’t appear particularly strange. Israelis often refer to Arab-Israelis as "the sector" (Migzar) as well, which doesn’t help the community to feel part of a society. Let alone clarify its own identity. The Arab world, in contrast, refers to Arab-Israelis as "Palestinians of 1948" or as "Palestinians of the interior," meaning that Israel represents the interior of Palestine. But even this terminology doesn’t lead to clear outcomes. Before the 1960s, the Palestinians of Israel were also referred to in the Arab world simply as Arabs. But in 1964, the PLO was formed and this marked the beginning of Palestinian nationalism and the recognition of a Palestinian identity.

However to be Palestinian is not easy. Badarna mentions that she was visiting a Middle Eastern country and a friend told her not to say that she was a Palestinian, as Palestinians were not especially welcome there; but most importantly, she was not to mention her Israeli citizenship, since mentioning that one studied in an Israeli university could result in one being called a "collaborator." A few years ago, a host on the Al-Jazeera channel who wanted to humiliate the former Arab-Israeli parliamentarian Azmi Bishara, asked him to repeat the swearing in phrase he had made before the Israeli Knesset when he became a member. On another occasion, a journalist asked Bishara with which passport he travelled in the Middle East, to which Bishara answered that the he didn’t have a passport. Does holding the ID or passport of a country mean you have to be loyal to it? And what happens when your identity is Palestinian and you are a full citizen of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn’t seem to have an end? Badarna answers by calling for "serious thinking about who we are."

Things are more complicated for Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Their neighborhoods were annexed in 1967, they have a blue ID, and Israelis refer to them not as Arab-Israelis, but as Palestinians. East Jerusalemites, even though they are considered Israeli citizens and are given Israeli national insurance, find it very hard to get an Israeli passport. But there are East Jerusalemites who have a Jordanian passport, since the territory was controlled by Jordan until 1967, or a Palestinian one. So what is their status? Last July, two Palestinians from East Jerusalem with a blue ID committed attacks against Jews in Jerusalem using a bulldozer. The father of Hasam Abu Tir, the young East Jerusalemite who committed the attack of July 22, spoke of the undefined status of East Jerusalem’s Palestinians as a source of confusion over their identities. Recently, Israel Radio reported on Palestinians who held Israeli ID, but who, because of the separation wall put up by the Israelis, were cut off from their neighborhoods and found themselves "on the other side," so to speak. What is one to do about them?

Sayyed Kashua, a well-known Arab-Israeli author who is more comfortable writing in Hebrew than in Arabic, has described in his books the dilemma of Israel’s Arabs. In one book, "Dancing Arabs," he writes: "I hate my father. Because of him, I can’t leave this country because he taught us that there was no other place for us, and we must never give up; it is better to die for the land … I say that if it weren’t for all the nonsense he drummed into us I would have left long ago."

Anna Mahjar-Barducci is a Moroccan-Italian journalist who is based in Washington and Morocco. She has been working for Sudanese NGOs and is the president of the Rome-base association Arabi Democratici Liberali. Her commentaries are regularly published in the Italian media.