Nationalism and the Politics of Fear in Israel ─ Race and Identity on the Border with Lebanon

Kiryat Shmona, located on the Israeli-Lebanese border, often makes the news whenever there is an outbreak of violence between the two countries. Israel's northernmost city, its residents are mostly Mizrahi descent, that is, Jews from Arab and Muslim lands. Cathrine Furberg Moe uses the dynamics at play along this border to develop wider conclusions about the nature of nationalism, identity, ethnicity and xenophobia in Israel, and the ways in which these shift over time and are manipulated in different ways for various ends. She explores the idea of being on the 'periphery' of nationhood: examining the identity-forming and negotiating processes of these Mizrahim who do not neatly dove-tail with the predominantly Ashkenazi concept of what it means to be 'Israeli'. Covering an interesting aspect of Israeli society which is often overlooked, this account of relations between both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews and those between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians is an important contribution to the study of Israeli and Middle Eastern societies.

Cathrine Furberg Moe is Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Oslo, Norway. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the LSE.