Rethinking the Green Line: “Dwelling” in the Mediterranean Environment in Contemporary Israeli and Palestinian Poetry

摘要

Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Israeli national identity has been constructed on the basis of national narratives that have excluded the Mediterranean environment. Similarly, an ethno-symbolic, construction of identity has antagonised Israel from both the Mediterranean environment and its neighbours, especially the Palestinians. However, despite the weight of their different cultural and historical trajectories, a number of contemporary Israeli poets have featured elements of the Mediterranean flora in ways that suggest an ecological convergence with fellow Palestinian poets. This ecological affinity can be seen in the writers’ depiction of humanised elements of the Mediterranean flora, which project a sort of continuity or interrelatedness between human and nature, aligned with the fellaheen’s ecologically sustainable adaptation to the Mediterranean natural cycles, and away from subject-object constructions of identity that lead to the perpetuation of conflict and environmental degradation in the Middle East.udIn this essay I propose to adopt a phenomenological approach to the humanised imagery of the poetry in question based on developments in cognitive and embodiment theories, which conceive body, language and the environment as interconnected. In line with Tim Ingold’s conception of dwelling perspective, which sees the organism-person as unfolding in active engagement with the environment, I pursue an integrated and holistic approach to the writers’ cognitive and sensory engagement with the ecological dynamics of Mediterranean geography. Israeli and Palestinian poetry can be seen as making an important contribution to the creation of alternative constructions of identity in the Middle East based on the ecological dynamics of that which, for centuries, has united the Mediterranean basin beyond cultural and religious differences: the Mediterranean environment.