Jewish-Muslim Relations in the Israeli Space in Yehoshua’s Literary Works · 279city, very present... that easily connects to the landscapes of the Galilee
and the valleys.”^34
Haifa is Yehoshua’s place of residence, and in his eyes it is an island
of sanity in which he is able to work and maintain a normal life with the
city’s Arabs. In one interview, Yehoshua claims that the good and high-
quality Israeli heterogeneity is embodied in Haifa. The ideal of the en-
tire country exists there. If Jerusalem is the lost Paradise in which incest
and other sicknesses exist, and it is exposed in all its ugliness, Haifa is a
“healthy” city.^35
Yehoshua’s attitude toward the Arabs of Israel is space-dependent.
In Haifa, harmonious relations exist, but in Jerusalem, the Jewish-Arab
relations are demonic. Yehoshua says the following about this duality:
“The Arabs of Israel are part of my identity. They are a component within
the identity of this country; therefore, I feel human warmth toward them
and even a kind of intimacy out of which I can sometimes say harsh
things about them.... They are not total strangers even when they are
enemies. And the appearance of the Arabs in my books is always easy
and luring.”^36
The Galilee in Yehoshua’s writing is a different Paradise. This space
is an autonomy in which the Arabs created a Paradise for themselves.
The orientalist who attends the wedding of his student Samhar is invited
into a space in which the Arabs are the majority and the Israelis are the
visiting minority. Rauda, sister of Rashad, the orientalist’s driver, wants
to return to this Paradise. Rauda, who was born in the Galilee, is married
to an Arab from the occupied territories. She is allowed the “right of re-
turn,” but her children are not. Her son, who crosses the border, is sought
by hunters who think that he is a hybrid creature, perhaps a cat, perhaps
a lamb.^37 Yehoshua thinks that these hybrid children are a symbol and
a warning for the existence of Israeli Palestinian Arabs, whose identity
problem may create a demonic predator.
In the occupied territories, in Jenin, a nun sings the song of the lost
Paradise.^38 This is the heavenly Paradise expressed through art. This nun
sings her song also in a place called “Beit al Sakakini” in Ramallah.^39 The
Arabs perform the play The Dybbuk as a parody in this house, according
to their interpretation. They sing songs from the times of ignorance, the
jahiliyya, before the time of Islam, which emphasize the need for separa-
tion between the two peoples. In spite of the idea expressed in one of the