Arabic Family in Transition: The Case of Palestinians Living in Israel

Arab culture views the family as the symbolic fortress of social cohesion. The family holds the traditional narratives and passes them on, ensuring their continued value; conversations within the home and between neighboring families feed into accounts of identity which in turn serve to maintain the great Arab “cultural” narrative. this chapter will explore some characteristics of the Palestinian family in Israel. The next two sections provide some historical background and a description of the distinctive features of Palestinian families in the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories respectively. A further section briefly outlines a qualitative field study examining some of these aspects. Finally, the key findings of the research are discussed in the light of the existing literature