Split – Life In Mixed Cities

Few are the cities in the world where two national collectives in the middle of a blood-feud can be found living as neighbors. The mixed cities in Israel are the most direct everyday scenes of friction between the Jewish and Arab citizens.

The examination of those cities can be seen as a scaled down model, or metaphor, for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at large. The weakening of the ‘two state solution’ that seems not applicable in any case; a ‘bi-national state’ is not at contradiction with the nation state of the Jewish people? Can such a country provide total equality to all its citizens? In fact, if one stops to think about it, we are already living in a bi-national state today, only we haven’t realized it yet. The citizens of the mixed cities feel it from up close, in the everyday reality of their lives.

In this series we will discuss six mixed cities in Israel: Nof HaGalil, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla and Lod. And what about Jerusalem? Jerusalem, holy to the three religions, with its menagerie of complexities; split, ancient, an international focus of attraction. We may wish to dedicate a separate episode to her, in addition to the other ones in the series, which will deal with the Jewish and Arab people that live in it.