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This "sense of possibility" can become a unique tool for activism. To see the world through its "fourth dimension" can mean not only to oppose inappropriate state policies, but also to go one step further and question ideological assumptions, to break down objectified frames of reality. In particular, for activism that crosses ethnic divides (such as the Arab/Jewish divide), it could mean imagining something different, a space of possibilities, an opening to rethink the certainties of cultural boundaries and ethnic divisions. In other words, it potentially extends the boundaries of the thinkable.

I wish to argue that for people who are not satisfied with present social realities, like most activists, we should not limit our activism to opposing official policies, but have the courage to rupture common-sense certainties and question dominant and pervasive visions of reality.

This article first shows how the "sense of reality" contributes to the perpetuation of the land conflict in one of its most extreme cases: a small, unrecognized village, al-Twail-Jarwa, that has been demolished by Israel and rebuilt by activists and Bedouins continuously over the last year. A conflict that relies on assumptions of essentialized identities opposed to one another.

Secondly, based on some anthropological reflections on identity, this article will propose one specific way to apply Robert Musil`s "sense of possibility": to reframe reality by rethinking cultural identity through its interconnections and fluidity.

"The State Eats Us and We Eat the State"

The harsh "sense of reality" has likely led to the decision of the Israel Ministry of the Interior’s Southern District to show up at 6:30am, just after sunrise on 16 December 2006, to the Arab-Bedouin village al-Twail, some five kilometers north of Beer Sheva. The Israeli ministry sent approximately one hundred civilian and border police with bulldozers, to demolish—in an impressive spectacle of destruction—twenty tin shacks, tents, and cinderblock constructions. Once the police had left, Salam al-Talalka, one of the spokespersons for al-Twail, commented cynically: "if Israel would have invaded Lebanon like they invaded our village, certainly we would have won the war."

As the troupe of journalists, activists of the Islamic Movement, and representatives of human rights organizations came to the previously almost unknown village to show their solidarity, the Negev Arab-Bedouins had already started to rebuild their buildings. That very same evening, while the police officers were likely sitting in their homes somewhere in well-fenced, clean and green neighborhoods, the Bedouin-Arabs of al-Twail smoked their shisha in new tin shacks and tents set up in the middle of the dust and debris from the morning events. Over the next weeks, several people and organizations provided financial and organizational support for the reconstruction.

This occurrence was at least the sixth time within a year, during which demolitions were carried out at al-Twail. The Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev has described the history of the village in several press releasesⁱ. The extended family, which aims to receive legal building permits on their land, has managed, each time so far, to rebuild and even improve to a degree their tin shacks, caravans, and tents. The tireless reconstruction is likely intended to push the government representatives forward to find a solution, and allocate legal building permits to the al-Talalka family.

Olive Trees as Tools and Signifiers of Ethnic Belonging and Exclusion

During a so-called "day of activities and reconstruction," representatives of the Negev Arabs, as well Parliament member Taleb Abu Sana, planted olive trees. One activist said:

We came to show the people here that they are not alone. We also brought olive trees, which have a strong symbolic meaning. They express the connection to the land. Tomorrow or next week the police can come and uproot them again, so that's why they are not planted all together in one place but spread over a couple of different places.

The destiny of the "Arab" olive trees is a particularly intriguing example of the relationship between al-Twail Bedouin-Arabs and the State of Israel. As the comment above shows, the highly charged symbolism of olive trees illustrates the connection to the soil. And this is true not only in Arab-Palestinian ethno-national mythology, but something very similar can also be found in the Zionist ideology. Down in the valley, adjacent to the village, the Jewish Agency is planting a forest of "Jewish" olive trees, and according to the metropolitan Beer Sheva development plan, the area of al-Twail is designated to be part of this forest. As a consequence, a few weeks later, on the morning of 7 January 2007, all the twenty newly-reconstructed tin shacks and tents were demolished once again. Paradoxically enough, all "Arab-Bedouin" olive trees were uprooted during this operation. One official claimed that "those olive-trees are part of the illegal construction activities."

Meanwhile, the cynical game of destruction and reconstruction continues. While government officials have been employing a policy of force, many signs indicate that local forms of unconventional resistance are being reinforced through reflection on previous experience. Without exaggerating, one could agree with one Negev resident who stated that "The state eats us and we eat the state.” In an interview, another local resident said:

Maybe the government is stupid. Maybe they think we will leave if they don't give us water and streets. Maybe they believe we will leave if they destroy our homes, but it is not true. They don't understand that we are not leaving. Even with nothing, we will stay here. That's what they don't understand: we will stay here in any case.

In this regard, the question as to whether "Arab-Bedouin" representatives or "Jewish" representatives are planting the olive trees to make the area of al-Twail bloom, has become quite critical. The destiny of those trees seems to become a political instrument close to a surrealistic performance.

However, it is not merely the soil on which the olive trees are planted that has become increasingly shaky; the identities, respectively "Arab-Bedouin" or "Jewish" (also presented and imagined as objective identities), are also walking on slippery ground.

The illegal "Arab-Bedouin" trees are becoming one of the means used to essentialize categories of identity. This essentialist perspective has some problematic implications, however. First, by forcing the conflict into a rigid, dichotomous framework that opposes the "Arab-Bedouin" olive tree to the "Jewish" olive tree, this logic is unable to reflect the full expressions of individual, more complex and heterogeneous identities. As a result, stereotypes are reinforced and a circle of stigmatization is perpetuated.

Secondly, an essentialized vision of identity relies on an imagined natural connection between people and land. In that way, it constructs clear-cut cultural boundaries. Attitudes of exclusive ethnic identities are reproduced through the conflict over the olive trees and risk to be internalized in part by both the state and the activists.

"Everything Could Be Different"

From the point of view of the "sense of possibilities,” the socially constructed character of essentialized identities can be subject to change. This is the point where the voice of activism that crosses ethnic divides can open up new windows of opportunity. Social change facilitates awareness of the socially constructed character of "reality." Two important anthropologists, Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, propose that we question the substantial connection between place and people, challenging the “isomorphism between space and cultural difference.” In this view, it becomes central to rethink cultural differences, because:

[t]he presumption that spaces are autonomous has enabled the power of topography to conceal the topography of power. […] For if one begins with the premise that spaces have always been hierarchically interconnected, instead of naturally disconnected, then cultural and social change becomes not a matter of cultural contact, but one rethinking difference through interconnections. ⁱⁱ

Thus, in order to find different ways to interpret the relations between Jewish and Arab Bedouin, in less static and firm ways, we can highlight differentiation and the evolving contingencies of identity.

For example, a more differentiated examination of "Bedouin" identity reveals that people do not always agree with labels that are assigned to them. In interviews with individual Bedouin, I have been frequently confronted with the fact that not all of them want to be called a "minority" or even be seen as a distinct ethnic group. This becomes clear when additional labels such as "Negev Arabs,” "Palestinian Bedouins," "Israeli Bedouins" or other definitions, are discussed by members of the group. Despite the rhetoric of unity and common traditions, some people prefer an urban, post-modern lifestyle, while others live abroad or are part of the Israeli establishment, and yet others prefer to continue with what most people imagine as the traditional Bedouin rural lifestyle. From this perspective, how can we address all these different needs?

Furthermore, the question of what might be considered an exclusive and "authentic" Jewish olive tree on the ground of al-Twail is definitely quite problematic. That is obvious as well as most ongoing discussions over Jewish and Israeli identity continue to show.ⁱⁱⁱ

From an anthropological perspective, the definition of group identity itself is one of cross-boundary relations and struggle.^iv In other words, "Arab-Bedouin" and "Jewish" olive trees—despite all protests—depend on each other and are connected through a complex web of social and symbolic interrelations. Shifting attention towards fluidity and interrelations can raise awareness of new transversal alliances that rely on the qualitative character of boundaries.

Breaking the Circle of Stigmatization

From this perspective, advocacy that is trying to advance the interests of the imagined homogeneous "Bedouin" community relies on the same logic as the ethno-nationalism that it tries to contest.

Thus, the imposed unifying construction of an "authentic" identity might risk fulfilling in the Negev what Peter Vermeersch described regarding the case of East European "gypsies." A construction, that:

continues to echo visions of the group as an immutable and archaic group of eternal outsiders and situates this group in a long history of stigmatization and exclusion. [...] In doing so, they run the risk of reifying, politicizing, and perhaps even intensifying the boundary between minority and majority identities.^v

Highlighting some elements of the internal differentiation of each group that are apparently so clearly opposed to each other is not to ignore the importance of "ethnicity" in and of itself. However, by moving away from thinking in fixed and pure identities, by questioning stigmatization, by advocating for more inclusive identities, we can frame reality in a different way.

"Transversal" Alliances?

The focus on interconnections and fluidity turns our attention toward the possibilities that surround the apparent certainties of our "sense of reality."^vi Those possibilities are not merely imagination. Many people and groups have realized the practical importance of envisioning beyond essentialized identities. As Shlomo Swirski and Yael Hasson put it, "a society is no stronger than its weakest group."^vii A document written for the "Negev Citizens' Conference" which addresses the centrality of transversal solidarity and some "alternative development plans,” relies on the idea of overcoming old dividing lines^viii.

Those experimental spaces facilitate the negotiation of an "alternative modernity" beyond the "topography of power," one that indicates something far less certain, far more fluid, far more difficult than the simplicities of essentialist ethnic exclusivity.

The transformational potential of activism and its transversal alliances emerges also from its capacity to extend the boundaries of the thinkable. Manifesting change rests also on our capacity to emancipate ourselves from the control of "common sense" truths over our understandings of reality.

Despite all the limitations, such alliances may show us that we can count on such experimental "possibilities,” and that we can count on the possibility, as Musil says, that “everything could be probably otherwise.”