ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TERRITORIAL PERCEPTIONS

Israeli Palestinians perceive Israeli national space as a hierarchical system of territories, associated with the different elements of thei r collective identity. They partition space into meaningful territoria l units on eight different hierarchical levels. The three most outstan ding levels of the hierarchy are those associated with their national, their Israeli citizenship, and their subethnic identities. Analysis o f their attachment to the different territorial units reveals that, al though they have an undoubted sense of Palestinian identity, they do n ot deny their israeli citizenship. In confronting the disparity betwee n these two identities, they seek to overcome the difficulties of comp lete adaptation to either of them by their attempt to establish for th emselves a status of limited freedom of choice and territorial autonom y.