The fear of others: The Palestinian and Israeli literature model

Literature has always manifested the tenor of different times. Literary works portray the psychological, social, political, and humanistic concerns of the past and present, and they speculate about the future, as well. This article studies fear in the Palestinian and Israeli literary works. We particularly focus on aspects, forms and levels of fear in such works. The article raises and tries to provide answers to questions about the ways fear affects writers: What stirs fear in the writers? Does trepidation determine the writer’s choices? Does it have negative/positive effects on the product? Is the writer afraid of the occupier, politics, society, customs, collective norms or traditions? How do writers read the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis? Do writers’ assumptions and perceptions contribute to inflaming or extinguishing the long-lasting conflict? Does fear affect literary creativity? I surveyed selected works from the Palestinian modern literature and its Israeli counterpart, focusing on the novel. I then studied the element of fear in these works using the analytical descriptive approach, which has proven to be effective in this type of studies, together with the psychological approach to the study of literature. The analysis suggested that the literary works by the two parties to the conflict do not distinctly reduce the reader’s fear; rather they do fuel the already-existing fear. Since literature is a mirror of life, the inherent prejudices against the other-the Palestinian against Israeli and vice versa-have made writers incorporate fear in their works