The creation of Israel and the subsequent Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories has profoundly diminished Palestinians’ liberties and senses of agency. For many Palestinian males in particular, this transition to subjugation by Israel after serving as leaders and patriarchs in their communities for generations is particularly salient. Michel Khleifi’s 1987 film Wedding in Galilee portrays Palestinian masculinity and structures of male power as disintegrating under the Israeli occupation. The film suggests that Israeli seizure of power over Palestinian land and people has undermined the traditional Palestinian conceptions of masculinity which are rooted in authority over the land and the community. Although male figures in Wedding in Galilee attempt to find new fields in which to base their construction of masculinity, most …show more content…
The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories caused the Israeli military to replace community patriarchs as the ultimate figures of authority, thereby stripping Palestinian men of their positions of honor and respect and dismantling their traditional basis for masculinity. We can see the importance of land ownership in masculinity manifested in Palestinian nationalism. In her book, Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective, author Anna Ball states, “the desiring subject of Palestinian nationalism is certainly male, seeking to affirm his territorial position as master of the land” (75). The fact that Palestinian nationalism is typified as male and focused on control of the land, rather than unity of a group of people demonstrates the importance of land ownership in the Palestinian sense of national male identity. Through seizing control of the land in the occupation, the Israeli government and military is emasculating Palestinian