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While great strides have been made in scholarship on Palestinian citizens of Israel, less attention has been paid to their positionality within broader Arab cultural and political formations. This paper seeks to address this gap through a close reading of the Seventh World Youth Festival, held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from July 26 to August 6, 1968. This cultural festival, which brought together over 20,000 leftist activists from around the world, provided a rare opportunity for Palestinian members of the Israeli communist Rakah delegation, including famed Palestinian poets Mahmud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, to meet face-to-face with some of the roughly 500 Arabs in attendance. During the festival many Arab delegates eagerly sought out Darwish and Qasim, who were preceded by their reputation as “resistance poets,” but others saw them as violating the Arab boycott of Israel by “accepting” that country’s citizenship. Within this complex political environment, I argue that Palestinian festival participants from the shatat (exile) played a key role in helping to demystify the Palestinian citizens of Israel to a wider Arab audience. Through a discursive analysis of contemporary press reports, memoirs, literary works and interviews with participants, I show how these Palestinians served as a bridge between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the wider Arab world. By examining these dynamics, this paper sheds light on the discursive genealogy of a political vocabulary that came to include more fully the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Maha Nassar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006, where she specialized in modern Middle Eastern history. Her articles have appeared in Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Journal of Palestine Studies and Arab Studies Journal. She is currently working on a monograph titled, Resisting Isolation: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World. DR. MAHA NASSARASST PROFESSORSCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN & NORTH AFRICAN STUDIESUNIVERSITY OF ARIZONAMENAS Colloquium SeriesFriday, April 17, 20153pm in Marshall 490 Video of the talkClick to return to main Colloquium page