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Who are the Israeli Arabs? Are they Israeli, Arab, or both? Of what do they dream and believe? What are their hopes? What does it mean to be an Arab living in the Jewish state, within the historical context of the bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Disengagement Plan, against a backdrop of Shaheeds and suicide bombers? In the year 2001, Smadar Bakovic, an Israeli Jew conversant in Arabic and familiar with the mores of Arabic culture, set out to answer these questions. During the course of several years, following the Second Intifada, she spent countless days in Arab villages listening to Israeli Arab men, women, and children express their innermost feelings. She recorded their ideas and beliefs about Israel, Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the global war against terror, and their views on their rights and responsibilities as Israeli citizens. Tall Shadows deals with major issues for this forgotten minority, including the relationship between Israeli Arabs and the Jewish State, the relationship between Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians, the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and issues of "split identity," and the importance of Islam in Arab-Israeli culture. Tall Shadows introduces the reader to the lives of a traditional, religious, and cultured people who have been labeled a "Fifth Column" by numerous Israelis and "Zionist traitors" by many Palestinians around the world. It gives a platform to a society often caught between Israel and Palestine, Israelis and Palestinians, Judaism and Islam, a voice to a people previously silent, unable, unwilling, and perhaps afraid to speak out.
