Sleeping with the ‘Enemy’: Mixed Marriages in the Israeli Media

ABSTRACT In this article, I analyze how the mainstream media in Israel, increasingly shaped by social media, constructs a story about a mixed marriage between an Israeli woman, who was raised as Jewish and had converted to Islam, and a Israeli Muslim-Arab man. Referring to 57 items published mainly in August 2014 (during the Third Gaza War), a “human rights,” a “Romeo and Juliette,” and an “assimilation” discourses are identified. Mixedness appears as part of the democratization of Israel in the first and second discourses; in the third one, mixedness appears as a threat to the Jewish state. The growing impact of the new media is also referred to.