Postcolonial historians tend to overemphasis the impact of colonial rule on people’s identity, that is, the tendency to see colonial power as the central point from which identity emanates. On the other hand, the excessive insistence in nationalist historiographies on the continuity of a coherent national identity resistible to the colonial influence paradoxically downplays the capacity of the colonial system to transform people’s identity and consciousness. It is certainly the case of Palestinians citizens of Israel under the Military Government, an unmistakably colonial structure, which was, on the one hand, a remarkably short period, and on the other, a formative one. The question then becomes how do we discuss the contours of Palestinian identity during this period without sinking into the cult of mystifying colonial impact or an essentialized national identity? Perhaps one way of looking at identity in this context is to see it as practice, that is, a tactical way of survival, a strategic identity captured in a game that involves affirmation and rejection, collaboration and resistance. This allows us to see how the MG serves as a theatre, a spatial stage in which multiple identities are practiced through invisible, yet elaborate, forms of agency. That is to see how Palestinians under the MG managed to create an alternative space of identity- a third space, an in-between position of practice, negotiation and intimacy- where they could insert, mix, and celebrate their social and cultural practices into an imposed Israeli identity. Studies devoted to the MG period are primarily concerned with the hegemonic structures of the state and its policies towards the Palestinian minority, while less attention is paid to the people themselves, their intellectual life and cultural activity. Drawing on a wide range of primary resources from the period in question, notably local Arabic press, literary works, diaries, biographies, wedding songs, Friday ceremonies and oral interviews, I aim to show how the new space of domination created by the MG, the political and military demarcation of the border and the new spatial arrangement of social life, influenced the ways in which Palestinians in Israel came to practice their identity and perceive themselves in relation to the new state of Israel and the other Palestinians. I am especially interested in aspects of cultural intimacy, that is, those internal aspects of identity that provide people with defiant confidence in the face of external confusion and embarrassment.