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This paper offers a new perspective on everyday life in an ethno-nationally mixed vertical urban setting. It focuses on the cultivation of a shared residential identity that, seemingly, can overcome the binational divide. Drawing on interviews with Jewish and Arab residents in a new middle-class high-rise complex (HRC) in Haifa, Israel, we illustrate that Arabs and Jews share many reasons for living in the HRC, reflecting similarities between these populations that are often ignored. Moreover, the physical form of the complex – including its newness and its modern, universal design – makes it a relatively neutral space free from a particular ethno-national or religious identity. Finally, while the relevant literature largely assumes that ‘anonymity’ in high-rises is a negative force, the sense of privacy it affords allows residents to manage social proximity and cultivate a philosophy of ‘live and let live’.

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In popular discourses on Israel / Palestine labels such as 'Jew' and 'Arab', 'settler' and 'indigenous', or 'white' and 'non-white' are often applied as though they are mutually exclusive. Western mainstream media and political discourses tend to frame the politics of this space in terms of cohesive, and fundamentally different religious, racial, and ethno-national blocs. Some Western commentators have essentialized these divisions in the context of a mythical "clash of civilizations" between the enlightened 'Judeo-Christian West' and the irrational Islamic world (e.g., Frankenberg, 2005). Yet, such bifurcated discourses are not exclusive to mainstream discussion. Indeed, a growing number of critical scholars and activists are arguing that the conflict in Israel / Palestine is, as much as in the Americas, Oceania, or Africa, an instance of colonisation by fundamentally alien white Europeans (the Jewish-Israelis) of the non-white, colonised, indigenous Arab people of Palestine (e.g., Wolfe, 2006;Abu-Laban and Bakan, 2008). Similar narratives have informed the positions of the global BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and anti-normalization movements, which campaign against commerce and engagement with Israeli institutions.