After scores of productions throughout Israel and Europe, “Masked,” a fictional play about three Palestinian Arab brothers — divided by political ideology and allegiances during the first Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago — is arriving this week in New York City.

Penned in 1990 by a Jewish Israeli, Ilan Hatsor, then a student-playwright, “Masked” is a traditional Greek tragedy, transpiring over several hours in a West Bank butcher shop. Like the controversial New York production of “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” it unfolds amid a violent intifada, and its sympathies lie with the Palestinian Arabs it depicts. Yet Mr. Hatsor’s play has not sparked the kind of heated debate that preceded the local premiere of “My Name is Rachel Corrie.”

Last year, the New York Theatre Workshop indefinitely postponed its planned production of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” following an onslaught of criticism that it was anti-Semitic agitprop masquerading as art. Despite threats of a boycott, the biographical play, whose title character is a young American killed by an Israeli bulldozer while attempting to stop the army from razing a house in Gaza, opened several months later at the Minetta Lane Theatre — closing last December after a two-month run.

The run-up to “Masked” has been much quieter. After organizing a series of staged readings last fall, director Ami Dayan secured an open-ended “Masked” run at DR2, an off-Broadway performance space of veteran theater producer Daryl Roth.

Opening in previews Friday, the play depicts the rising tensions between Daoud, a 30-year-old husband and father working in a Tel Aviv restaurant, and his two younger brothers. There’s the 20-something Na’im, a senior member of an unnamed Palestinian militant group, and the teenage Khalid, a recent recruit of that group.

When Na’im informs his brothers that Daoud, a suspected Israeli informant, is a marked man, Khalid — the play’s one-man Greek chorus, of sorts — attempts to broker a solution “without blood.” Such a solution ultimately eludes this familial dispute, as it has eluded those seeking a bloodless end to the larger regional conflicts.

Mr. Dayan, an Israeli-American, said he was motivated to import “Masked” stateside by Hamas’s surprise victory against its rival Fatah in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections . Seeing the play as emblematic of that factional struggle weakening bonds in families and among peoples, he transported “Masked” to his adopted hometown of Boulder, Colo.

Mr. Dayan, a cousin of the late Israeli military leader, Moshe Dayan, said he was surprised by the audience reception in Boulder. “It’s a place where everyone is protected, where people do yoga — and this play landed them in the reality of the conflict,” he said. “Every night, they would wait after the play. They would ask me, ‘What can be done? Is there any solution? Are they ready for peace?’ I told them that it was important to talk, that it was important to look at the issue, but didn’t want to come across as having answers. I don’t have any.”

In New York, “Masked” theatergoers will have an outlet for the questions that the script, and performances provoke. A series of panel discussions on topics such as “Where are the Women?” and “Creating Sustainable Peace” will follow several performances each week. Speakers include Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders, journalists, and representatives from organizations working to foster dialogue between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

While the dialogue-heavy “Masked” depicts the Israel Defense Force as employing heavy-handed tactics to locate Palestinian Arab militants, Mr. Dayan insists the play reserves judgment on matters of ideology, strategy, and geographical borders. “As far as New York, I’ve had some people here say they think the play’s going to be used to spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but I don’t believe it,” he said. “I think art will prevail here.”

As a result Mr. Dayan said he does not expect to encounter the kind of delays or boycotts that plagued “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” whose script was constructed from diary entries and e-mail messages of its activist title-character.

“This is not a manifesto,” the writer, Mr. Hatsor, told The New York Sun. “When you set out to deliver a political message, you miss out on good theater, which has the power to show the enemy — not just as monsters, but as human beings, with human dilemmas, who are part of a family.”

Mr. Hatsor said the prospect of a Middle East peace in the early ’90s enabled him to write “Masked.” These days — with such prospects ever-more bleak — he turns out comedies instead. “When reality gives you so much tragedy, on both sides, you can’t compete,” he said. “I think you can write tragedy only when there is hope.”

Previews begin July 20. Opens August 2 (103 E. 15th St. at Union Square East, 212- 375-1110).