by Roi Ben Yehuda
Over at Tablet, Joseph Dana writes an important piece on Israel’s problematic relationship with the Nakba narrative (the expulsion/dislocation of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel) and the imperative of integrating this narrative into Israel’s public discourse. He concludes:
Including the Nakba in Israeli public discourse, newspapers, and textbooks hardly means the unqualified embrace of one version of history over another. But open discussion of competing narratives with reference to the historical record is clearly a precondition for any wider kind of social and political understanding between Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel and between Israelis and Palestinians. Repressive attempts to criminalize narratives of the Nakba—however partial or wrong-headed its opponents may believe those narratives to be—block any possibility of mutual understanding and weaken critical discourse inside Zionist circles and within Israeli society as a whole. The most likely victim of such misguided attempts to shore up Zionism through attacks on free speech and the historical record is Zionism itself.
In his article Dana states that Israel’s educational system began to grapple with the Nakba narrative only as recently as 2009. This is not entirely true. Back in 1964, a novella by the name of ‘Khirbet Khizeh’, a first-person account of the expulsion of an Arab village by the IDF, was inserted into the high school curriculum in Israel. The book was written and published in 1949 by S. Yizhar, who based his story on his own experience. Last I checked, the book still remains as an optional choice for the matriculation exam.
Also, in 1999, during Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s tenure, the Education Ministry (under the direction of Yossi Sarid) introduced a textbook called “The 20th Century” written by Eyal Naveh of Tel Aviv University. The textbook, designed for Jewish Israeli ninth-graders, mentioned the Nakba (under the heading “alternative account” of the 1948 events) and asked its readers to step into the shoes of the Palestinians in question. Unfortunately, during the second Intifada the book was removed from the curriculum.
Finally, in their on-going 2009-2010 report on the standards of Israeli textbooks, IMPACT-SE (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) concluded that although the term “Nakba” is rarely used in Israeli text-books, the hardships of the Palestinians refugees was frequently mentioned. The study did find a 2001 high-school text book (one out of 23 examined), entitled “The Era of Fear and Hope,” (1870-1970), which states:
“Because of the military defeat and the refugee problem, the Arabs refer to the 1948 war, which we call the War of Independence – as “El Nakba,” which in Arabic means: the catastrophe.”
In the same book, the students are also asked:
“The War of Independence is called different names that express a different point of view on the war: The War of Independence [...], El Nakba. Explain the meaning of every name. [...] Explain the different points of view that led to giving each of these names.”
Having said that, I believe that Dana’s larger point remains valid: Israel has yet to make meaningful efforts to officially integrate the full history – warts and all – of 1948. The longer it waits, the more obstacles its erects, the more difficulty it will encounter in the future.
Of course there are those who argue that integrating emotionally charged and exclusive narratives is unrealistic and even undesirable. For example, in a recent article entitled “Two Narratives for Two People,” published by The Forward, Hussein Ibish writes:
Palestinian and Israeli national narratives both contain elements of the truth but they are tendentious and dismiss crucial and undeniable, but inconvenient, historical facts that are crucial to the other party’s identity. It is impossible, in the foreseeable future, for these narratives to be reconciled. Jewish Israelis will not become Palestinian nationalists, and Palestinians will not become Zionists.
Be that as it may, research done on Israeli collective memory has yielded some surprising results in this regard. In a 2008 study on collective memory, conducted by Tel-Aviv university’s Rafi Nets-Zehngut and Daniel Bar-Tal, 47% of Jewish-Israelis said they believed that an expulsion of Palestinians had taken place in 1948. In contrast 41% said no expulsion had taken place. Remarkably, 46% of the respondents also said that both Israelis and Palestinians bear equal responsibility for the outbreak and continuation of the conflict.
It seems that despite all obstacles – the seemingly exclusive nature of these narratives, lack of governmental support, a hostile environment of endless conflict – almost a majority of Jewish Israelis subscribe to a critical account of their own foundation myth. That’s pretty incredible and further shows that these narratives are not zero-sum constructs.
However, we shouldn’t be overly sanguine. Bar-Tal reminds us that notwithstanding these findings, many Israeli-Jews still subscribe to a dualistic collective narrative in which Israel is portrayed as a heroic-victim and the Palestinians as villainous-aggressors. Bar-Tal explains that “holding such a Zionist narrative serves as an obstacle to peace since it promotes negative emotions, mistrust, de-legitimization and negative stereotypes of Arabs and Palestinians.” Given Israel’s current ultra-nationalist milieu, including it’s assault on the “N” word, such circumspection shouldn’t be easily dismissed.
No doubt injecting nuance and complexity into a self-serving historical narrative is difficult work. All the more so since the original conflict is still festering. While most accounts of intervention tend to favor a top-down approach (e.g. curriculum reform), we would also benefit from exploring and implementing creative strategies for narrative sharing that are not contingent on the wisdom and courage of the government. Instructive examples abound in countries that have overcome serious inter-group conflicts (e.g. South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ireland, Germany, USA, Indonesia, etc.) but, as Michael Ende once wrote, that’s another story, and shall be told another time.
Roi is an Israeli writer based in New York City, with degrees from New School University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is currently a graduate student at Columbia University and a PhD student at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. This post first appeared on Roi’s blog, and is re-posted here with the author’s permission.
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David
as has been shown many times before in history, when the wounds have healed enough, there will be greater empathy.
Harris
Why don’t you start with teaching about the Deir Yassin massacre? This happened in April 1947 before the May war. There are some that feel that this event led to the Arabs entrance to save the Palestinians. Having read Khirbet Khizeh the thing that stood out was the love for the horse over concern for the people. It really does not cover the subject.
Harris
Sorry I had a typo it is April 1948
max
Harris, This BBC clip may provide you a different perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Ata-hY9WQ
Harris
Max
The point is that the history need to be told. It all did not start in May 1948. Now both sides lie, so what ! People died at Deir Yassin. Read this, which was not mentioned in the article but the author was.
http://www.ibishblog.com/article/2011/05/28/interview_saloncom_what_palestinian_right_return_anyway
Vickie
All in all, I don’t think Israel can continue to ethnically cleanse the area of Arabs AND have an honest narrative (that is, call what they did to the Palestinians what it is in plain terms: genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid).
For instance, a rapist can never truly appreciate the gravity of his/her crime against the victim, even if he accepts responsibility.
Nor can a sociopath, and I tend to think of Israel as just that. An entity incapable of seeing the needs of anybody else. Israel can do what it does because the narrative of victimhood supports it. Change that narrative to one of agency, one of action, one of aggression and penetrating violence–it devastates the legitimacy of the ideology. Literally, the whole framework of Israel will come tumbling down if it were to admit its vile beginnings.
Then again, maybe not…if Israel is the sociopath she has proven to be in the past, acknowledging its wrong doings will ultimately be a source of strength, of power. Effectively, that is how Israel remains powerful: by dominating the discourse, defining its constraints, and then perverting reality,
Just saying…
Adam Wykle
Please don’t quote Hussein Ibish, this relatively unknown person is one of the biggest buffoons in American Arab history who already has struck a peace deal with Israelis. His radical views are completely out of touch with Palestinians and it should be noted that he is a Senior Fellow of the probably now defunct “American Task Force on Palestine” a non profit non-relevant organization that was charged with embezzling donors.
abban aziz
Move on. This “Nakba” is designed to continue to the conflict. I don’t see Israel bombing Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Egypt/Libya because of their “Nakba.”
And unlike the Palestinians, who fled in a war they started, the Jews were expelled simply because they were Jews. And many more Jews were massacred than Arab.
And Jews lived in refugee camps just like the Palestinians but they did not receive aid from the UN.
Time to move on. If we want to talk about history, Palestinians need to be taught about the terrorism and crimes their leadership has done. Arafat’s relationship with genocidal maniacs like Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin, or the Mufti’s relationship with Hitler. Or the Soviet Union’s bankrolling PLO terrorism. Or the PLO selling UN aid on the black market.
etc…etc…
deir yassin…come’on. Get over it.
abban aziz
stop censoring my comments Dana. I’m not violating any rules here.
You talk about censorship in Israel yet you censor criticism of Palestinians. Wow, talk about hypocrisy!
Joseph Dana
I do not moderate the comments on this page Abban Aziz. I can only control the comments on my channel. Given your attacking tone in general, I will seriously consider banning you from my channel. This is a place of discussion shared by all who want to engage on a with respect. When the respect goes, which is basically where you are, then comments are removed at least from my channel. Consider taking a brisk walk before commenting here. It might help.
max
Harris, based on what we wrote here, there’s no fundamental gap between our views. I’m all for a more comprehensive study of history, with considerations – and debates – of painful facts. I’m against the study in history classes of the so called Nakba as it’s presented today, as it’s not history (see Abbas’ article in NYT, reversing cause and effect); it can be studied in Folklore classes.
The fact is that Israeli pupils have been exposed, via books and schooling material, to different perspectives for many years. More can and arguably should be done; in order to be constructive, it must be a 2-sided effort.
abban aziz
Allow my comments and prove to others of this “attacking tone” (buzzwords much?)
I am not engaging in personal attacks or attacking you personally. Censorship works both ways no?
MSTONE
“If we want to talk about history, Palestinians need to be taught about the terrorism and crimes their leadership has done.”
Israel’s past leaders, of course, having no history of terrorism at all, right?
abban aziz
thank you for posting my comment.
abban aziz
“Israel’s past leaders, of course, having no history of terrorism at all, right?”
There is a difference between terrorism and resistance. The Zionist militants, specifically the Etzel, were fighting tyranny and thus their goals were righteous.
Any true militant will drop their weapons when their reasonable goals are met. In this case, the Zionists wanted a state. They used diplomatic methods, they used all the resources they had. They suffered under discriminatory British occupation (banned from owning weapons, banned from Jerusalem, etc.)
And even in the background of the holocaust, as the British blockaded from Palestine and turned back dozens of ships loaded with Jewish refugees, the Zionist fighters remained strong and adament.
In comparison, the PLO was/is merely a proxy terrorism organization bent on the complete destruction of Israel. Their leadership had no desire for a Palestinian state. Their leadership were/gangsters. They made billions, I mean billions – smuggling weapons, drugs, donations from the Soviet Union and the Arab states. Sparking civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon. Hijacking airplanes, torching embassies, diplomats, pretty much causing international mayhem.
So, no – comparing Israeli independence fighters to Palestinian terrorists is like comparing American patriot fighters who resisted British occupation to Al Qaeda/Taliban terrorists.
Dannecker
israelis should be talking more about the Naqba and less over the exaggerated holocaust
vickie
I think you confuse your position as violator and transgressor, with victim.
No rational person denies that Jewish people were Victims of extreme racism and genocide.
Why is it so hard for Israelis to admit that they are aggressors who perpetrate heinous acts on a civilian population? All in the name of what: God, country?
Well, admitting that would be tantamount to denying ones identity as a perpetual victim. At a certain point, the Jewish settlers in Palestine became Israelis who wanted nothing more than to ethnically cleanse the area. The victim became the aggressor. And they became citizens of a racist regime that seeks to confiscate land from the indigenous population. And religion ended up being a good way to manipulate the masses. Forget that the Palestinian Arabs living in Palestine were probably genetically closer to the Jewish residents of antiquity than the European refugees coming at the turn of century were. As the religion changed, so did the people, for religion was a very fluid thing at one time.
Ultimately, like Tarquin to its Lucrece, that bride was too beautiful to resist, huh?! Zionists could do nothing less than rape her.
Richard Witty
The most rational way to form one’s understanding of history is to calmly incorporate the global events and forces, AND the local events and forces, AND from multiple perspectives.
To understand.
But, history isn’t usually presented as an effort to understand, so much as an effort to interpret, and once an ideology is selected, to advocate for and then usually to distort, and then later to either habitually or opportunistically distort.
The right does it. The left does it. The religious do it. The secular does it. Israelis do it. Idealists do it. Palestinians do it.
The distinction between learning for the purpose of understanding, and learning for the purpose of gathering weapons is glued by “self-talk”.
(“Self-talk” is what we tell ourselves individually, our rationalization process. And, it is what we tell our friends, how we form friendships that don’t disturb our selected ideology).
Unity and movement vs scholarship.
Knowledge as a means to listen to the other, vs knowledge as a weapon.
Richard Witty
If the nakba is presented as an inquiry into Palestinians experience, rather than as “the whole truth”, then it should be incorporated into Israeli historical study.
It is inevitable that in the course of individuals’ development that they will be told a story when young, that story will be discovered to be less than perfectly true, and that resentment will occur at “being lied to”.
Its not the reality though. The reality is that young children must be told some description, and one that leaves young children respecting their parents.
In the US, it is similar to the phenomena of similar movements of New History, in which we weren’t told of tensions with an “official myth” of US settlement and formation. So, when Howard Zinn published “A People’s History of the United States”, it shook people up.
Now, all Americans are taught (at some point in their education) that “manifest destiny” was both glowing and reprehensible. And, because Indians comprise 1% of the current US population, and most have never even met someone that they know is an Indian, those facts have literally NO current political significance.
If 50% of the population of the US were Indians, and they were actively asserting their equal and some restoration of their “original” rights (implying displacement of the great-great-great-great grandchildren of settlers), it would be a significant question.
max
@Vickie,
Your comment confuses facts with personal prejudice – it’s a “narrative” based on fiction. I’ll use as an example the only part that’s somehow related to a fact: “Forget that the Palestinian Arabs living in Palestine were probably genetically closer to the Jewish residents of antiquity than the European refugees coming at the turn of century were”
What’s “probably”? It “probably” means that you read/heard something somewhere but never made the effort of finding out. Research does exist and doesn’t fit your claim.
Vickie
Touch a nerve?
It’s not narrative…synthesis. And aren’t
Anyway…there are several journal articles that support my claim. I am not a biochemist, so I cannot run the tests myself. Stop attacking the person…it’s bad form.