- Remembering Palestine in 1948: Beyond National Narratives
The war of 1948 in Palestine was a formative [End Page 682] experience for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, but in very different ways. The Jewish side gained an independent state at the expense of the Palestinians, who became homeless and stateless. The persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the following decades intensified the Palestinian loss. The colonialist Israeli side benefits from the Palestinian loss, while the latter continue to suffer from the repercussions of the Nakbah and the later catastrophes, which befell the stateless Palestinians in their historical homeland and in the diaspora. Palestinian memories of 1948 war are an open wound, particularly for the refugees, who lost their land, homes, and pride.
The author of Remembering Palestine in 1948 decided to explore the memories of Jews and Palestinians, not for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of what happened in the war of 1948, but rather in order to shed new light on the current realities of the conflict. As the author states in the introduction, memory and micro-history are tools for offering complementary and alternative narratives to the overarching national ones (p. 1).
Nowadays, many observers believe that an independent state within the Oslo framework is not likely to succeed. The fading away of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reaffirms the importance of understanding the formative events of 1948. Hence, it is not surprising that new books on both sides of the divide continue to be published, both in English and in Arabic and Hebrew.1 However, Ben-Ze'ev's book is unique in its attempt to voice memories and current interpretations of 1948 from different sides of the divide. It is important that this book be available for Israeli and Arab readers in their mother tongues.
In Remembering Palestine, the author attempts to put together memories of representatives of the three major parties involved in the war of 1948: Palestinian Arab villagers, Jewish Israeli veterans, and British policemen who were stationed in Palestine in 1945- 1948. Her attempt to include in one book three different perceptions of the eventful war of 1948 is an ambitious endeavor. Some readers, particularly students of history, would expect the narratives to meet or compete, as in the field of historical narratives of the conflict. However, this does not occur. Remembering Palestine aims at representing people's perceptions rather than the "true" facts of what happened in 1948 and beyond.2
The first three chapters provide the historical context for the following "memories-based" six chapters. In Chapters 4-9, the focus is on social remembrance of the 1948 events in Palestine — first Palestinian, then Israeli, and finally British. Quantitatively, there is a fair representation for the Palestinian side and underrepresentation of the British. However, since the author does not suggest a national or even collective representation of the three parties, but rather individual representatives, the book partially succeeds in its endeavor. The Jewish Israeli side is represented by the veteran fighters of a Palmach unit, while the Palestinian is represented mainly by civilians from villages of the Mount Carmel.
Among scholars, most of the debates today are not about what happened in 1948 and after, but rather about the interpretations of intentions. Did the Israeli leadership plan the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians or launch a successful defensive war in which the Palestinians lost their homeland?3 Unlike national historians and other scholars from both sides of the divide, Ben Ze'ev tries to show the complexity of the historical realities by allowing conflicting memories and interpretations from all sides [End Page 683] to live together, separately. Unlike the historian, the anthropologist limits the endeavor to listening to the peoples' truth rather than searching to reconstruct the historical truth.
Adel Manna, a Palestinian historian, is writing a book on The Survival of the Palestinians in Israel 1948-1956. He is co-author with Motti Golani of Two Sides of the Coin, Independence and Nakbah: Two...