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❖ 8 ❖ THE BRIDGING NARRATIVE CONCEPT ILAN PAPPE Bridging narratives appear mainly in the deconstruction of ¤ctional plots where they are usually intercalated chapters, short pieces connecting the socalled plot chapters. In classical Greek plays they are the pieces that the omniscient narrator introduces to form bridges between acts in the drama, thus leading the audience through the dialogues and events onstage. Some historians also assume this role of providing bridging narratives; for example, in Castel’s book, Tom Taylor’s Civil War, the historian produces his own dramatic bridging narrative, providing an overview of the ¤ghting that gives readers invaluable context for Taylor’s eyewitness reports.1 Insights of this type are relevant for the work of historical construction. The concept of the bridging narrative suggested here is expanded beyond its literary or dramatic applications and refers not only to the historian’s presence in the emplotment of the historical narrative but also calls for a more blunt intrusion into the orientation of the reconstruction.2 The historian’s navigations through the plots of the past are motivated by the wish to change the events of the present. Besides requiring the historian’s “presence,” it calls for a relativist perspective on historiography, a critical approach to hegemonic ideologies, and a good sense of historiographical contexualism. The absence of clear conceptualization requires a working de¤nition for the bridging narrative concept, a de¤nition that can serve not only for the case study of the Palestine question but also for historiographical efforts within nations at war or societies torn by historical con®icts in the contemporary world. A bridging narrative can be de¤ned as a conscious historiographical effort that is undertaken by historians in societies wrought with long internal and external con®icts in order to connect con®icting narratives and historiographies. A bridging narrative is a historiographical enterprise that is intrinsic to the more general reconciliation effort. If we limit this de¤nition to intra-national con®icts, the bridge is built by historians on each side of the divide. It is initiated by historians who belong to the stronger party and are willing to recognize the other side’s narrative and at the same time adopt a more critical approach toward their own. I offer several imperatives or preconditions that should underlie the project of developing a bridging narrative. The ¤rst and obvious precondition for such a historiographical approach is a political atmosphere conducive to and open for any act of reconciliation. As noted, the process is initiated by the stronger party in a given balance of power, and the process becomes fruitful if it is reciprocated by the other, weaker side. This process began in Israel with the emergence of what became known as the “new history,” professional historiography written by a group of several Israeli historians in the late 1980s whose portrayal of the 1948 war challenged the of¤cial Zionist version.3 The gist of this effort—the willingness to assess their country’s past with a critical eye—led to a rejection of the principal claims of mainstream Israeli historians and a legitimization of the past claims of Palestinian historians. This new orientation narrowed the gap between the opposing national narratives of the con®ict’s history. The self-criticism was not limited to the 1948 war but was also used in new research into both earlier and later periods. The new history expanded into an intellectual movement that I termed the “post-Zionist” scholarship of Israel, a trend that developed in Israel in the 1990s but was driven by a generation of academics who had spent long periods as advanced students outside Israel.4 Most of these academics were social scientists who became interested in their local history, having experienced traumatic events such as the 1973 war, the political earthquake of 1977, the peace with Egypt, and the controversial Lebanon war. The new historians at ¤rst denied that they were affected by these or other political events. They adamantly contended that only new evidence had led them to develop their views, and they refused to recognize any impact of politics or ideology on their works. The more convinced among them attributed their views almost entirely to the declassi¤cation of Israeli archives. The documents made available to them were presented as the only true narrative of past events. This true narrative legitimized some claims made by Palestinian historiography and rejected others. The new history on a certain level was received coldly and unenthusiastically...

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