Remembering Palestine In 1948

"The war of 1948 in Palestine is a conflict whose history has been written primarily from the national point of view. This book asks what happens to these narratives when they arise out of the personal stories of those who were involved, stories that are still unfolding. Efrat Ben-Ze'ev, an Israeli anthropologist, examines the memories of those who participated in and were affected by the events of 1948, and how these events have been mythologized over time. This is a three-way conversation between Palestinian villagers, Jewish-Israeli veterans, and British policemen who were stationed in Palestine on the eve of the war. Each has his or her story to tell. Across the years, these witnesses relived their past in private within family circles and tightly knit groups, through gatherings and pilgrimages to sites of villages and battles, or through naming and storytelling. Rarely have their stories been revealed to an outsider. As Dr. Ben-Ze'ev discovers, these small-scale truths, which were collected from people at the dusk of their lives and previously overshadowed by nationalized histories, shed new light on the Palestinian-Israel conflict, as it was then and as it has become"--

For outside observers, current events in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank are seldom related to the collective memory of ordinary Palestinians. But for Palestinians themselves, the iniquities of the present are experienced as a continuous replay of the injustice of the past. By focusing on memories of the Nakba or "catastrophe" of 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed to create the state of Israel, the contributors to this volume illuminate the contemporary Palestinian experience and clarify the moral claims they make for justice and redress. The book's essays consider the ways in which Palestinians have remembered and organized themselves around the Nakba, a central trauma that continues to be refracted through Palestinian personal and collective memory. Analyzing oral histories and written narratives, poetry and cinema, personal testimony and courtroom evidence, the authors show how the continuing experience of violence, displacement, and occupation have transformed the pre-Nakba past and the land of Palestine into symbols of what has been and continues to be lost. Nakba brings to light the different ways in which Palestinians experienced and retain in memory the events of 1948. It is the first book to examine in detail how memories of Palestine's cataclysmic past are shaped by differences of class, gender, generation, and geographical location. In exploring the power of the past, the authors show the urgency of the question of memory for understanding the contested history of the present. Contributors: Lila Abu Lughod, Columbia University; Diana Keown Allan, Harvard University; Haim Bresheeth, University of East London; Rochelle Davis, Georgetown University; Samera Esmeir, University of California, Berkeley; Isabelle Humphries, University of Surrey; Lena Jayyusi, Zayed University; Laleh Khalili, SOAS, University of London; Omar Al-Qattan, filmmaker; Ahmad H. Sa'di, Ben-Gurion University; Rosemary Sayigh, Lebanon-based anthropologist; Susan Slyomovics, University of California, Los Angeles

The war of 1948 in Palestine is a conflict whose history has been written primarily from the national point of view. This book asks what happens when narratives of war arise out of personal stories of those who were involved, stories that are still unfolding. Efrat Ben-Ze'ev examines the memories of those who participated and were affected by the events of 1948, and how these events have been mythologized over time. This is a three-way conversation between Palestinian villagers, Jewish-Israeli veterans, and British policemen who were stationed in Palestine on the eve of the war. Each has his or her story to tell. These small-scale truths shed new light on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as it was then and as it has become.

For Palestinians, the 1948 massacre by Irgun and allied Stern Gang soldiers of more than 200 residents of Deir Yassin, a tiny village near Jerusalem, resonates sharply as a focal point of history. The resulting forced exile of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 -- over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today -- remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Remembering Deir Yassin brings together Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians, Jewish theologians and Palestinian priests, to reflect on the fifty year legacy of Deir Yassin.

The 1948 War is remembered in this special volume, including aspects of Israeli-Jewish memory and historical narratives of 1948 and representations of Israeli-Palestinian memory of that cataclysmic event and its consequences. The contributors map and analyze a range of perspectives of the 1948 War as represented in literature, historical museums, art, visual media, and landscape, as well as in competing official and societal narratives. They are examined especially against the backdrop of the Oslo process, which brought into relief tensions within and between both sides of the national divide concerning identity and legitimacy, justice, and righteousness of "self" and "other."

The book sets out to explore the history of Palestinian nationalism by asking if there were historical antecedents of this identity prior to the twentieth century, and whether this nationalism existed on every social level. It argues that such identity, or a kind of popular nationalism, did exist, aroused by the memory of the Crusades, the Holy Land, and the term Palestine.

Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation Series, 6 (History of International Relations Library, 27) Haifa Before & After 1948, Narratives of a Mixed City is a voyage that 14 scholars and experts undertake through the cultural, political and social history of Haifa before and after the 1948 War. This volume, co-authored by Palestinians and Israelis - Arabs and Jews, mostly Israeli citizens, covers Haifa's architecture and its social and cultural life during the Mandate period, the Arab-Israeli competition in the oil and soap industries, the history of Arab-Jewish inter-communal relations and cohabitation, commemoration in the German Colony of Haifa, the story of two houses that represent the narrative of Palestinians in Haifa and remembrances displayed through personal accounts of the cold winter in 1950. In this remarkable project, Jews and Palestinians, write together the history and memory of the city of Haifa. Rather than presenting incommensurable national narratives, they offer a fresh and inspiring alternative: each article is co-authored by Arabs and Jews, thus turning the art of research and writing into a bi-national practice. Addressing 1948 as a benchmark, is crucial particularly today in facilitating not only a new reading of the political story, but also offering political possibilities. Haifa Before & After 1948 is an inspirational book that deserves to be read by everyone who is interested in the history and memory of bi-national societies. Yehouda Shenhav, Professor of Sociology, Tel Aviv University Table of Contents Contributors Preface - Catherine Ciss -van den Muijsenbergh 1. Towards Mutual Historical Writing: An Introduction to the "Haifa Project" - Mahmoud Yazbak and Yfaat Weiss 2. A Tale of Two Houses - Mahmoud Yazbak and Yfaat Weiss 3. Arab-Jewish Architectural Partnership in Haifa during the Mandate Period: Qaraman and Gerstel Meet on the "Seam Line" - Waleed Karkabi and Adi Roitenberg 4. Arabs and Jews, Leisure and Gender, in Haifa's Public Spaces - Manar Hasan and Ami Ayalon 5. Commodities and Power: Edible Oil and Soap in the History of Arab-Jewish Haifa - Mustafa Abbasi and David De Vries 6. Historicizing Climate: Haifawis and Haifo'im Remembering the Winter of 1950 -Dan Rabinowitz and Johnny Mansour 7. "Eraser" and "Anti-Eraser" - Commemoration and Marginalization on the Main Street of the German Colony: The Haifa City Museum and Caf Fattush - Salman Natour and Avner Giladi 8. Haifa Umm al-Gharib: Historical Notes and Memory of Inter-Communal Relations - Regev Nathansohn and Abbas Shiblak Bibliography Index About the Editors Mahmoud Yazbak is a Professor of Palestinian History, Head of the Department of Middle Eastern History at the University of Haifa. He served as the Chair of Adalah (2008-2011), and headed MEISAI (Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Association in Israel, 2008-2011). He publishes frequently on social history and issues concerning the modern Palestinian society. Yfaat Weiss is a Professor at the department of History of the Jewish people and is the head of School of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The scope of her publication covers German and Central European History, and Jewish and Israeli History.

Palestine: Memories of 1948 brings together the stories of 19 survivors, weaving their individual testimonies into a compelling narrative which retraces the effects of this historic cataclysm and explores different strategies for survival and ways that they continue to make their presence felt. It is a moving testimony to survival and hope.