Avi Shlaim:--'The War of the Israeli Historians'

excellent read, the small segment I quote from the beginning does not do it complete justice.. thanks to absynthe, for offering this up over at GNN's forum this morning where I first read it..

The War of the Israeli Historians
By Avi Shlaim
March 18, 2004

‘A nation’, said the French philosopher Ernest Renan, ‘is a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours.’ Throughout the ages, the use of myths about the past has been a potent instrument of forging a nation. It is interesting to observe how often the phrase ‘forging a nation’ is used because all nations are forgeries.

The Zionist movement, the forerunner of the State of Israel, was the second greatest success story of the twentieth century known to me. The first was the Beatles. Yet this movement was not unique in propagating a simplified and varnished version of the past in the process of promoting its nationalist agenda. On the contrary, like all nationalist versions of history, the standard Zionist version of the emergence of the State of Israel in 1948 was selective, simplistic, and self-serving.

This version of history served a dual function. First, it instilled a sense of nationhood in Jews from various countries of origin. Second, it enlisted international sympathy and support for the fledgling State of Israel. The one cause it emphatically did not serve is that of mutual understanding and reconciliation between Jews and the Arabs.

The last decade has witnessed slow and halting progress towards peace between Israel and its traditional enemies but it has also witnessed the emergence of a new kind of war, the war of conflicting narratives. This war is between the traditional Zionist historiography and the ‘new history’ which started to challenge the Zionist rendition of the birth of Israel and of the subsequent fifty years of conflict and confrontation. The work of the ‘new historians’ has had some impact on Israeli perceptions of the historical roots of the conflict. In the last three years, however, since the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada, the new history has come under renewed attack. But it may still have a part to play in facilitating progress on the road towards comprehensive peace in the Middle East.

The point of departure in the debate is the events that unfolded in 1948 and there are two very different narratives of what happened in that fateful year. Each side has its own distinctive version of events. The Palestinians regard the Israelis as foreign conquerors and themselves as the victims of the first Arab-Israeli war that they call al-Nakba or the catastrophe. Palestinian historiography reflects these perceptions. The Israelis, on the other hand, were the victors in the 1948 war which they call the War of Independence. Because they were the victors, among other reasons, they were able to propagate more effectively than their opponents their version of this fateful war. History, in a sense, is the propaganda of the victors.

--snip--

http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0006322.html

first time I have seen this site- cool

The more Israelis feel under threat, the more they retreat into simplistic and self-serving narratives of the past and the less tolerant they become of dissenting voices. But it is precisely in such times of crisis that dissenting voices are most vitally needed. Xenophobic and self-righteous national narratives only fuel and prolong this tragic conflict.

The xenophobic and self-righteous national narratives are in fact the worst enemy of the nation. In Israel as well as in the US.

And no truer words have ever been spoken than right down at the end of the thing where he said: 'As Bishop Tutu pointed out in the South African context, it is difficult to know what to forgive unless we know what happened. In the Middle East, as in South Africa, it is necessary to understand the past in order to go forward.'

Violet...