The “Nakba Narrative”
This is a guest post by Ben Cohen of Z Word
Here is the Palestinian writer and literary critic Hassan Khader on the “Nakba Narrative.”
Despite the fact that the signed agreements shook the foundations of accepted Palestinian norms and expectations, the PLO did not fail to develop rhetoric that emphasized the extent of its continued commitment to, and perhaps even conformity with, the traditional Narrative, despite obvious contradictions.
He goes on to say:
There is a unique set of dynamics to this ring of contradiction, most which involve attempts to compensate for secretly deviating from the Narrative by engaging in more eloquent rhetoric that invokes the themes of the constants, the conjuring of memory and the supposed optimism of the will. All these compensatory gestures are effective only in preventing any accumulation of political wisdom, and lead us time and again to the same errors. Therefore, the Palestinians continuously return to square one, as if the sixty years of Nakba and a hundred years of conflict in and over Palestine, could not yield a moment of reflection or a single lesson learned.
Khader’s entire piece, thoughtfully translated by the American Task Force on Palestine, can be read here.
This is not the first time that Khader has characterized the Nakba as a form of ideological cage. An article he wrote for Al Ahram in 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Israel, offered the following observation:
Palestine, in reality, was never a paradise; nor was it lost. It was a remote part of the Ottoman Empire, inhabited by poor peasant-farmers. The West Bank and Gaza, which were in and of Palestine, possessed the constituent elements for the perpetuity of Palestinian existence that might have stemmed the deterioration resulting from the annihilation of the larger entity.
However, for the idea of nakba to be complete, the idea of entity could not exist. Consequently, ‘refugee’ became the catchword for identity, which in turn required ignoring the existence of approximately 180,000 Palestinians who remained in that portion of Palestine that was lost. Their continued presence in their country was not viewed as proof of the impossibility of uprooting a people from their land, or as proof of their attachment to their land. Rather it was viewed as cause for embarrassment due to the certain contamination engendered by their daily contact with the usurpers of the land.
Those who read the entire piece will note that Khader is hardly generous when it comes to Zionist readings of Middle Eastern history. He also leaves his reader unsure as to precisely what his political conclusions are (commenters who might be tempted to explain this in terms of “traditional” Arab “duplicity” or “slipperiness” really shouldn’t bother).
But none of this should mask the significance of either his piece from 1998 or today’s offering, which appeared in the leading Arabic daily Al Hayat. Actually, those anti-Zionists who jump up and down with glee whenever an Israeli academic questions, say, the justice of the 1948 War of Independence might want to ponder Khader’s implicit challenge to the kind of historical representations contained, for example, in the opening paragraphs of PACBI’s call to boycott Israel. And, as this account of Palestinian intellectual responses to the 1998 Nakba commemorations shows, Khader is not alone in arguing against the “levelling, nationalist” explanation of the events of 1948.
Ultimately, to puncture the narrative of the Nakba, and to expose the political imperatives which underlie its pretensions to absolute truth, is to simultaneously dispense with the “original sin” theory of Israel’s creation. As Khader writes, the Palestinian leadership has wanted to preserve and deepen the Nakba narrative at the same time as pursuing negotiations with Israel. As a result, the past subsumes the present, so that the “collapse of the Palestinian national movement, and the disasters in education, health and human suffering in Gaza, are thus all rendered merely temporary problems that will pass and are not deserving of any attention.”
It’s an approach – or, as Khader puts it, a “contradiction” – that is no longer sustainable. Those who style themselves as “friends of Palestine” should stop perpetuating it. They might even want to think about how to move beyond it.
Comments
| 3 June 2009, 12:06 am |
I don’t know about “The Narrative” but I think the influence of Edward Said ruined the prose of this narrative.
| 3 June 2009, 12:39 am |
Yes, self reflection and reasoned debate is the way forward. Divine claims to land arethe path to making an NBC wasteland of the whole area.
One can see how a just two state (plus international/bi-capital Jerusalem) solution will create the conditions for resolving apparent contradictions. Eventually it should be possible for Israeli Arabs to elect to take Palestinian citizenship but retain residency rights, in the same way that Jewish settlers on the West Bank could remain Israeli citizens but retain residency rights.
But of course no progress will be made until both sides accept the right of the other side to exist and enjoy statehood. We need in short a plentiful supply of good will. Obviously Hamas rule themselves out of the solution. Crushing Hamas will be part of the solution.
| 3 June 2009, 12:40 am |
This is probably the most ridiculous sentence:
“There is a unique set of dynamics to this ring of contradiction, most which involve attempts to compensate for secretly deviating from the Narrative by engaging in more eloquent rhetoric that invokes the themes of the constants, the conjuring of memory and the supposed optimism of the will.”
But perhaps thats just my idea of entity talking.
| 3 June 2009, 1:37 am |
Shmuel –
Agreed.
But if meaningless rhetoric is the price of peace, it is a price I am always prepared to pay. We’ve had plenty of it in Northern Ireland! (Not that N Ireland is any guide to Israel-Palestine I hasten to add.)
| 3 June 2009, 2:11 am |
Shmuel. It is a bit, isn’t it
There’s a phase i found in Paul Blokker’s work on Eastern Europe, ‘Crisis Narrative’. Ideological movements need some kind of historical motivation for acting and for acting ‘ideologically’. It helps sustain social scision and conflict long after the material promises evaporate. By depicting a catastrosphic ‘descent’ and holding out the promises of fiery return, the ideologue can both legitimise any act and condone inaction as part of a grand historical mechanism. Conjoining Volenteerism and Fatalism, that is the key, the will for power to the chosen elite, part inertia, part choreographed movement for the masses.
The Nakba was a tragedy, but not like the easy moral tale of the Nationalists, Pan-Arabists and Islamists. The tragedy is that hundreds of thousands left, some pushed by low level Israeli violence, most by the promises of the Arab leaders to ‘return’ them. Then for sixty years, they have been parked like refuse around the Arab world, used as symbols of various craptrap ideologies whilst being distained and discriminated against. When Israel has treated its refugees from the progoms and expulsions of the Middle east with a modicum of aid and compassion, the Arab dictators and elites have treated the Palestinians like lepers. Whilst there are examples of Israeli brutality onto the camps, none (capable of holding a thought in their heads) can compare that to Syrian and Jordanian oppression.
Like the denial of the Armenian genocide or Austria’s doctrine of ‘First Victim’, it is violence primarily against the denier and their history. It is looking down a stereoscope wearing a eyepatch
| 3 June 2009, 6:58 am |
I feel we are all in a trance over “the rights of the Palestinian People” and “Peace”.
Can anyone tell me what benefit Israel gets from a peace deal with the Palestinians?
Can anyone tell me what the unified offer from Fatah/Gaza is?
While we can whine on about the “Nakba” do we ever discuss the self-infliction bt the Palestinians by not ever making peace?
Don’t get me wrong, Israel has been brutal at times but so have Palestinians.
| 3 June 2009, 7:18 am |
“There is a unique set of dynamics to this ring of contradiction, most which involve attempts to compensate for secretly deviating from the Narrative by engaging in more eloquent rhetoric that invokes the themes of the constants, the conjuring of memory and the supposed optimism of the will.”
Does that sentence actually mean anything?
| 3 June 2009, 8:25 am |
To those who ask “Does that sentence actually mean anything?”, it may be a bit heavy (and don’t forget that it is a translation) but the meaning seems clear enough to me. As the Palestinian leadership (or elements of it anyway) moves towards compromise with Israel (”secretly deviating from the narrative”), it has to ratchet up the rhetoric so as to appear not to be denying the narrative. In much the same way, Sinn Féin, having deviated from Irish nationalism’s traditional narrative by buying into the historic compromise of the Belfast Agreement, still felt that it had to present this compromise to its base as a step on the road to Irish unity. It’s called saving face and it is vital that people be allowed to save face if progress is to be made in seemingly intractable situations.
| 3 June 2009, 8:29 am |
Hit ’submit’ a bit too soon there.
But while it is important to allow people to save face, it is perhaps even more important to ensure that the face-saving is implicitly understood by all concerned to be just that. In other words, if the reassertion of the traditional narrative is taken too seriously, then we really are back to square one.
| 3 June 2009, 11:01 am |
those anti-Zionists who jump up and down with glee whenever an Israeli academic questions, say, the justice of the 1948 War of Independence
What do those gleeful anti-Zionists think that the Levantine Jews should have done instead of what they did do?
Fine to say “not Deir Yassin”, but Deir Yassin is a minor incident in the context of ethnic strife around the world. Who should have been their “role models” for the way they fought for their individual and national survival?
| 3 June 2009, 11:20 am |
Cablamat
I think its an academic’s way of saying “spin”!
| 3 June 2009, 3:34 pm |
If they wanted to, the Arab states could end the conflict in a heart-beat by a variety of means, from signing peace agreements with Israel to bribing Israelis – all of them – with much $$$ – to emigrate.
However they haven’t and they won’t for the simple reason it’s in Arab and Muslim states’ interests to perpetuate the conflict whilst looking ‘helpful’ trying to solve it. As long as there’s a major foreign enemy, internal reform can be put off indefinitely.
| 3 June 2009, 6:47 pm |
George,
thank you for your lucid expanation.
I suspect the original lost quite a bit in translation.
| 3 June 2009, 7:45 pm |
Too true, Greg, too true.
Completely agree – this sort of introspection and critical self-examination is absolutely vital for all parties involved in the conflict if they seriously want to move towards peace and a just resolution. All parties need to consider that their respective long-term strategies and policies have not succeeded to date and that some major shifts need to occur in these.