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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

Grace Wermenbol
Affiliation:
Middle East Institute
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Summary

The introduction to A Battlefield of Memory provides the reader with an understanding of the societal importance of the foundational pasts under review while highlighting existing trends of denial. Readers are also familiarized with polls conducted among Palestinians and Israeli-Jews on attitudes toward the other’s foundational trauma and failed reconciliatory attempts, which shed light on the materialization of mnemonic delegitimization efforts. Interviews conducted with the Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian individuals responsible for these initiatives demonstrate that they have, ironically, been accused of the same perfidious conduct, namely “selling out to the enemy.” The introduction further provides a synopsis of scholarly approaches to collective memory theory and the key research methodologies that have been applied in the collection of primary source material. It is in this particular context that the reader is informed of important caveats that should be taken into account during the reading of this work. One such provision concerns this work’s simultaneous deliberation of the Holocaust and the Nakba, which does not mean equating them or promulgating a causal linkage. Such a conflation would not only be historically – and ethically – erroneous, but equally fail to recognize the divergence in historical culpability. Nevertheless, as this work illustrates, a more relational linkage does exist: as dominant national metanarratives, the Holocaust and the Nakba have bolstered exclusive identities within the two groups, both centering on unique claims of ongoing victimhood and loss and a consequential devaluation – if not denial – of the other’s catastrophe

Type
Chapter
Information
A Tale of Two Narratives
The Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Israeli-Palestinian Battle of Memories
, pp. 1 - 21
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Introduction
  • Grace Wermenbol
  • Book: A Tale of Two Narratives
  • Online publication: 14 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108885430.001
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  • Introduction
  • Grace Wermenbol
  • Book: A Tale of Two Narratives
  • Online publication: 14 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108885430.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Grace Wermenbol
  • Book: A Tale of Two Narratives
  • Online publication: 14 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108885430.001
Available formats
×