Palestine Nakba : Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory

298 Pages·2011·2.65 MB·English

The Palestine Nakba
About the Author
Nur Masalha is Professor of Religion and Politics and director of
the Centre for Religion and History at St Mary’s University College,
UK. He is also editor of Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary
Journal (Edinburgh University Press).
The Palestine Nakba
Decolonising History,
Narrating the Subaltern,
Reclaiming Memory
nur masalha
zEd booKS
London & New York
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by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9jf, uk and
Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa
www.zedbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Nur Masalha 2012
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of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
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Contents
acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 zionism and European Settler-Colonialism 19
2 The Memoricide of the Nakba: zionist-Hebrew
Toponymy and the de-Arabisation of Palestine 88
3 Fashioning a European Landscape, Erasure and
Amnesia: The Jewish National Fund, Afforestation
and Green-washing the Nakba 120
4 Appropriating History: Looting of Palestinian
Records, Archives and Library Collections,
1948–2011 135
5 Post-zionism, the Liberal Coloniser and
Hegemonic Narratives: A Critique of the Israeli
‘New Historians’ 148
6 decolonising History and Narrating the Subaltern:
Palestinian oral History, Indigenous and Gendered
Memories 205
7 Resisting Memoricide, Reclaiming Memory:
Nakba Commemoration among Palestinians in Israel 229
Epilogue: The Continuity of Trauma 251
references 258
index 279
Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the intellectual and
emotional support of my family and friends. First, I would like to
thank the many friends and colleagues who have encouraged me
over the years and help me, directly and indirectly, with ideas,
conversations, criticism, material, logistics and moral support,
including Ahmad Sa’di, Sherna berger Gluck, Ilan Pappé, Isabelle
Humphries, oren ben-dor, Mary Grey, John docker, duncan
Macpherson, Claire Norton, Mark donnelly, Ghada Karmi, Isma‘el
Abu-Sa‘ad, Seif d’ana, david Evans, Sari Hanafi, Saad Chedid,
Keith Hammond, As’ad Ghanem, Abbas Shiblak, Ronit Lentin,
Haim bresheeth, Rahela Mizrahi, bernard Regan, Colin South and
Sam Kuruvilla. At zed books I am particularly indebted to editors
Jakob Horstmann and Tamsine o’Riordan for their comments
and practical help. Last but not least, I owe enormous gratitude
to my wife dr Stephanie Cronin, a highly original historian of
the modern Middle East, and my daughter Maryam Masalha for
their tremendous enthusiasm and emotional support. Stephanie,
in particular, helped me with brilliant ideas and sharp comments
without which this volume would not have been completed. Any
credit for this book should be shared with Stephanie and the people
above, but all shortcomings are mine alone.

Introduction
1948 was the year of the Palestine Nakba (Catastrophe), the
uprooting of the Palestinians and the dismemberment and de-
Arabisation of historic Palestine. In the course of the 1948 war and
immediate post-Nakba period the name ‘Palestine’ was wiped off
the map. In 2012 Palestinians commemorate the 64th anniversary
of the Nakba, which is a key date in Palestinian collective memory
and the most traumatic event in the history of the Palestinian
people. The rupture of 1948 and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
are central to both the Palestinian society of today and Palestinian
social history and collective identity. Resisting ethnic cleansing
and politicide has been a key feature of the modern history of
the Palestinians as a people. In Politicide: Sharon’s War against
the Palestinians (2003), Israeli sociologist baruch Kimmerling
(1939–2007) defines the ‘politicide’ of the Palestinian people as
the gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation: ‘the
dissolution of the Palestinian people’s existence as a legitimate
social, political and economic entity’. Politicide, Kimmerling
asserts, has been present throughout zionism’s struggle with the
Palestinians before, during and after the 1948 Nakba. Politicide
also epitomised the settler-colonial policies and actions of General
Ariel Sharon against the Palestinians. Kimmerling writes: