Rupture and resistance

Memory as permanence is particularly evident in Palestinian history, hence the Zionist narrative attempts to distort and reinvent facts. When distortion fails, oblivion becomes an imperative. However, Israel has also created the conditions whereby its efforts to rupture Palestinian memory are countered by a tenacious resistance.

Operation Protective Edge in 2014 was characterised by macabre displays of dismembered corpses and the mutilated bodies of Palestinians in Gaza, which resulted in the visible carnage obliterating discussion of the disappeared. It was only when reports by NGOs started documenting the violations committed during the Israeli offensive that attention was given to missing persons. However, the acknowledgement by Israeli soldiers that they were given orders to “disappear” the bodies of Palestinians was treated as a mere inconsequential detail.

Last month, Ma’an news agency published a detailed feature about the discovery of a skeleton under the still substantial piles of rubble found in Gaza, prompting a recapitulation as to why Israel refuses to divulge information about the missing Palestinians. Prisoners’ affairs expert Abd Al-Nasser Farawneh attributes the lack of information to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, adding that fears of retaliation have prevented Palestinians from seeking the help of human rights organisations in trying to find missing relatives.

Equally disturbing is Israel’s vehement refusal to return the bodies of Palestinians murdered by the military and settlers during the Jerusalem Intifada, citing its alleged and ubiquitous security concerns. Arab members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) opposing such a violation of basic international human rights law can be expelled from parliament, according to legislation passed last month to deter any further publicity regarding the practice. According to the Times of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the new law thus: “We are not prepared to accept a situation in which MKs support the families of those who murder Israeli citizens… There’s something called national pride.” Colonial pride would have been a more apt excuse.

Israeli-enforced oblivion is based upon preventing Palestinians from accumulating proof as part of the preservation of their memory. The distinction between knowledge and proof characterises the memory struggle in different circumstances. Memory affirms events until the trace is lost due to restrictions as regards proof, which is the ultimate phase feared by dictators and colonial leaders. For Palestinians, the gap is exacerbated due to the fact that there are no alternative avenues to pursue. Reliance upon individual and collective Palestinian memory is necessary not only to safeguard the disappeared and missing Palestinians, but also as an act of resistance against the colonial fabrications and restrictions imposed upon the population by Israel.

For Palestinians, combating distortion and disappearance are intertwined as a result of the colonial violence unleashed against their land and people by Israel. Palestinian dependency upon memory, therefore, is imperative to the struggle, all the more so because even the Palestinian leadership has displayed its contempt for the disappearance of land and people.

Memory, however, is a powerful combatant against time and oblivion, resurrected constantly by recurring violations against the Palestinian population. However, its importance should not be attached only to the latest grim discovery; other human remains will most probably be found and the immediate anguish will be quashed by more politically-persistent issues as decided through the diplomatic manoeuvres that have blemished Palestine permanently. In the absence of any commitment by the PA to preserve the memory of missing Palestinians as an integral part of their history, the people of Palestine must ensure through collective struggle that their remembrance remains a top priority. To eliminate, or reduce, the missing and disappeared people into an occasional mention in the media would constitute another victory for colonial Israel and its international allies.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.