Memory Activism in Israel-Palestine

Realms of Memory

Just as Israeli-Palestinian relations reached a new low in the early 2000s, memory activists in Israel embraced a strategy of confronting the past to resolve the crisis in the present. Dr. Yifat Gutman, author of Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine, discusses how memory activists tackled the taboo subject of 1948. Through tours of ruined and abandoned Palestinian villages and testimonies of their former residents, memory activists tried to promote awareness of the Nakba, or the destruction in Arabic as Palestinians refer to 1948. The hope was that awareness would lead to public recognition and ultimately responsibility for the past.