Responsibility and national memory: Israel and the Palestinian refugee problem

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 339-363

  Abdel Nour, Farid ^a  

^a SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Collective responsibility; Historical memory; National identity; New historians; Past injustices

Indexed keywords

EID: 4043138058     PISSN: 08914486     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/B:IJPS.0000019608.27897.36     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. Examples of different ways of linking responsibility with the right of return can be found in Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2001), ed. Naseer Aruri. Also consider the example of Donna Arzt's Refugees Into Citizens (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997). By declaring that the historical record is too confusing to determine legal responsibility, she offers a legal justification for her pragmatic solution to the problem.
2. Examples of different ways of linking responsibility with the right of return can be found in Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2001), ed. Naseer Aruri. Also consider the example of Donna Arzt's Refugees Into Citizens (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997). By declaring that the historical record is too confusing to determine legal responsibility, she offers a legal justification for her pragmatic solution to the problem.
3. My hunch is that the solution to the Palestinian refugee problem and the question of the right of return will ultimately be addressed in ways that are determined by a number of political factors, including the balance of power, and that for all the ink spilled on the subject, the question of responsibility will not feature decisively in this regard.
4. In addition to the voluminous Israeli literature that addresses these questions, a wonderful example of this kind of analysis is by Rashid Khalidi in his "The Palestinians and 1948: the underlying causes of failure," in The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, eds. E. Rogan and A. Shlaim (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
5. To have resonance, however, these latter discussions might have to await a different political context in everyday Palestinian life and in Arab state politics.
6. Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
7. Parts of this paragraph and the next appear in a completely different context in my "National Responsibility," forthcoming in Political Theory (2003).
8. Williams, Shame and Necessity, p. 55. My emphasis.
9. Williams, Shame and Necessity, p. 56.
10. Determining cause is always inevitably controversial in historical accounts, as well as in legal and political contexts. Deborah Stone offers a very illuminating analysis of this problem in her "Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas," Political Science Quarterly 104, no. 2 (1989): 281-300. Thus, all accounts of responsibility are contingent upon agreement on a causal account.
11. This is illustrated at the beginning of Section II in the discussion over Arab broadcasts.
12. As far as appropriate responses are concerned, given the vantage point from which I examine the question at hand, relatively little will be said about them in this paper.
13. Bernard Williams, Moral Luck (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 28.
14. This point, which Williams makes so clearly for moral theory, has its correlate in legal arguments. Joel Feinberg has offered a detailed analysis and defense of different types of "legal liability without fault" in Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 223.
15. Williams, Bernard, Making Sense of Humanity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 32.
16. Williams, Shame and Necessity, p. 55.
17. Blameworthiness is not important in the study of history itself, but is relevant in the political uses to which history is put, hence its significance here.
18. This is not a definition of blameworthiness, but a minimal condition for it.
19. During the 1947-1949 period, one cannot speak of normal citizen politics or of organized social group politics. Therefore, citizen and social group political agency, which might under other circumstances be very illuminating aspects of political responsibility, are not here pertinent.
20. For the sake of convenience, I do not make a distinction between the pre-independence and post-independence leadership and military, but refer to them consistently as the Yishuv's political leadership and military. The reader is free to substitute Israeli government and IDF for post-May 15th contexts. I simply found it too cumbersome to do so.
21. This paragraph is based on an argument that is developed in great detail in my "National Responsibility," forthcoming in Political Theory (2003), especially the section entitled "Continuity and the National Bond."
22. The fulcrum of the debate is his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
23. Benny Morris, "The New Historiography." In 1948 and After (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 9.
24. The main protagonists were Jon Kimche, Walid Khalidi, and Erskine B. Childers. The latter two, having independently undertaken extensive studies, respectively of British intelligence and CIA monitoring records of radio broadcasts at the time, concluded that there was not a shred of evidence for any Arab broadcasts urging the Palestinians to leave. In a heated exchange in the pages of The Spectator, they challenged Jon Kimche, who had insisted on the existence of such broadcasts, to produce his evidence. This debate is reproduced in the Journal of Palestine Studies 1988, XVIII (1), 51-70.
25. Morris, 1948 and After, p. 18.
26. In this group belong Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev, among others.
27. In this group belong Efraim Karsh and Anita Shapira, among others.
28. In this group belong Walid Khalidi, Norman Finkelstein, and probably Ilan Pappe (who seems to belong here more comfortably than with the new historians).
29. Benny Morris, "Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus," in The War for Palestine, eds. E. Rogan and A. Shlaim (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 38.
30. Estimates of total number of displaced Palestinians in 1948 range from the Israeli conservative estimate of 500,000 to 600,000 to Arab and UN estimates of 900,000 to one million refugees. Many scholars simply adopt the 700,000 to 750,000 figure.
31. Morris, Birth, p. 30.
32. Morris repeatedly insists on specifying who, in his estimation, started the civil war: Arabs.
33. Morris, Birth, p. 287.
34. Morris, Birth, p. 293.
35. Morris, Birth, pp. 198, 207. He offers an Israeli eyewitness account of the column of refugees walking East in the July sun "[in the end jettisoning] bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way." Morris, Birth, p. 210.
36. Morris, Birth, pp. 198, 207. He offers an Israeli eyewitness account of the column of refugees walking East in the July sun "[in the end jettisoning] bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way." Morris, Birth, p. 210.
37. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 51.
38. Morris, Birth, pp. 216, 236.
39. Morris, Birth, p. 62.
40. Morris, Birth, pp. 62-63.
41. Morris Birth, p. 219.
42. During and immediately after "Operation Hiram" (28-31 October), when Israeli forces gained control of central upper Galilee, "there was a central directive by Northern Front [the commander was General Moshe Carmel] to clear the conquered pocket of its Arab inhabitants" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 51). There were many expulsions and ten documented massacres in the area during this period. According to Morris, "there can be no doubt that, in the circumstances, the brigade and district OC's understood Carmel's [orders] ... as a general directive to expel" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 52). But Morris argues that while the expulsions in the north during the fourth wave can be linked to a centralized command [by Carmel], the same cannot be said about the massacres. Evidently there was "no central order from 'on high' to commit the atrocities." (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 55).
43. During and immediately after "Operation Hiram" (28-31 October), when Israeli forces gained control of central upper Galilee, "there was a central directive by Northern Front [the commander was General Moshe Carmel] to clear the conquered pocket of its Arab inhabitants" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 51). There were many expulsions and ten documented massacres in the area during this period. According to Morris, "there can be no doubt that, in the circumstances, the brigade and district OC's understood Carmel's [orders] ... as a general directive to expel" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 52). But Morris argues that while the expulsions in the north during the fourth wave can be linked to a centralized command [by Carmel], the same cannot be said about the massacres. Evidently there was "no central order from 'on high' to commit the atrocities." (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 55).
44. During and immediately after "Operation Hiram" (28-31 October), when Israeli forces gained control of central upper Galilee, "there was a central directive by Northern Front [the commander was General Moshe Carmel] to clear the conquered pocket of its Arab inhabitants" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 51). There were many expulsions and ten documented massacres in the area during this period. According to Morris, "there can be no doubt that, in the circumstances, the brigade and district OC's understood Carmel's [orders] ... as a general directive to expel" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 52). But Morris argues that while the expulsions in the north during the fourth wave can be linked to a centralized command [by Carmel], the same cannot be said about the massacres. Evidently there was "no central order from 'on high' to commit the atrocities." (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 55).
45. Morris, Birth, p. 286.
46. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 54.
47. Morris, 1948 and After, pp. 16-17.
48. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 40.
49. For whom "... the transfer idea was always regarded ... as a matter to be carried out in an agreed and orderly fashion between the Arab states and the Yishuv, with compensation and planned resettlement for those transferred" (Morris, Birth, p. 26).
50. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 44.
51. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 41.
52. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 48.
53. Morris, "Revisiting," p. 48.
54. Nonetheless, under all the pressure precipitated by war, the Yishuv's leadership never translated this motive into a systematic policy: "between what most people want and policy, there is, and was then, a line of demarcation ... the fact that Ben-Gurion wanted something didn't mean that it immediately translated into policy." Morris, "Response to Finkelstein and Masalha," Journal of Palestine Studies XXI, no. 1 (Autumn 1991), p. 103.
55. th meeting (56). He subsequently revises this, and in "Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948," he mentions June 1948 (38) and June-July (49).
56. Morris, Birth, p. 160.
57. Morris quotes the recommendations of Weitz's transfer committee as including the following: (1) Destruction of villages as much as possible during military operations. (2) Prevention of any cultivation of land by them, including reaping, collection [of crops], picking [olives] and so on, also during times of ceasefire. (3) Settlement of Jews in a number of villages and towns so that no "vacuum" is created. (4) Enacting legislation [geared to barring a return] ... (5) [Making] propaganda aimed at non-return. Morris, "Yosef Weitz and the Transfer Committees," 1948 and After, p. 105.
58. Shabtai Teveth. "Charging Israel with Original Sin," Commentary, Sept. 1989, pp. 29, 30.
59. Teveth, "Charging Israel with Original Sin," p. 30.
60. Shabtai Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," Middle East Studies. 26, 2 (April 1990), pp. 224-227.
61. Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," pp. 219, 220.
62. Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," p. 243.
63. Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," p. 237.
64. Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," p. 231, and "Charging," pp. 240-244.
65. Teveth, "The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and its Origins," p. 231, and "Charging," pp. 240-244.
66. Teveth, "Charging Israel with Original Sin," p. 31.
67. Masalha, Nur, "A Critique of Benny Morris," Journal of Palestine Studies, 1991, XXI (1), 94.
68. Masalha, "A Critique of Benny Morris," p. 97.
69. Masalha, Nur, Expulsion of the Palestinians (Washington D.C.: Institute of Palestine Studies, 1992), p. 178.
70. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, pp. 178-179.
71. Masalha, A Land without a People, p. xix; Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 1; as well as "An Israeli plan to transfer Galilee's Christians to South America: Yosef Weitz and 'Operation Yohanan,'1949-53," University of Durham CMEIS Occasional Paper, 1996.
72. Masalha, A Land without a People, p. xix; Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 1; as well as "An Israeli plan to transfer Galilee's Christians to South America: Yosef Weitz and 'Operation Yohanan,'1949-53," University of Durham CMEIS Occasional Paper, 1996.
73. Masalha, A Land without a People, p. xix; Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 1; as well as "An Israeli plan to transfer Galilee's Christians to South America: Yosef Weitz and 'Operation Yohanan,'1949-53," University of Durham CMEIS Occasional Paper, 1996.
74. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 182.
75. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p.180.
76. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p.180.
77. Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 185.
78. Masalha, A Land without a People (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), pp. xvi-xvii.
79. Masalha, "A Critique of Benny Morris," p. 97.
80. In fact, Ben-Gurion had a proclivity for making frequent references to the Turkish "transfer" of Greeks from Anatolia following the end of the First World War (Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, pp. 191-192).
81. That the fantasy came true can in Morris's account be ascribed to a number of circumstances. He writes: "the transfer that occurred ... transpired ... [partly] because all or almost all [of the Yishuv] came to understand, after the Arabs of Palestine had initiated the war and after the Arab states invaded Palestine transfer was what the Jewish state's survival and future well-being demanded" (Morris, "Revisiting," p. 48).
82. In a highly controversial article, Morris even suggests that Ben-Gurion "were he somehow resurrected ... [might] now regret his restraint. Perhaps, had he gone the whole hog [on transfer], today's Middle East would be a healthier, less violent place, with a Jewish state between Jordan and the Mediterranean and a Palestinian Arab state in Transjordan." The Guardian (3 October 2002).
83. By "historical truth," I mean what Hannah Arendt calls "factual truth." In her extremely insightful essay "Truth and Politics," she argues that factual truth informs and ought to inform politics (112). As great a defender of the political sphere and of opinion as Arendt felt compelled to argue in this essay that political freedom to act and change is limited by historical truth (133). In Philosophy, Politics and Society, eds. Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), pp. 104-133.
84. Renan, Ernest, "What is a nation?" trans. M. Thom, in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 11.
85. See Max Weber's discussion of the irreconcilability of value spheres in "Science as a Vocation," in From Max Weber, eds. H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 147-148.
86. Consider Ernest Gellner's rather impassioned description of them as "shreds and patches." Nations and Nationalism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 56.
87. Renan, "What is a nation?" p. 11.
88. For a fuller development of this argument see Abdel-Nour, Farid, "Liberalism and Ethnocentrism," Journal of Political Philosophy Vol. 8, no. 2 (June 2000), especially pp. 213-216.
89. Vladimir Jabotinsky was known for his ability and willingness to face up to ugly truths about the Zionist movement's relationship to the Arab population of Palestine. Consider also Simha Flapan's famous description of how Begin made candid references to the events of 1948 to justify what Israeli military was doing in Lebanon in 1982 (The Birth of Israel, New York: Pantheon Books, 1987, 5-6). If one considers Benny Morris's recent willingness to face up to ugly truths, one is reminded of the attractiveness of his old self, the one who could not look some of these same truths in the eye. Previously he had treated transfer thinking as a shameful thing that luckily had minimal impact on policy making. Now he offers a justification for it, admits a greater role for it, and indulges in the wish that it had been more influential in the Yishuv's policy making. I am certain that the latter, more candid, Morris is a more fear-inspiring being than the one who could not bring himself to believe these things about his nation (see Morris's article in The Guardian, 3 October 2002).
90. Vladimir Jabotinsky was known for his ability and willingness to face up to ugly truths about the Zionist movement's relationship to the Arab population of Palestine. Consider also Simha Flapan's famous description of how Begin made candid references to the events of 1948 to justify what Israeli military was doing in Lebanon in 1982 (The Birth of Israel, New York: Pantheon Books, 1987, 5-6). If one considers Benny Morris's recent willingness to face up to ugly truths, one is reminded of the attractiveness of his old self, the one who could not look some of these same truths in the eye. Previously he had treated transfer thinking as a shameful thing that luckily had minimal impact on policy making. Now he offers a justification for it, admits a greater role for it, and indulges in the wish that it had been more influential in the Yishuv's policy making. I am certain that the latter, more candid, Morris is a more fear-inspiring being than the one who could not bring himself to believe these things about his nation (see Morris's article in The Guardian, 3 October 2002).
91. In order here is Benedict Anderson's reminder that his "imagined communities" are not to be likened to "invented" or "fabricated" ones, but that "all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact ... are imagined." (Imagined Communities, New York: Verso, 1991, 6)
92. This account will probably for a long time remain a Palestinian dream. It might very well encompass the core of what Palestinians wish Israelis to think about their responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem.
93. See his Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). Of interest is also Benny Morris's review of the earlier edition of this book, "Refabricating 1948," in Journal of Palestine Studies, Volume 27, no. 2 (Winter 1998), 81-95.
94. See his Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). Of interest is also Benny Morris's review of the earlier edition of this book, "Refabricating 1948," in Journal of Palestine Studies, Volume 27, no. 2 (Winter 1998), 81-95.
95. Historians are fond of E. H. Carr's famous image of themselves as fishermen calling forth their facts with the specificity of their bait. This image is a humbling reminder for anyone who would claim to possess the final and authoritative account of any historical episode. It does not, however, suggest that when a number of historians can accumulate a mountain of evidence, a historian who does not like the taste of it can ignore it and continue fishing with unproductive bait. He can change the bait and fish for countervailing evidence, but what has been brought up onto the pier cannot simply be dismissed because one's own bait would not attract it. Thus, there are of course historical truths. They are not grand insights into the mind of God, but little mounds of coalescing evidence that, as they grow, make it increasingly untenable for historians to ignore them in writing their accounts. Teveth's account is one such example.
96. Inspired by Edward Said's call for a "common ground" among Israeli and Palestinian historians, Andrew Whitehead arranged for a phone conversation between Benny Morris and Joseph Massad. Interestingly enough, the conversation quickly disintegrated over the question of whether an injustice to the Palestinians was inherent in Zionism itself, and therefore whether Zionism has any legitimacy at all. This, of course, is precisely the point of irreconcilability between Masalha's and Morris's accounts. The conversation ends with what amounts to an exchange of insults. Yet, I do not think that one ought to conclude, as Whitehead's title indicates, that there is no common ground. Rather, the two historians were insufficiently adept at recognizing the irreconcilable aspects of their respective positions. In searching for common ground, they simply heckled each other to jump to the other's side of one of the irreconcilable differences between them. This conversation was a missed opportunity because the work of identifying the plentiful common ground was neglected, and instead an attempt was made to reconcile the irreconcilable. It was as if Massad was insisting that Morris adopt Masalha's account, and Morris was insisting that Massad adopt his account. What is cheering in this exchange is that Teveth's account and its Palestinian equivalents were missing from the conversation ("History on the Line 'No Common Ground': Joseph Massad and Benny Morris Discuss the Middle East." History Workshop Journal, Vol. 53 [2002], 205-216).