The Israeli and Palestinian Collective Memory of Conflict:: Survey Findings, Analysis, Comparison and Collaboration

This book deals with an enigmatic phenomenon, collective memory (CM), namely, the way a society views its past events via historical narratives. CM, especially of conflicts, has recently gained major attention worldwide. The reason is that popular memory significantly influences the psychological and consequently the behavioral reactions of people toward their rivals, and official memory also influences peace negotiations. The book describes historical narratives regarding many topics that the CMs of these two rivals adopt, comparing them and discussing their political implications. It also addresses the characteristics of these narratives, the nature of major events that they typically address, the diverse huge impact of the passing of time, internal and external CMs, and the role of war veterans in promoting transitional justice. Moreover, it deals with self-censorship, oral history, and describes nine Israeli-Palestinian narrative-dialogue projects. This Israeli-Palestinian analysis is translated into general-theoretical insights, making the book also applicable to other conflicts. In sum, the book provides a broad view of the CM of these two peoples, and in general.