Identity Shifts and Conflict Transformation – Probing the Israeli History Debates

Abstract

This article investigates narratives of Israeli history and identity and ways in which they can be understood as linked to the transformation of intractable conflicts. By using the case of Israeli New History, this study elaborates on the interplay between master and counter-commemorative narratives of identity and history, and the potential impact of that interaction when it comes to the development of conflict. The Israeli case exhibits an elaboration on societal boundaries and understandings of identity, which makes it apt to illustrate processes in which new understandings of history tie into the development of conflicts.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the three anonymous referees for constructive comments and for the financial support, which was provided for this research by the MECW-programme at Lund University and the Swedish Research Council.

Notes

¹ This type of conflict has also been called ‘deep-rooted’ (Burton, 1987), ‘enduring rivalry’ (Goertz & Diehl, 1993), or ‘intractable social conflict’ (Kriesberg, 1993). One common denominator for these conflicts is that they tend to be protracted and violent, with deep-rooted animosity and prejudice between involved groups. They are also known for being highly resistant to traditional negotiation and mediation efforts (Rouhana & Bar-Tal, 1998: 761–762).

² Benny Morris wrote an article in the Jewish bimonthly publication Tikkun in 1987, where he described his and his colleagues’ work and characterized their writings as ‘new historiography’. That description prevailed and has since become the most common way to collectively describe these historians (New Historians) and their works (New History).

³ The theoretical framework presented here is a condensed version of a comprehensive theoretical advancement in the intersection between theories on identity, narrative and conflict transformation that was developed in 2010 (Strömbom, 2010). Please turn to that study for a more complex and developed account of the theoretical framework.

⁴ Classical works in psychology, such as those of Eriksson (1970 [1950]), pointed out that self-images have a strong linkage to conflict behaviour. Eriksson also early on pointed to the close linkage between identity and security.

⁵ Northrup (1989) uses the term rigidification to characterize this phenomenon.

⁶ A recent study by Nets-Zehngut (2010) shows that academic studies reflecting the counter-commemorative narratives existed also before the writings of the New Historians. However these were mostly written by Jewish authors outside of Israel and relied mainly on sparse interview material from an elite perspective as Israeli state archival material from the War of 1948 was still classified, and did not reach the public debate.

⁷ Morris later announced, however, that he stood by his view of history, but claimed that the acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ committed by the Jewish collective were justified and that the deeds vis-à-vis the Palestinian people were also justified, given the historical context (Pappé, 2003). In a much noticed interview with journalist Ari Shavit in Haaretz 2003, Morris made it clear that his moral judgements of the material significantly differed, which led to a partial reassessment of his works, even though he never withdrew any of the facts that he originally presented.