Palestine sine tempore?

Abstract

The 1948 Nakba marked a rupture in Palestinian time and has since become a ‘demarcation line’- acting as a reference point for all other events in the Palestinian narrative. Yet, it is not an event relegated to 70 years ago. Rather the ongoing nature of the settler colonial invasion has left Palestinians in a state of continuous Nakba. This continuous state is manifested through the Zionist regime’s relentless attempt to conquer both Palestinian space and time. As with settler colonial regimes world over, this endeavor is one that seeks absolute dominance over the indigenous peoples. In the face of this, however, indigenous people also world over continue to resist elimination through steadfastness and a multitude of creative practices. This article specifically examines resistance to Israeli settler colonial attempts to conquer Palestinian time and space through remembering. Particularly, it highlights the use of memories and cross-generational collective narratives as a form of Indigenous resistance and shows their potential for transcending the spatial and temporal limitations imposed on them.

Keywords:

• Memory
• nostalgia
• settler colonialism
• Indigeneity
• Nakba
• temporality
• commemoration

Notes

1. See Shlomo Sands ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ (2009), for more on the Zionist revival of the Jewish ancient past.

2. I use ‘the 1948 Territory’ to describe the lands that were occupied in 1948 by the Zionist forces and what is now recognized by many as Israel proper. This is done to emphasize Palestinian space and to respect the fact that many Palestinians still refer to this land as Palestine.

3. This quote is often attributed to Ben Gurion and indeed it was referenced by many of those who I spoke to during my fieldwork. However, there is yet a written source which proves this attribution.