National narratives and the Oslo peace process: How peacebuilding paradigms address conflicts over history

Abstract

National narratives are an essential part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Little is said, however, on how the Oslo Peace Process sought to address these narratives. Conventional wisdom argues that the peace process initiated in the 1990s largely ignored the matter. This article challenges this view, arguing instead that the peace process was and continues to be actively engaged in solving the narrative wars that divide Israelis and Palestinians. To shed light on these solutions, this article looks beyond the agreements of the Oslo Peace Process and focuses on the peacebuilding paradigms that informed it, more specifically, the national partition and the liberal peace paradigms. These prescribe two solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict over history: narrative partition and evasion. In their implementation, the article concludes, these solutions imposed greater identity costs on the Palestinian narrative than on the Israeli one.

Agonistic peace and confronting the past: An analysis of a failed peace process and the role of narratives

“…Thus, the range of bystandership can include those who unintentionally remain silent as well as those who, by socialization and being exposed to dominant narratives, believe in the conflict-supporting acts and narratives. With their silence and inattention to alternative narratives, they contribute to what Khoury (2016) calls the ‘narrative wars’. Driven by the agonistic peace approach discussed above, therefore, we can argue that transforming bystanders into agonistic citizens who do not reject alternative narratives by exposing them to these narratives is an important aspect of peace processes, especially in cases where the conflict has mostly taken place between a state and an ethnic minority.…”

Postnational memory: Narrating the Holocaust and the Nakba

“…The position of these intellectuals is interesting, since they are (or in Said's case, were) vocal critics of the Oslo peace process. One of process's many flaws, they argue, is its ahistorical character that puts aside issues of historical injustices and memory (Bashir 2016a;Khoury 2016). An alternative and just peace, they insist, requires a deeper engagement with the past.…”

“…In fact, the narratives that were supposed to emerge from the Oslo Accords were expected to coincide with the geographic separation of both nations. The 1967 Green Line in this case acts like a physical and symbolic border that delimits territory and history (Kelman 2005;Khoury 2016;Shenhav 2012). This partition of memory and territory erases the Nakba and is bound to lead to the indifference and forgetfulness of the other's suffering.…”

The Emergence of Palestinian Mughtaribûn: Diaspora Politics and State-Building in Oslo Palestine

“…One might say that this represents the continuation, in the field of memory, of a conflict which is never-ending in its territorial dimension. 36 Accordingly, the adoption of the diaspora reference to deSignate the Palestinian population takes on a political dimension which cannot be brushed aside. It is in itself a challenge to the national Jewish narrative-Zionist and then Israeli-and an imaginary re-appropriation of its territory.…”