Historical memory and collective identity: West Bank settlers reconstruct the past

Media, memory and collective identity

Maurice Halbwachs (1980) was one of the first researchers to view collective memory as a product of social construction. Collective memory is the result of an interactive process of selecting, processing and organizing past events or periods within a framework that grants them political and social significance (Gongaware, 2003, 2010).

Every group sees to its own mnemonic socialization, that is, to the perpetuation of its own memories (Zerubavel, 1996). Several works have studied the role of collective memory in the construction of nationalism (Bhabha, 1990; Papadakis, 2003; Pearson, 1999; Tamm, 2008; Zerubavel, 1994). Assmann (1995) argues that memory provides a social group with a sense of unity and distinctiveness. Groups’ leaders transform memories held by small sections of their membership into a shared legacy and ensure their maintenance in the future (Gongaware, 2003, 2010).

Memory and group identity become linked insofar as awareness of a collective past helps define community boundaries: whoever accepts the burden of history belongs to the community; everyone else is an outsider (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994). In this context Zionist historiography has been vastly explored (Katriel and Shenhar, 1990; Peri, 1999, 2000; Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2002; Zerubavel, 1995).

Media are major agents of mnemonic knowledge since they may communicate with huge audiences simultaneously (Edy, 1999). During the last twenty years, research has focused on media and memory, and the role of journalists as mnemonic agents (Edy, 1999; Kitch, 2005, 2008; Meyers, 2002, 2007; Schudson, 1992). Journalism scholars have pointed out that journalists act as memory agents (Harcup and O’Neill, 2001; Meyers, 2007). As mnemonic agents, journalists select events that they consider noteworthy and construct cultural frames to interpret them (Zandberg, 2010). Consequently journalists place these events in an historical context that endows them with cultural and political significance (Meyers, 2007) and use analogies between present and historical events that suggest that the future may resemble the course of past experiences (Edy, 1999).

Nekuda is an alternative publication that challenges mainstream Israeli media. Alternative media are produced outside mainstream media institutions and usually focus on marginalized groups (Atton, 2002). These means of communication differ from mainstream media in various aspects, such as their content, modes of production and distribution (Downing, 2001). Alternative media are essentially critical and counter-hegemonic (Fuchs, 2010). Collective memory is a central concept in the understanding of political and ideological controversy. Consequently, alternative media may construct particular mnemonic frames and narratives that challenge mainstream historiography and function as discursive tools in social conflict.

Research strategy and results

Nekuda is a monthly magazine. Data was collected from a sample that included two randomly selected editions in each year, dating from its inception in December 1979 to the end of 2009. Overall, 58 editions were examined. In each edition a purposive sample of articles that dealt with the past was examined, which involved careful perusal of reports, articles, editorials and letters to the editor that refer to history. References to the past were thoroughly scrutinized and categorized into three main periods. The first is the biblical period, when Jews lived in the land of Israel. The second period starts after the expulsion from Israel in the first century AD and ends at the beginning of the twentieth century. During this period Jews lived mainly in the Diaspora. The third period starts with the Zionist movement, at the beginning of the twentieth century. These periods convey three different components of settlers’ collective memory: (1) the assumption of the historical continuity of Jewish settlement in the land of Israel as a basis for establishing sovereignty in the country; (2) the celebration of periods in which the Jews rebelled against foreign governments, proving their bravery and readiness for sacrifice and (3) an emphasis on the suffering and persecution that were the lot of Jews living under foreign rule. These memory components will be discussed in the following sections.

Continuity of Jewish presence in the Land of Israel

Many of the articles and reports in Nekuda convey a message about the continuity of the Jewish presence in Israel during the Diaspora years. Gush Emunim has attempted to trace remnants of the Jewish presence throughout history in different parts of the country. Thus one report is devoted to a Jewish community that survived in Nablus for over 600 years (Erlich, 1980) and another portrays a site that had been described in the book of Judges as the ‘center of the country’ and suggests that it is located next to a Jewish settlement in Samaria (Ilan, 1982).

The pursuit of evidence of Jewish presence in Israel is visible in later texts too. Uri Elizur wrote that Jews have known Jerusalem for 3000 years, thus implying that they have lived in the city since David’s Kingdom (Elizur, 2001). In 2004, as part of the discussion about a possible withdrawal from the Gaza strip, an article was published focusing on the Jewish presence in Gaza since the Hasmonean period, during the second century BC (Huberman, 2004). The writer’s purpose was to argue that Jews’ right to settle in Gaza has historical roots.

The quest for evidence of a continuous Jewish presence in the country is manifest also in the resurrection of biblical place names. The attempt to recover biblical names instead of using Arabic words can be seen as one facet of a broader struggle over a historical right to the country. Use of ancient Hebrew names strengthens the claim that the Jewish presence in the land of Israel precedes that of other nations. Moreover, their use expresses not only political control of the land but also cultural hegemony that grants a more legitimate claim to the territory. This is certainly suggested in a report about an investigation into the biblical name of the settlement Levona, in which the author recommends adopting its previous name ‘White House’ (Bayit Lavan in Hebrew) (Erlich, 1980). In a similar vein, the early Zionist movement has been criticized for failing to preserve biblical names and instead celebrating leaders of the movement in their selection of place names (Afa, 1980).

The struggle for freedom: Jews rebel against foreign sovereigns

The second component of Gush Emunim’s memory includes periods in which Jews proved their bravery through acts of heroism and rebellion for the sake of political and cultural freedom. Gush Emunim leaders make a point of drawing parallels between their own movement and the acts of Jews against foreign rule in different periods in history. They see themselves as comparable to Bar Kochba, the leader of the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule in 132–135 AD and the Hasmoneans, who rebelled against Hellenistic rule in 160 BCE. Thus a special correlation is construed between the new settlements and earlier struggles for freedom (Segal, 1982).

The pioneers and founders of the early Zionist movement, who lived in Israel at the beginning of the 20th century, have a vital role in Gush Emunim’s historical narrative. Settlers are portrayed as their inheritors since they are depicted as fulfilling the same tasks – setting frontiers and protecting the state society (Elizur, 2001; Ben-Yaakov, 2002).

Even though the state of Israel was founded dozens of years earlier, the settlers’ narrative presents the state existence as fragile. Thus the settlements in Gaza in the late 1990s are presented as similar to those built before 1948 (Huberman, 1998). Accordingly, Nekuda compares the hunger strike of the Gush Emunim leadership during the early 1980s to a similar undertaking during the British Mandate (Until the goal is realized, 1980). In the same vein, murder of Jews in Hebron in the early 1980s is portrayed as similar to the pogrom that occurred in the same city in 1929 (Hebron, Yesod Hamaaleh and Elon Moreh, 1980).

The similarity to early 20th-century Zionism is construed too by portraying settlers as motivated by the same ideals as those attributed to their predecessors, such as the ‘objective of establishing a better, more just society inspired by the sense of mission that has always been at the heart of settlement’ (Harel, 1981: 3). One of the principles of the Zionist revolution was that the country should run on Hebrew labor, and Jews had to learn to be farmers and industry workers, an objective that was also shared by the settlers, according to the text (Rosenfeld, 1980). In an interview published in 1990 one of the settlers summarized this self-image: ‘Coming here is saying: I am a pioneer’ (Lerman, 1990: 19).

Settlers and early pioneers are portrayed as minorities that were misunderstood by the vast majority. They were viewed as fanatics and unrealistic. Yet, according to settlers’ historical reading, these minorities’ dreams proved to be rational (Ben-Yaakov, 2002).

The analogy to pioneers is interesting since early Zionism was characterized by a secular, anti-religious ideology while the Block of the Faithful is a religious, sometimes even defined as a fundamentalist movement.

Jews as eternal victims

The third component of Gush Emunim’s collective memory is its attention to periods in which the Jewish people have been persecuted. Interestingly, the sole mention of Jewish life under foreign sovereignty relates to persecutions and oppression. Other aspects of Jewish life, such as the rich religious literature that flourished in Europe, have been erased from the newspaper’s discourse. The disregard for Jewish social and cultural life and the emphasis on suffering under foreign rule imply that Jews must establish their own political framework. Moreover, settlers’ interpretation of the past suggests that Israel’s future depends on Jewish decisions and acts, rather than international circumstances.

The interpretation of the past has taught the Gush Emunim leadership that the decision to fight is always well taken. The historical and meta-historical dimensions of the Gush Emunim narrative intersect and the newspaper portrays the conflict with the Arab neighbors as the contemporary struggle against Amalek –an ancient nation that became a symbol of the eternal enemy of the Jewish. Thus Arabs’ antagonism towards Israel is described as ‘Amalekism of our generation’ (Eliash, 1980: 13).

Israel’s confrontations with its neighbors thus acquire transcendental meaning beyond the bounds of historical or circumstantial considerations. According to Jewish tradition, at every stage of history the Jewish people has had to confront a different enemy, an endless chain of conflicts which will cease at the end of history, that is, with the coming of the Messiah. Thus the assumption is that it is a divine decree, inscribed in the Bible that propels Gush Emunim to combat its opponents.

Moreover, the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is portrayed in settlers’ historiography as a new form of anti-Semitism. Following this line, their opponents’ ideology is referred to as similar to the anti-Semitic book The Protocols of Zion (Saadon, 1996). Another article argued that anti-Semitism in the Arab world has profound roots in Islamic culture from the 19th century, thus implying that Zionism was not the cause of the antagonism towards Israel (Frantzman, 2009). Hence its political and territorial aspects are ignored.

In order to emphasize the dangers to the Jewish people in the absence of independence, Nekuda also refers to the Holocaust (Etzion, 2009; Who fans the fires of the violence?, 1981). Any decision which opposes the Gush Emunim position or the concept of a Complete Land of Israel is virtually perceived as a holocaust, or as a step that could bring another tragedy upon the Jewish people.

Discussion

Analysis of the findings leads to several insights. The first is that, according to Gush Emunim, the history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel can be divided into two: periods in which there was Jewish sovereignty over the country and periods in which other nations were sovereign. In this respect, the Gush Emunim leadership reveals an a-historical perspective, one in which there is no consideration of the unique circumstances and characteristics of each period. The historiography of Gush Emunim takes no stand on geopolitical or demographic context, nor are particular conditions or attributes in any given era taken into account. Writers move from period to period, analyzing reality and drawing conclusions with respect to certain periods on the basis of the lessons learned from others.

For Jews, through the eyes of Gush Emunim, losing sovereignty over their country means suffering from persecution and harassment. Even though Palestine was under different rulers during history, foreign sovereignty has no moral or historical legitimacy in Gush Emunim’s historiography. Other peoples that lived in the land of Israel have been symbolically erased from the movement’s memory (Newman, 2005). If there have been any changes in the make-up of the population, then ostensibly the Jewish presence has been constant. This historical perspective gives the Zionist enterprise moral authority insofar as Jewish sovereignty is the only assurance of the continuity of the Jewish people. Thus the Jews are not a colonial nation who attempted to gain control of a land that was not theirs, rather they are portrayed as the only nation with historical rights to the land. Discovery of the past strengthens the status of the Jewish nation as bearers of sole authority to claim the land.

The second insight is the emphasis on the theme of victimization as another thread linking historical interludes in the collective memory of the settlers. The theme of victimization is ingrained in Jewish culture and historiography (Assis et al., 2000; Hazan, 2001). The Jewish nation is perceived as weak and unable to defend itself against peoples with military might. Thus it has fallen prey to persecution and maltreatment since the dawn of history and up until the present day. The establishment of the state and its military successes – such as the victory during the Six Day War – have not laid this motif to rest. Insofar as the theme of victimization remains intact regardless of changing historical circumstances, it too is a manifestation of the a-historical perspective.

It is interesting that the Gush Emunim leadership draws parallels between the fate of the Jews in the Diaspora before the establishment of Israel as a state and the problems of the settlers. There is an attempt here to draw connections between the present and the past while deliberately ignoring differences between the two periods. This comparison implies that the settlements do not enjoy the protection of the sovereign nation. They live under conditions similar to those of the Jews living under foreign rule. Thus for the settlement leadership the state has not yet been fully established because, even though there is a sovereign Jewish presence, it does not guarantee the services they believe a state ought to provide.

The historiography of Gush Emunim also reveals the assumption of a critical connection between restoration of the past and interpretation and understanding of the present. The present-day struggle over the land of Israel determines the choice of past events for reinforcement of the moral basis of the Jewish nation’s claim to sovereignty and control over the land. Memory of the past serves as an instrument for inculcating belief in the necessity of struggle, even at the price of sacrifice or heroism. Moreover, the lessons of the past give credence to demands and activities in the present. Thus, for example, Gush Emunim’s collective memory teaches the members of its community that under certain conditions, it is permissible and even necessary to take controversial steps, and even engaging in illegal acts is accepted.

As discussed before, one of the principal functions of memory is to structure the identity of a community. What can be deduced about the identity of the Gush Emunim movement from the arrangement of the past and the structure of collective memory as presented on the pages of Nekuda? The chief conclusion would seem to be that Gush Emunim sees itself as an integral part of Israeli society since the movement portrays itself as a pioneer movement, the natural descendant of the secular Zionist movement, that combined settlement with defense (Feige, 2009; Katriel and Shenhar, 1990). In other words, the settlement endeavor is seen as having the same dual significance as the settlements that were established during the early Zionist period. On one hand this has a political significance. Settlements are the very epitome of the Zionist ideology of establishing a demographic and economic infrastructure for the state and marking its frontier, and as such their establishment is seen as an act with meaning in and of itself.

On the other hand, the settlements also have military significance. In the eyes of the Gush Emunim leadership, as in the eyes of the first pioneers, a settlement is not just a place to live but also a military presence. It protects the borders of the state and of the Jewish population in other areas. In other words, in Gush Emunim’s historical interpretation, every settlement, even if it holds but a few families, adds to the security of the Jewish population as a whole. The analogy between the project of settlement and the wall and tower campaign, and the foundation of the first communities at the beginning of the 20th century, situates the movement at the heart of the Zionist consensus.

Nonetheless, the collective identity of the settlers is not unified or homogeneous. They portray the community as a microcosm of Israeli society. The newspaper portrays settlers as coming from all the sectors in the nation, the religious, the secular, new immigrants, veteran citizens, those who came for ideological reasons and those who came looking for quality of life and lead ordinary lives. The diversity in identity has helped Gush Emunim to participate in public Israeli discourse and to present its community differently at different times, in accordance with prevailing conditions.

The duality in the definition of the Gush Emunim identity and the issue of how the past is framed or how shared history is reconstructed are related. The difficulty with defining the nature of the movement affects how the past is configured. An emphasis on acts of bravery and on deviation from the law for the sake of national objectives is likely to reinforce an elitist and differentiated image. A heterogeneous and ‘ordinary’ portrait of the community may be more attractive to ordinary people who are interested in improving their lifestyle.

Collective memory may have another function: bestowing legitimacy on the political demands of the movement. By virtue of Gush Emunim’s historical memory, its aspiration to control all of Israel and the territories conquered in the Six-Day War is viewed as natural and legitimate. The historical basis for the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel situates the demands of the movement within a context of redressing former wrongs: Jews have been present in the country throughout history. Other nations that ruled for a time were perceived as foreign, and their rule was made possible by military might. The Jewish right to settle the land, on the contrary, derives from history and not from power. Arguments in favour of controlling the territory revolve around the historical right established by Jewish sovereignty in the past and by the Jewish presence in Israel throughout 2000 years of exile, and settlers seek to distance themselves from their aggressive and colonialist image.

Moreover the Gush Emunim movement wishes to clarify that Jews lived in Israel throughout history and did not abandon their country. The Gush Emunim leadership is interested primarily in emphasizing the Jewish presence in the territories, as the battle over public opinion is primarily over the right to establish Jewish settlements in areas captured during the Six Day War. Restructuring of the past is intended, therefore, to cast Gush Emunim’s political struggle in a historical light.

This point displays the connection between memory and the present circumstances. Gush Emunim’s political aspirations and the need to cope with criticism are key factors in the molding of memory that can serve as an instrument in Gush Emunim’s confrontations with its opponents. The movement has been required to deal with criticism on several fronts. On the international front, the aspirations of the movement to settle territories occupied since the Six Day War are viewed as a transgression of international law and as an immoral imperative that causes injustice to the Palestinians. Leaders of the movement are not particularly disturbed by this, although the controversy reaches into wide sectors of the state. A second front is challenges posed by opponents within the Israeli public to the conceptual stance adopted by Gush Emunim. Most of the criticism has been directed against its colonialist aspirations. A third front has appeared among supporters of the ideology of the movement who object to its methods and activities. At the same time there are also internal debates within the community, between the religious and the secular, the ideologists and the pragmatists, and between the hard core of Gush Emunim and new settlers who came to the territories seeking a better quality of life.

It can be concluded that the claims of Gush Emunim to settle the captured territories and to establish sovereignty over them rest on what the movement sees as a a historical and moral platform. The leaders of Gush Emunim see their movement as a link in an ongoing and continuous historical chain, and not as a revolutionary enterprise.

Are settlers revolutionary?

Taub (2007) suggests that the settlers have moved away from the political Zionist ideology and have elaborated a particular form of religious messianic doctrine. Yet, the settlers’ memory portrays them as similar to the early pioneers.

Moreover, the bond to secular Zionism is established also by adopting its language and images of early Zionism, among them the image of the pioneer, the Hasmoneans, and the Masada story (Katriel and Shenhar, 1990). The motif of the victim was also pervasive in the early phase of Zionism (Peri, 2000).

At the same time, settlers’ historiography wiped out the experience of the Jews in the Diaspora. Disregard for this period of Jewish history is puzzling, as one might have expected a religious community such Gush Emunim to emphasize the rich cultural and religious legacy that developed in the Diaspora. The leadership of Gush Emunim has opted, however, to adopt the Zionist line of historiography, which stresses the Jewish presence in the land of Israel and distances itself from periods of history in which the Jews lived outside of the country (Weitz, 1997).

Therefore the settlers’ historiography does not portray Gush Emunim as a revolutionary movement seeking fundamental change in values or government. On the contrary, Gush Emunim sees itself as a movement looking to return to ideological roots, to the mythical ethos of an idealistic society which actualizes its beliefs. The alternative proposed by the settlers to a society that has become materialistic and which seeks only to mimic the western world, is to return to its roots and to the ideals on which Israeli society was founded. In this regard Gush Emunim can be viewed as a conservative movement which espouses historical values rather than a revolutionary alternative.

The reluctance among settlers’ leaders to establish a counter-memory can also be understood in the context of deliberation about the identity of the movement. Does Gush Emunim see itself as mainstream or does it see itself as opposed to operating outside of the normative framework and representing a small group? This dilemma is extremely important as it reflects on the image of the group both in its own eyes and in the eyes of the public.

This article’s purpose was to examine the role of collective memory construed in an alternative newspaper in the formation of collective identity. The results show that alternative media are important mnemonic agents that shape a social movement’s collective memory according to its present circumstances and constraints.