How Israel wages its war on Palestinian history

op-17-08-20-Palestinian-refugee-camp
A Palestinian refugee camp in 1949. Israeli archives confirm massacres of Palestinian civilians carried out in 1948, the year Israel was established. (photo: Alamy Stock Photo)
The state is using a variety of means to create a perception that its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians have been driven by security concerns.

By Jonathan Cook |   The National   | Aug 20, 2020

Israel’s archives are being hurriedly sealed up precisely to prevent any danger that records might confirm long-sidelined and discounted Palestinian history

When the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri made a documentary about Jenin in 2002 – filming immediately after the Israeli army had completed rampaging through the West Bank city, leaving death and destruction in its wake – he chose an unusual narrator for the opening scene: a mute Palestinian youth.

Jenin had been sealed off from the world for nearly three weeks as the Israeli army razed the neighbouring refugee camp and terrorised its population.

Bakri’s film Jenin, Jenin shows the young man hurrying silently between wrecked buildings, using his nervous body to illustrate where Israeli soldiers shot Palestinians and where bulldozers collapsed homes, sometimes on their inhabitants.

It was not hard to infer Bakri’s larger meaning: when it comes to their own story, Palestinians are denied a voice. They are silent witnesses to their own and their people’s suffering and abuse.

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