NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8622

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Subject: The Fallacy of Symmetry
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Reprinted from AL-FAJR Jerusalem Palestinian Weekly, October
19, 1992, pg. 3

(Reproduction of material published in the weekly Al-Fajr in part
or total is permitted without prior permission. We only request
that credit be given to Al-Fajr English weekly for any articles or
paragraphs adapted from it. Correspondence may be directed to
the Main Office: 7 Antara Ben Shaddad, P.O. Box 19315,
Jerusalem, via Israel; Tel. 271655, Fax.273521. Or the New York
Office: 16 Crowell Street, Hempstead, NY  11550 USA; Tel.
516/485-5736, Fax. [phone].)

THE FALLACY OF SYMMETRY: A COMMENTARY ON
THE NEW GENRE OF BOOKS ON PALESTINIANS
By Sherna Berger Gluck

    The outbreak of the Intifada on Dec. 9, 1987, made the
Palestinian cause a reality that could not be ignored. No longer
could a Golda Meir get away with her (in)famous pronouncement
that there were no Palestinians - another version of the earlier lie
that the land was empty before the Israelis took it over.

A growing number of books, slide shows, and videos produced
since the beginning of the Intifada bear testimony to the
Palestinian cause. But the compulsion to create symmetrical
structures, to present interviews with both Palestinians and
Israelis, that marks so many of these works, ends up creating a
new mind-set. The Palestinians seem not to exist on their own, but
only in relationship to Israelis.

Nevertheless, all these works help to humanize the Palestinians, a
noble task particularly because they are usually either discounted
or demonized. In an attempt to counteract the past history of
Palestinian armed struggle, the authors offer proof that the
Palestinians want peace. On the other hand, in portraying Israelis,
they attempt to counteract not the history of Israeli terrorism, but
the persistent intransigence of the Israeli government.

Penny Rosenwasser's "Voices from 'A Promised Land':
Palestinian and Israeli Peace Activists Speak Their Hearts"
(Curbstone Press, 1992), the most recent example of this genre of
dual narrative structure, is the most genuinely respectful of and
sympathetic to the Palestinians. Yet, by including interviews only
with likeable, peace-loving people, the author seems as intent on
redeeming Israelis as on proving that Palestinians want peace.

The impulse to present parallel narratives of Palestinians and
Israelis is misguided because it contradicts the reality of
asymmetry inherent in the relationship between occupied and
occupier, colonized and colonizer.

The Palestinians in Rosenwasser's book who speak to us about
peace, for the most part, are representative of Palestinian society.
They embrace the PLO position and some cases (e.g. Faisal
Husseini and Zahera Kamal), they are people who have been
selected by the PLO to speak on its behalf. Although there are
segments of the Palestinian population who might disagree with
their stated positions, these people are not marginal to their
society.

The Israeli peace activists who Rosenwasser presents, on the other
hand, by their own acknowledgment are marginal to their society.
Rather than being representatives, they are opponents, outsiders.
This is not to deny their importance or the need for us to support,
encourage and publicize their activities. But does it help either
them or the Palestinians to try to equate them with each other?

Another thread that runs through works like Rosenwasser's is the
dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis is proof that peaceful
co-existence is possible. Without diminishing the human
significance of dialogue between members of enemy camps, we
also have to take care that we do not reduce political problems to
the level of individual friendship. The long history of co-existence
between Arab and Jews in historic Palestine is filled with accounts
of personal friendships - and perhaps even more significantly, of
shared culture. What prevents these relationships from forming
and blossoming is not individual enmity, but a political problem:
the denial of self-determination to the Palestinian people.

In terms of an American audience and the constraints imposed by
those who control the media, this genre of parallel narratives may
be the only way that works sympathetic to Palestinians and can be
published/broadcast. But, ultimately, we might ask, does this
genre not reinforce the idea that Palestinian identity has no
foundation of its own, that it can be contstructed only in
relationship to Israel/Israelis?

By heaping uncritical praise on these dual narrative productions
and not criticizing the underlying fallacy of symmetry, we may
simply by perpetuating in a more palatable form the Golda Meir
line.

-----------
Sherna Gluck is the director of the oral history program at
California State University, Long Beach. She is an editor of
Almiraat, a Los Angeles-based Arab-American bi-weekly, from
which this article was adapted.

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posted by Jennifer Smith
AWAIR: Arab World And Islamic Resources and School Services
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