Israeli Memory: From a Moment of Retrospection to Regulating the Past

Israeli memory never ceased to be ethno-national, featuring a Zionist ideology and mythical trajectory that leads from the biblical homeland to the resettlement of the Jewish people under a Jewish State. One of the major battlefields of the memory war between post-Zionist criticism, neo-Zionism, and Palestinian narratives are the school curriculums of Palestinian and Jewish schoolchildren in Israel. The annual Israel Prize, a prestigious award for well-known scientists and artists, is awarded in an official, televised ceremony on Independence Day. However, the link between the prestigious scientific award and national values was reinstated as part of the right-wing effort to silence criticism and control public debate in 2021. In summary, since 2000, and increasingly so since 2009, Israeli memory has been steered away from the prospect of a democratic inclusion of Palestinian citizens’ memories and state accountability for the Nakba and occupation.