Od 11-18. januara ove godine, imao sam priliku da učestvujem u seminaru “Memory Activism in Israel”, organizovanom od strane Centra za komparativne studije konflikta iz Beograda. Seminar je bio dobro pripremljen i vrlo intenzivan u programskom smislu. Njegov fokus je bio upoznavanje sa istorijskim činjenicama o konfliktima u Palestini nakon osnivanja države Izrael, kao i praktični i teorijski uvid u neke aktuelne aktivističke prakse i politike javnog sećanja i memorijalizacije konfliktne prošlosti u Izraelu. Ovaj seminar bio je svakako izuzetna prilika da se aktivisti i aktivistkinje iz Srbije upoznaju sa problematikom ideologije, politike i prakse (policy-a) oficijelnog, javnog kao i onog manje-više “tajnog”, alternativnog sjećanja, a u vezi sa time i problematikom vladajuće i alternativne interpretacije brojnih traumatičnih događanja iz istorije Izraela i Palestine.

The first Israeli I met upon landing in Tel Aviv was Eitan Bronstein. Eitan is the founder and former director of  Zochrot, and was our local coordinator for the study seminar.  Zochrot acts to challenge the Israeli Jewish public's preconceptions and promotes awareness, political and cultural change within it, among other things, to create the conditions for the return of Palestinian refugees and a shared life in this country. I had heard a lot about Zochrot even before I came to Israel but it was only there that I truly understood why what Eitan and his colleagues do and what they believe in is admired around the world.   

After a long thinking about this post and the task what inspired me the most during our week long trip to Israel, I actually come up with the idea to apply some of the work of one of my colleagues related to Yugoslav wars to Israel.

Nenad Porobić, who was also a part of our group that was visiting Israel, is also part of Belgrade-based  group of artists and activists  called Working Group Four Faces of Omarska .

So little is known about the post- Yugoslav wars of the 1990s among Israelis and Palestinians, unlike the overwhelming and on going news and coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian that consume the international media.

At Zochrot, after a long day, we invited interested audience to learn about Memory work in Serbia. The position of those engaged in memory work in their societies in Serbia, as I understand it, is very similar to this of activists in Israel producing alternative knowledge and alternative commemorative practices as related to the memory of 1948 as well as other layers of collective memory in Jewish Israeli society.  Such practices, as remembering Srebrenica as a genocide in Belgrade, or remembering the Nakba in Hebrew, are part of the on-going mnemonic battles in both societies. 

I will never forget the day when we visited both Rachel’s Tomb and Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem in the West Bank. In order to deepen our understanding of the Palestinian plight in 1948 (Nakba, i.e. catastrophe – mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Jews from what became the state of Israel) and its unaddressed consequences, the organizers of the Study seminar took us to these two locations which are separated by a segregation wall Israel has been building in the occupied West Bank.

First impression that I had while we're approaching the Wall in West Bank overwhelmed me and for the first time here I felt really sad. I couldn't believe that someone could use Holy place (as Israelis understand Rachel Tomb) as actual military zone. Israeli side presents the Wall as defense of attacks of the Palestinian side behind the Wall. They thoroughly explained how threatened they are from the attacks and constant danger imposed by the Palestinians. When we finished the visit to Rachel Tomb, I found myself wondering – is it safe for us to cross the Wall, and go to the other side? What will we find there?

Entering the Bethlehem and arriving to the other side of the Wall was second shock. Inhuman conditions in which members of Palestinian community are living their lives are simply indescribable. We found out that actual victims were they. Story of 16 years old boy who was shot by solders from the towers last week.

On first day of the seminar, it became clear to me: dealing with the memory activism in Israel is like writing in the sand: what you write now, next second could be erased. Just like in Serbia, someone has always to be present and write the same message again, and again, confronting the waves.

I Basics 

Memory activism in Serbia: is there any? Does memory activism in Serbia exist like in Israel, where it occurs as clearly defined activity on the margins of the Israeli society? Or is it more correct to claim that memory activism in Serbia actually means creating the memory of certain historic events like genocide in Srebrenica or ethnic cleansing campaigns in Kosovo and maintaining it in Serbian public discourse?

"Here's a painting by Nahum Gutman. It shows the founders of Tel Aviv drawing for the building lots on which they'll construct their homes. He painted the seashore in the background. There's only sand between the people and the sea. For some reason he didn't include Manshiyya, the Jaffa neighborhood with tens of thousands of inhabitants, most of them Arabs, even though it would have been impossible to overlook it from where he stood. By ignoring it he helped create the myth that the first Hebrew city was built on sand dunes." With these words, Umar al-Ghubari concluded his tour of the destroyed Palestinian localities within Tel Aviv's borders.