Nur Masalha’s latest book, “Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History” (Zed Books, 2018) presents an accurate distinction between the Palestinian return to history and the purported Zionist reclamation – the latter failing in its endeavours to justify its claims historically. In discussing Palestine’s rich history, the limitations of Zionism and its colonial creation are exposed.
Prioritising fabricated narratives over documented Palestinian history shaped the colonisation of Palestine. The first recorded mentions of Palestine date back to more than 3,200 years ago. Yet much of Palestine’s ancient history is neglected, in line with the colonial approach which only gives selective visibility to Palestine to establish Zionist erasure of the indigenous population. In turn, the Zionist erasure was also responsible for the elimination of the Jewish Arab-speaking minority in Palestine among other disappearances, to pave the way, in the aftermath of the Second World War, for racial identity and eliminate the various regional identities in Palestine. In colonial conquest, the Zionist movement’s erasure of Palestine and its entire heritage was paramount.
Masalha identifies three types of writing on Palestine and what they have achieved regarding preservation, or erasure, of Palestinian memory. The first is what is termed as scriptural geography which is linked to Israeli settler-colonial writing and is disseminated by the powerful elite. In new historical writing, Palestinian history is treated as an appendage to Israel and mostly attributed to Zionist historians conflating settler-colonialism and democracy. The third is the subaltern history of Palestine which prioritises the need for Palestine to articulate itself.
Throughout the book, Masalha shows that Palestine’s detailed history would naturally veer towards the subaltern narratives. The chronological accounts, substantiated by many references to mentions of Palestine, prepare the reader for the later contrast with Orientalist and Zionist misrepresentation; the former allows the latter ample space to thrive having initiated the first replacing of indigenous history with a desired and profitable imaginary.