The stories Israelis and Palestinian children learn from their parents, in school, and from their friends play a key role in peace negotiations between the two sides, Paul Scham said Wednesday.
Scham, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, discussed the importance of historical narratives with about 40 students in Barnum Hall.
History, Scham said, is the reason for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "You have two completely different versions of reality," he said. "They have very different versions of themselves, and their narratives exclude the other side."
Scham's speech drew on an essay he edited, "Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue."
"What you see in the book is how angry people get when they feel their own history - especially their victimization - is being reflected on," he said.
Both sides' narratives are similar, Scham said, because they both address a sense of "ambiguous nationhood." He stressed the difference between a nation and a state: the Palestinians are a nation, but not a state.
The critical event that divides the two narratives, Scham said, is the War of 1948 - referred to by Israelis as the War of Independence and by Palestinians and much of the Arab and Muslim World as the nakba, or catastrophe.
Israel views the war as a defensive effort against the invasion of five Arab nations, whereas the Palestinians see the same event as the forced expulsion from their homeland, Scham said.
The two opposing views have been critical in forming the two sides' identities and determining the relationship between the peoples. Since the schism in 1948, the two views have continued to drift apart.
Two of the most divisive issues in negotiations can be traced to the opposing narratives, Scham said. At the Camp David summit in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat "fundamentally disagreed on current issues," Scham said.
The first issue is Jerusalem. The city's "history is claimed by both sides," Scham said. "As far as Jews are concerned, it's the symbol for the Jewish religion. It's a Jewish city. For most Arabs concerned, it's an Arab city."
The second issue is the so-called right of return for Palestinians who left their homes during the War of 1948. According to the Palestinian narrative, they were expelled and should be allowed to return. "For Palestinians, this is the ultimate expression of their identity," Scham said.
Some attitudes have changed. Scham described the revisionist history movement in Israel, which began during the 1980s as Israeli military documents were declassified.
Some Israelis have "looked at their history in a different way," he said. "It's a small part of Israeli society."
This new way to look at Israel's history began to show some Israelis that the War of Independence was not the clear-cut defensive war taught in Israeli schools.
On the other side, Scham said many Palestinians have come to accept Israel's existence as a reality.
Some past negotiations have set aside narratives, Scham said. The secret negotiations before the 1993 Oslo Accords and the recent unofficial Geneva discussions fit this criterion because coordinators thought discussing history would hurt the peace process, not facilitate it.
"History is too painful," Scham said. "It's highly unsatisfying in many ways."
A better alternative would be a mutual acceptance of the narrative divide. "There is a role for real history," Scham said. "You have to have in future peace agreements an understanding of history. Both sides are convinced that the other side wants to destroy them."
Scham stressed the value of viewing the other side's history as civilized. "To try to humanize the other side of the conflict has to be taken into account in policy making," he said.
Scham's speech was hosted by the Arab Students Association, Friends of Israel, the New Initiative for Middle East Peace, and the International Relations and History Departments.
