Archive  (2001) -

While in Germany people want to forget and seek forgiveness, people in the Holy Land look for remembrance.

Salman Masalha

And They Shall Ever Meet

Can Germany be the right place for a meeting between Palestinian and Israeli authors? This question came to my mind when I was asked to write an article about the meeting that took place in September 2001 in Mainz. First, I must admit that there was no lack of good will from all those who left home and came to Germany to attend the German-Palestinian-Israeli authors’ meeting. But good will was never an obstacle to such a meeting

How far, in terms of distance, should a Palestinian or Israeli author go in order to meet with his counterpart? Personally, having been born in the land of Galilee -part of Palestine that became part of Israel in1948, I don’t have to ride a plane and go that far, to Germany, in order to sit with Israeli authors and exchange views and thoughts. Such contacts occur here at home on a daily basis, through personal talks and through writings in both Arabic and Hebrew. At the same time, I can surely understand the good will of Germans who take this duty upon themselves and make great efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis together in this special place, Germany with the history it bears, where such a meeting may push all parties to pave a new path for mutual understanding.

No matter the reason behind their efforts, be it from an internal reckoning of conscience regarding their history in the last century, or be it from genuine good will aimed at preventing suffering in other places, the result cannot but be a good in any case. At the same time, I may shed some light on a significant issue that can clarify, or crystallize, the trap in which we have all found ourselves for the last half a century.

In Western thought, which is mainly influenced by Christian theology, the act of forgiving and, in other words, forgetting the sins of others, is considered a high moral act that a human is ordered to perform, as such an act is an act of the holy, of God. That is why God is asked to forgive human sins: "And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil," (Luke. 11:4). God in this verse is being asked to be equal to man. And forgiving the others who are "indebted to us" is an act of creating the holy, the inner peace in the soul as well as the peace between God and man which leads in the end to the breaking of the cycle of evil, the act of violence on earth.

While in Germany people deal with issues of forgetting and forgiving, which are important in the Christian heritage, the people in Israel and Palestine are dealing with memories and digging day and night in their past. In Eastern theology, both Jewish and Muslim, the act of forgiving is solely God's prerogative: “And those who, having done something to be ashamed of, or wronged their own souls, earnestly bring Allah to mind, and ask for forgiveness for their sins,- and who can forgive sins except Allah” ? (Qur’an 3:135), as He is: “the Lord of Righteousness, and the Lord of Forgiveness”. (Quran: 74:56)

Man is ordered not to forget, but rather to remember: "Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt," (Deut. 25: 17), and: "Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it" (Deut. 25: 19). This Amalek is interpreted in new Jewish thought as the Nazis on one hand, and the Arabs, mainly the Palestinians, on the other. On many occasions Yasir Arafat has been called "Hitler" by high Israeli officials and by Israeli right wing parties. This idea was also aptly put by the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, who refers to the biblical literature:

"If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Then let my right be forgotten.
Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember
Let my left remember, and your right close
And your mouth open near the gate."  
               (From: If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem)

While in Germany people want to forget and seek forgiveness, people in the Holy Land look for remembrance. This is why the land of Israel and Palestine is full of memorial places and days of remembrance. The one side wants to remember the history of the Jewish people and its suffering caused by non-Arabs, while the other wants to remember his land and the village from which he was uprooted, and looks for a place under the sun where he can live normally without being a target for humiliations at the hands of former victims of racism in remote places.

So, in such a trap, can Germany be the right place for a meeting between Palestinian and Israeli authors? The answer is categorically, YES.

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“And They Shall Ever Meet”, Identities and the Freedom of the Word, Hans-Georg Meyer/Verena Mahlow/Sigfrid Gauch (eds.), Mainz, November 2002, pp.91-93.