Abstract
Pre-transitional justice activities that expose past injustices during entrenched conflicts can incite strong reactions among actors who feel threatened by or dislike such activities, and who thus attempt to silence controversial truths. This article illuminates how attempts to silence controversial truths, in parallel with shutting down debate, can also have the unintended outcome of enlarging public discourse on previously marginalised issues. Thus, paradoxically, efforts to curb freedom of expression sometimes result instead in an expanded public capacity to debate previously silenced truths about the conflict. We conduct a case study of reactions to pre-transitional justice in Israeli society focusing on the so-called Nakba Law, enacted in 2011. Through interviews with members of the non-governmental organisation Zochrot, politicians, teachers and media persons, we first show the relationship between pre-transitional justice and enacting the Nakba Law. We then demonstrate that while the Nakba Law indeed aimed to hamper freedom of expression, it also enabled increased public knowledge about the meaning of Nakba. Our theoretical proposition regarding this paradox, in this case activated by instigating new memory laws, is highly relevant to other conflicts-in-resolution that experience pre-transitional justice processes.
Highlights
This study explores pre-transitional justice actions and subsequent state reactions
Through interviews with members of the non-governmental organisation Zochrot, politicians, teachers and media persons, we first show the relationship between pre-transitional justice and enacting the Nakba Law
We examine whether the Israeli so-called Nakba Law[1] can be understood as a reaction to the pre-transitional justice (pre-transitional justice (TJ)) actions of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Zochrot, which works to expose Nakba narratives to the Jewish-Israeli public.[2]
Summary
This study explores pre-transitional justice (pre-TJ) actions and subsequent state reactions. ISRAELI PRE‐TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND THE NAKBA LAW to include a variety of ways of dealing with past injustices while integrating issues such as history, truth, memory and identity.[10] TJ is used within the political sphere of policy and practice, such as in establishing and documenting the activities of institutions such as international courts, truth and reconciliation commissions, reparation programmes, human rights organisations and victim organisations in peace-building activities.[11] Prominent contributions to the field of conflict resolution view TJ as a post-conflict instrument whereby a society addresses situations of transition from dictatorship to democracy or from conflict to reconciliation.[12]. To further advance knowledge of the pre-TJ concept, we elaborate on reactions to pre-TJ activities and their societal consequences
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