Re-calculating Reconciliation: On the Transformative Power of Resentment in Israel-Palestinian Relations

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article argues that Palestinian resentment has an overlooked political value in transforming Israeli-Palestinian relations. Drawing on Edward Said’s qualified concept of humanism, which recognises the particularities of oppression and the goal of the universal, it examines the rupture between the conditions that actualised the state of Israel, and the consequences of this political reality for the Palestinian people. While forgiveness has been viewed as key to community healing in divided societies, it is ineffective where the dominant group fails to apprehend and acknowledge wrong done. To the contrary, reconciliation requires recuperation of the experiences of the oppressed. Paradoxically, it is argued that incorporating these resentments into public discourse, in the context of a Derridean reading of forgiveness, may serve to allay Jewish-Israeli anxiety about future cooperation. Following essayist and Holocaust survivor, Jean Améry, I argue that resentment is an essential moral and political response in the case of Israel/Palestine. It is proposed that resentment could address historical injustices obscured by 70 years of reified Israeli national narrative and the resultant disjuncture between Jewish-Israeli understanding of the contemporary conflict and Palestinian emphasis on its origins. If recognition is indispensable to improved relations, then resentment could elucidate Jewish-Israeli guilt, and encourage a transformative shift towards responsibility.