Berkeley Undergraduate Journal

The memories carried by the Palestinian people can be understood in two forms. First, there are the memories as a result of direct trauma recieved through displacement and death throughout the history of the Zionist colonial project. The Palestinian Nakba, as but one example, highlights the extent of such memories through the traumatizing military massacres and forced expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians at the hands of Zionist militant groups. These direct memories are carried from generation to generation and transform into a looming sense of collective melancholy experienced by the later generations both in historical Palestine as well as those living in diaspora. There is a clear disconnect in historical academia as people try to understand the suffering of the Palestinians through questionable historical frameworks rather than a lens that accurately represents the memories and trauma of the Palestinians as they had and continue to experience. As a result, Palestinians today find their memories of trauma challenged and in some cases outright denied via these historical frameworks and atmospheres produced by the Israeli government. The question is then how could we be able to understand trauma and memory as it relates to the Paletsinians? Throughout this thesis we will explore several different forms of translating and transmitting Paletsinian memory.