REMEMBERING the FUTURE: FRANCOPHONE PERSPECTIVES on the ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT by Rachel Nisselson Dissertation Submitted To
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REMEMBERING THE FUTURE: FRANCOPHONE PERSPECTIVES ON THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT By Rachel Nisselson Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in French August, 2010 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller Professor Robert Barsky Professor Tracy Sharpley-Whiting Professor Julia Cohen To Adnan, whose eternal optimism is contagious and whose embrace of difference is inspiring; to my family, who continue to love and support me unconditionally; and to all those whose work for peace and understanding in Israel-Palestine. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The analogy between the completion of an artistic or intellectual work and giving birth to a child is commonplace. It is also often said that it takes a village to raise a child. It seems obvious to me that a “village worth” of professors, colleagues, friends, family, and institutional resources have played integral roles in the inception, creation, and completion of this dissertation. I begin by acknowledging my gratitude and indebtedness to my advisor, Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller. Her commitment to meaningful scholarship and her passion for teaching are remarkable. As both an advisor and professor, she pushed me to take on challenges and stand up for my beliefs. I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with my other committee members: Robert Barsky, who challenged me to dream big; Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, who provided an essential, interdisciplinary perspective; and Julia Cohen, who joined the team near the project’s completion, but who, nonetheless, had a significant impact. The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial assistance of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, nor without the professional and emotional support of Mona Federick and Edward Friedman, and administrative support of Polly Case and Katherine Newman. Other Vanderbilt sources that provided essential funding for summer research include the College of Arts and Science and the Graduate School. I am particularly grateful for the Dissertation Enhancement Grant funded by the Graduate School that enabled me to travel to France and conduct the three interviews that clearly enriched my dissertation. iii Several professors at Vanderbilt have played key roles in my growth as a scholar and teacher. I thank Virginia Scott for pushing my teaching to a new level, for encouraging me to pursue professional development opportunities, and for insisting on being proud of me along the way. Chalene Helmuth facilitated my involvement in one of my most fulfilling Vanderbilt experiences, a study abroad trip to Costa Rica. Todd Hughes not only encouraged me to think critically about the application of technology in the foreign language classroom, but also was a constant cheerleader during my graduate career. Yvonne Boyer helped me get my feet wet in archival research. Many Vanderbilt colleagues helped make the writing process less lonely and my dissertation more readable. My deepest thanks to my fellow Fellows at the Robert Penn Warren Center: Elena Deanda, Patrick Jackson, Sarah Kersh, Gail McConnell, Elizabeth Meadows, and Matt Whitt. Thanks and apologies go to the members of my writing group—Amanda Hagood, Sarah Kersh (to thank her twice would still not be enough), and Bethany Packard—who read early and frequent drafts. I am also grateful to the Memory and Trauma Reading Group, particularly its fearless head, Elizabeth Covington. I thank my fellow graduate students in the French department, especially Robert Watson, and my cohort members, Louis Betty and Eva Dessein. Thanks to Liz Shadbolt’s administrative support, I never missed a deadline. I am indebted to my interviewees, Slimane Benaïssa, Hubert Haddad, Annie- Paule Derczansky, who gave of their time generously and spoke honestly and provocatively. I am grateful to my Amherst College professors—notably Leah Hewitt and Paul Rockwell—for encouraging me to pursue graduate studies, and to my long-distance iv colleague, Emilie Talpin, for her willingness to answer grammatical and lexical questions, even in the middle of the night. Many friends near and far provided a shoulder to lean on or an extra set of eyes; special thanks to Freya Sachs and Allie Lee Wittkamp. Many thanks to my parents, Trudy and Alan; grandparents, Helen and Harold; and brother, Jesse; for their support, humor, and perspective. “Mille mercis” to my French family—Patrice Léoni, and Martine, Romain, and Charlotte Bayout—for the role they played in my French education and for hosting me whenever research or pleasure brings me to French. And last, but certainly not least, I am grateful to Adnan Rubai, who lived the ups and downs of this project along with me and deserves much credit for its completion. v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Stage right of L’avenir oublié, as staged at MC93 Bobigny, 1999 ........................2 2. Stage left of L’avenir oublié ...................................................................................2 3. Slimane Benaïssa as Isac and Martine Vandeville as Josette................................13 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................vi Chapter INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................x Memory, history, and narrative in Israel-Palestine ......................................xxiv The Interconnected histories of North Africa and the Middle East...............xxx Jewish-Muslim relations in France ............................................................xxxiv Overview of chapters .............................................................................. xxxviii I. SLIMANE BENAÏSSA’S DISMANTLING OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN BINARY IN L’AVENIR OUBLIÉ ..........................................................................1 Dismantling the binary .....................................................................................9 Generation gaps: Forgetting the past versus forgetting the future...................16 The duty to remember the past .......................................................................25 The Shoah as traumatic memory ....................................................................34 Conflicting calls to action ...............................................................................41 Between a rock and a hard place ....................................................................45 Conclusion ......................................................................................................51 II. THE AMBIGUITY OF AMNESIA IN HUBERT HADDAD’S PALESTINE ....55 The Ambiguity of amnesia .............................................................................61 The Return of repressed memories .................................................................67 Interrelated histories: Iraqi Jews and Palestinians ..........................................75 Recognizing the other within the self .............................................................84 Conclusion ......................................................................................................92 vii III. LOCATING THE PRODUCTIVE WITHIN THE UNTHINKABLE: EDMOND EL MALEH’S ZIONIST/ NAZI COMPARISONS .............................................97 Comparing departure to deportation, exodus to extermination ....................104 Creating kinship through shared expressions of trauma ...............................120 Exploding the Zionist narrative of Tel Aviv .................................................123 Conclusion ....................................................................................................131 IV. AN ALTERNATE MODE OF DECONSTRUCTION: ELIAS SANBAR’S ARTICULATION OF PALESTINIAN PRESENCE IN LE BIEN DES ABSENTS ............................................................................................................136 The Omnipresent memory of a “chez-nous disparu” ...................................145 Absence of memory, absence as memory .....................................................149 Absence legally and rhetorically imposed ....................................................156 Conclusion ....................................................................................................166 V. CODA: ARTISTIC RESTAGINGS OF THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT ........171 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................183 viii INTRODUCTION In his 1989 monograph Le crime et la mémoire, sociologist and historian Alfred Grosser notes that in the contemporary world, there are a seemingly endless number of clarion calls to remember past tragedies. “‘Souvenez-vous !’” ‘Souvenez-vous !’ : un peu partout dans le monde retentissent des appels à la mémoire.”1 The moral imperative behind these calls to remember is two-fold. First, one should remember the victims of the world’s tragedies out of respect for the dead. Second, one should internalize history’s lessons because, as the oft-quoted axiom states, “Those who forget history are doomed