Contested History and Conflicting Narratives of Cultural Heritage, Memory and Preservation among Israelis (Term Paper Sample)

Contested History and Conflicting Narratives of Cultural Heritage, Memory and Preservation among Israelis
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Contested History and Conflicting Narratives of Cultural Heritage, Memory and Preservation among Israelis
Overview
Countries spend a considerable amount of resources in preserving tangible and intangible cultural aspects to create a common sense origin for their people. Cultural heritage plays a major role in developing and enforcing the identities of the people living within a given society (Colls, 2015). Leaders decide the aspects of the past that the community should identity with based on the present needs of the people. In most cases, nations return to their cultural heritage after a crisis to remind the people about their identity and the need for unity. Not every aspect of culture qualifies as cultural heritage. It takes the subjective decision of the people in power to decide what information should be passed down from one generation to the other as a collective memory of the past (Semi & Rossetto, 2012). Due to the idiosyncratic nature of cultural heritage, a lot of contentions and conflicts often occur challenging the leadership of society to re-evaluate the events of the past chosen to create a cultural heritage. The contested histories and conflicting narratives of the cultural heritage of the Israeli community presents a perfect example of the lack of inclusivity and neglect of important historical factors in favor of the ruling group.
Nature of the Debates around the Topic
Conflicts and superiority wrangles between the Zionist and Moslem cultures in Israel have existed for a long time (Gegner & Ziino, 2012). Debates on whether the Jewish Zionist followers have abused their power to negotiate positions and divide communities by ignoring various aspects of the past that do not agree with the master Zionist narrative have emerged. Proponents of the master Zionist narrative use the notion that histories have seen significant developments over time to defend their support of the choices made by the Israeli government in relation to cultural heritage preservation (Fischer, 2014; Jong, 2017; Quer, 2019, Galor, 2015). The proponents of the Arab Moslem culture, on their part, argue that the Zionist master narrative should be re-appraised to accommodate other contributors of history including Palestinian Israelis and Jews of Arab Islamic countries (Semi & Rossetto, 2012; Troen, 2013; Shenhav & Hever, 2009; Al-Qasem, 2015). The debates on both sides present valid opinions making it difficult for them to reach a consensus.