The Archive and the Challenges of Protecting the Palestinian Memory

Mr. Eshnaiwer gave a theoretical introduction of the archive, based on Jacques Derrida’s approach in his book “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression” in which he sees state archives as governmental components to control people. The researcher discussed two archival events (the establishment of the Israeli national archive in 1949 and the destruction of the PLO research center in Beirut in 1982), pointing out to the Israeli unremitting attempts to destroy and to control the Palestinian memory, and their effort to build an Israeli memory on the ruins of the Palestinian one, seeking to impose their political control. As Darrida said “There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory.” At the end, Mr. Eshnaiwer pointed out to the importance of the archive in the Palestinian case as a place to create knowledge and to formulate the national identity.