Narratives of Personal Experience

The question of Palestine and the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict is now over 60 years old and there seems to be no foreseeable resolution. Although it has been at the fore of the political scene and has received a considerable amount of coverage, the facts are often one-sided or distorted and the Palestinian narrative remains largely unheard or unvoiced. By allowing or facilitating the telling of personal narratives one gives voice to the Palestinian point of view and the Palestinian historical narratives. ‘Everyone may disagree about the causes and effects, but no one denies that the nationalist claims of Palestinians — and Israelis — are bolstered by stories about the past: memories and histories’ (Khalili 2007: 1). Personal narratives are frequently conveyed from older to younger generations and they are history as remembered and experienced by the individual. Furthermore, personal narratives often have an author, and the author and the narrator are one and the same.