Outside the Locus of Control: Palestinian Digital Archives Resist Israeli Settler-Colonial Erasure

Abstract

This article examines Palestinian digital archiving in the context of the Israeli regime’s settler-colonial suppression and erasure of Palestinian knowledge. Looking closely at the efforts of three digital archives, the Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, the Palestinian Oral History Archive, and the Palestine Poster Project Archives, it argues that Palestinian digital archival projects, despite structural and technical limitations, serve to safeguard Palestinian knowledges and histories from Zionist violence. Noting examples of Israel’s looting, destruction, and closure of physical Palestinian archives, the author posits that researchers should use digital archives in tandem with materials accessed in Israeli colonial archives to challenge dominant and distorted Zionist narratives, and to fill in the knowledge gaps in the long arc of the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Keywords:

• digital archives
• Palestinian liberation
• Zionist settler colonialism
• Israeli occupation
• looting
• access
• memory
• knowledge
• oral testimony

Notes

1 Seth Anziska, “The Erasure of the Nakba in Israel’s Archives,” JPS 49, no. 1 (2019): 64–76, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2019.49.1.64.

2 Shay Hazkani, “Israel’s Vanishing Files, Archival Deception and Paper Trails,” Middle East Report, no. 291 (Summer 2019): www.merip.org/2019/09/israels-vanishing-files-archival-deception-and-paper-trails/.

3 Hazkani, “Israel’s Vanishing Files.”

4 Ilan Pappé, “An Indicative Archive: Salvaging Nakba Documents,” JPS 49, no. 3 (2020): 24, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2020.49.3.22.

5 Chiara De Cesari, Heritage and the Cultural Struggle for Palestine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019).

6 De Cesari, Heritage and the Cultural, 27.

7 Katja Müller, Digital Archives and Collections: Creating Online Access to Cultural Heritage (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021): 188–89.

8 Pappé, “An Indicative Archive,” 24–25.

9 Pappé, “An Indicative Archive,” 23–25.

10 Rona Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure–Israel’s Control over Palestinian Archives,” Social Semiotic 28, no. 2 (2018): 206, https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2017.1291140.

11 Noam Hofstadter, “What Secrets Is Israel’s State Archive Hiding from the Public,” +972 Magazine, January 26, 2018, www.972mag.com/what-secrets-is-israels-state-archive-hiding-from-the-public/.

12 Ann Laura Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” Archival Science 2 (2002): 90, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435632.

13 “Terms of Use,” Israel State Archives website, accessed June 13, 2023, https://catalog.archives.gov.il/en/terms-of-use/.

14 “Copyright Lets Your Creativity Take Flight,” Tglaw Copyright & Co. website, accessed June 13, 2023, www.tglaw.co.il/index.php?dir=site&page=articles&op=item&cs=10109&langpage=eng&language=eng#:∼:text=(a)%20Fair%20use%20of%20a,examination%20by%20an%20educational%20institution.

15 Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure,” 204–5.

16 Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure,” 204–5.

17 Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure,” 204–5.

18 Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure,” 204–5.

19 Yara Hawari, “Destroying Palestinian Jerusalem, One Institution at a Time,” Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, October 29, 2020, https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/destroying-palestinian-jerusalem-one-institution-at-a-time/.

20 “The Looted Archives of the Orient House,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 13 (Summer 2001): 3, www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/78054.

21 “Orient House,” Librarians and Archivists with Palestine website, accessed December 1, 2022, www.librarianswithpalestine.org/featured-projects-members/research-centers/orient-house/.

22 Rania Abu Shamala and Mohammed Majed, “‘Israel Destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City’: Head of Gaza Municipality,” Anadolu Agency, November 29, 2023, www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/-israel-destroyed-central-archives-of-gaza-city-head-of-gaza-municipality/3068555#; Nadda Osman, “Israel-Palestine War: Israeli Forces Destroy Central Archive of Gaza City,” Middle East Eye, December 7, 2023, www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-israeli-forces-destroy-central-archive-gaza-city.

23 Abu Shamala and Majed, “‘Israel Destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City.’”

24 Abu Shamala and Majed, “‘Israel Destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City.’”

25 Bethan McKernan and Quique Kierszenbaum, “‘We’re Focused on Maximum Damage’: Ground Offensive into Gaza Seems Imminent,” Guardian, October 10, 2023, www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-is-one-day-at-a-time-life-on-israels-frontline-with-gaza.

26 Abu Shamala and Majed, “‘Israel Destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City.’”

27 The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive Strategy 2021–2024, Palestinian Museum website, March 15, 2021, 1, www.palarchive.org/themes/default/assets/pmuseum/files/Strategy-English.pdf.

28 The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive Strategy, Palestinian Museum, 2.

29 The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive Strategy, Palestinian Museum, 4–5.

30 Palestinian Oral History Archive, American University of Beirut website, accessed December 1, 2022, https://libraries.aub.edu.lb/poha/.

31 “FAQ,” The Palestine Poster Project Archives website, accessed December 1, 2022, https://www.palestineposterproject.org/faq.

32 See Jeannette Allis Bastian, “Reading Colonial Records through an Archival Lens: The Provenance of Place, Space and Creation,” Archival Science 6 (2006): 267–84, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9019-1.

33 At the time of writing, the Palestine Museum Digital Archive has removed these maps from its site, perhaps due to Israel’s war in Gaza that began in 2023.

34 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 37.

35 K. T., “Israeli Forces Raid University, Shoot Youth near Ramallah,” WAFA, November 8, 2023, https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/139086; “Statement on the Israeli Occupation’s Army’s Invasion of Birzeit University,” Birzeit University, November 9, 2023, https://www.birzeit.edu/en/news/statement-israeli-occupations-armys-invasion-birzeit-university.

36 Palestine Deep Dive (@PDeepdive), “WATCH | Israeli artillery targets a telecommunication antenna in Al Braij refugee camp, central Gaza. Israel has so far killed at least 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children. Destruction of civilian infrastructure is a war crime,” Twitter, October 30, 2023, https://twitter.com/PDeepdive/status/1718988913648250984; “Palestine Unplugged: How Israel Disrupts Gaza’s Internet,” Access Now, November 28, 2023, https://www.accessnow.org/publication/palestine-unplugged/; Reem Almasri, “Digital Safety in Context: Perspectives on Digital Security Training and Human Rights Realities in the Arab World,” Association for Progressive Communications, (2016): 12, https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/Digital%20safety%20in%20context_1.pdf.

37 Mike Kastellec, “Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation,” Information Technology and Libraries 31, no. 2 (2012): 63–64, https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v31i2.2167.

38 Kastellec, “Practical Limits,” 67–68.

39 Kastellec, “Practical Limits,” 63–64.

40 Kastellec, “Practical Limits,” 65.

41 Helga Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s High-Tech Enclosure,” JPS 41, no. 2 (2012): 34–35, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.2.27; Helga Tamil-Souri and Miriyam Aouragh, “Intifada 3.0? Cyber Colonialism and Palestinian Resistance,” The Arab Studies Journal 22, no. 1 (2014): 112–13, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24877901.

42 David Musleh, “ICT in Palestine: Challenging Power Dynamics and Limitations,” Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, January 9, 2022, https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/ict-in-palestine-challenging-power-dynamics-and-limitations/.

43 Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation,” 33–35, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.2.27.

44 Almasri, “Digital Safety in Context,” 12.

45 See “Electricity in the Gaza Strip,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, accessed July 2, 2023, www.ochaopt.org/page/gaza-strip-electricity-supply; “Energy,” Office of the Quartet, accessed July 2, 2023, www.quartetoffice.org/page.php?id=5e1e7ay6168186Y5e1e7a.

46 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 44.

47 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 44.

48 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 44.

49 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 43–45.

50 “About Us,” 7amleh–Arab Center for Social Media Advancement website, accessed October 30, 2023, https://7amleh.org/about.

51 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 43–44.

52 Adrian Cunningham, “Archives as a Place,” in Currents of Archival Thinking, ed. Heather MacNeil and Terry Eastwood, 2nd ed. (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 73.

53 Cunningham, “Archives as a Place,” 63.

54 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 178–79.

55 “Frequently Asked Questions,” The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive website, accessed November 3, 2023, https://palarchive.org/index.php/Faqs/Index/lang/en_US.

56 Müller, Digital Archives and Collections, 175–78; Roopika Risam, New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2019), 56–57.

57 Hana Sleiman and Kaoukab Chebaro, “Narrating Palestine: The Palestinian Oral History Archive Project,” JPS 47, no. 2 (2018): 63, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2018.47.2.63.

58 Mahmoud Zeidan, “Foreword: Refugee Archives and the Nakba Archive,” in Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine, ed. Diana Allan (London: Pluto Press, 2021), xvii.

59 Sleiman and Chebaro, “Narrating Palestine,” 63.

60 Anziska, “The Erasure of The Nabka.”

61 See Diana Allan, ed., Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine (London: Pluto Press, 2021).

62 Nur Masalha, “Decolonizing Methodology, Reclaiming Memory: Palestinian Oral Histories and the Memories of the Nakba,” in An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba, ed. Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha (London: Zed Books, 2018), 23. Also, see Beshara Doumani, “Archiving Palestine and the Palestinians: The Patrimony of Ihsan Nimr,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 36 (2009): 3–12, https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ_36_Archiving_Palestine_0.pdf.

63 Belén Fernández, “A ‘Cosmic Stink’: Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon, 40 Years On,” Al Jazeera, June 4, 2022, www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/6/4/a-cosmic-stink-israels-invasion-of-lebanon-40-years-on.

64 Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 90–91.

65 Bastian, “Reading Colonial Records Through an Archival Lens,” 269–70.

66 Stacie M. Williams and Jarrett Drake, “Power to the People: Documenting Police Violence in Cleveland,” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1, no. 2 (2017): 6–7, https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v1i2.33.

67 Williams and Drake, “Power to the People,” 21.

68 De Cesari, Heritage and the Cultural.

69 De Cesari, Heritage and the Cultural, 197.

70 Sela, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure.”

71 Risam, New Digital Worlds, 52.

72 See Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 87–109.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roxy Moon

Roxy Moon is a master’s student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. Their research centers on military and nation-state propaganda, colonial knowledge production through artifacts and archives, and counter-archival projects.