4 - The Institutionalisation of Moral Remembrance

Summary

This chapter analyses a specific case study, in an effort to discover localised versions of moral remembrance. Whereas the European Balkan states have faced financial conditionalities during the various steps of the EU accession process, Israel and Palestine were much less pressured by the international community to exhibit an even nominal acceptance of a cosmopolitan history, through which global concerns and values become part of local experiences. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and in 1995, which projected an independent state of Palestine by 1999, were of great importance in leading to new memorialisation agendas, never discussed per se in any of the legal documents but indirectly promoted in multiple ways. Even in 2000, when it became clear that the Oslo Accords had failed, memorialisation practices, promoted by human rights institutions and funds, continued to blossom. This chapter deals with the ways in which the memorialisation agenda was promoted in Israel and Palestine, demonstrating how specific historical and political conditions affected it and shaped it in several ways.