Political dimensions of Holocaust memory in Israel

The ethos of Israelism is relevant here, because it inevitably has produced its own antithesis and negation in more recent years. The Zionist presence has been weakened or strengthened according to the wavering tendencies of the rulling power, whether it was Ottoman, British, Jordanian or Israeli. The fundamental assumptions of the widower Moti were based on the possibility of emotional warmth irrespective of the circumstances, a belief in the prospect of amelioration and in the fulfilment of human aspirations. However, aggravation of the crisis between Jews and Arabs sharpens the national conflict, presenting stark alternatives between political loyalty and normal human relationships. In Israeli-Arabic literature, too, the writer appears to feel freer in his depiction of reality. Emil Habibi, in his description of Haifa from the viewpiont of an Israeli Arab, invoking his own history, fuses different and changing forms in his novel, Ha-opsismist.