Collective memory and national identification among the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The interdependence of collective memory and national identifications has become a widespread axiom in the social science and the humanities since the early 1980's. The relation between them, however, has never been investigated using individual centered quantitative method. This paper fills this lacuna by examining the association between individuals' memories and national identification among the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel. In a survey with a representative sample of the Arab citizens of Israel (N=530) interviewees were asked in an open-ended way what events and persons they consider most important in the history of the country in the past 100 years. In addition, they were asked openly to define their identity. It was found that mentioning myths of victimhood and heroism, as well as mentioning Arab national figures are significant predictors of identification as Palestinian, even if religion, ethnicity, religiosity, gender, education, and cohort are controlled for. References to the 1948 war and to Yasser Arafat were especially salient in predicting Palestinian identification. These findings suggest that memories might have an autonomous effect on national identification. Furthermore, Ernest Renan's argument that defeats are more important than triumphs for shaping national identification has been validated, as the memory of the destruction of the 1948 war was found to be significantly correlated with Palestinian identification, much more than any myth of activism and heroism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]