The day Palestinians’ native knowledge is legitimized and acceptable to Israeli ears, Jewish filmmakers and researchers will be able to spare us the embarrassing and subjugating reminder time after time. Tantura, as you have just discovered, illustrates the mechanisms of silencing and erasure that serve the Zionist narration of history – as all the information is buried in the archives just like Palestinians were buried without anyone knowing of their existence.
Gideon Levy wrote about the ghosts of Tantura, but the story extends much deeper than what you might think you know. It is a story about the control of knowledge, when the Zionist sovereign is the sole party responsible for burying the Nakba in various ways – in archives, by planting forests, through erasure. It’s the same mechanism that reinforces the Zionist supremacy that time after time gazes upon the Nakba “from above,” as if it had nothing to do with it.
Despite Palestinian testimonies about the massacre, proof and approval of the knowledge is still required from Jews to prove that a massacre indeed occurred, and not just from any Jews, but from fighters who were part of that colonial apparatus.
Over a decade ago, the Egyptian writer Radwa Ashour wrote the book “The Woman from Tantura” that was translated into English. The book is based on testimonies from the Tantura
— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Sheren Falah Saab | Jan 27, 2022