Bridging the gaps between the histories

Abstract

In this special issue of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, distinguished Israeli and Palestinian scholars explore the presence of human rights within various histories of the Israeli/Palestinian question. We hope in this way to participate in what can never be an exclusively academic search for new perspectives on this deeply disturbing conflict. Focusing on the interface between history and human rights means highlighting the ethical and political implications of -the production of history, while also acknowledging that rights are never purely abstract principles and that they are created and invoked in specific historical contexts. The promise of such an inter-disciplinary search has been heightened by recent academic trends in both historiography and legal scholarship, which appear to converge around a common problematic. There is in both disciplines a growing awareness of the ways in which epistemological paradigms are influenced by the political contexts in which they are produced. As part of this new reflexivity, there has also developed a focus on the discursive techniques through which particular state institutions produce "law" and "history" and how these are resisted.