This article discusses the complex interrelations between human rights, memory, forgetting and denial by analysing the discourses and practices of Israeli human rights organisations with respect to the past of the Palestinian people, particularly the events that took place in 1948. It examines how and why Israeli organisations dialectically remember and repress elements of the local past, and align themselves with the prevailing national silencing of the discussion on the Palestinian refugees’ future rights, particularly their right of return. The article concludes by exploring the implications of these practices on the organisations’ capacity to significantly impact the Israeli-Palestinian future.

The International Journal of Human Rights