ABSTRACT
The most imaginative and politically engaged uses of the past are to be found outside of the boundaries of orthodox history. Since, just as economics appraises commercial trends, politics the tendencies of governments, and literary criticism the output of creative writers, historics would, indispensably, unmask the affirmative forces of historical knowledge in its many public guises. Past-talk can be used to pull apart hegemonic stories that narrate the present in terms of historical cause-and-effect, and which therefore naturalise current arrangements as the always-already determined outcome of "historical" processes. As a result, historians' claims about the superior epistemic value of their discipline relative to other forms of past-talk are groundless. Birzeit University Institute of Law employs a framework derived from international law to challenge the occupation, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism and apartheid practices inflicted on Palestinians and Palestine rather than a historical analysis of events.
