It is far too early to say what will result from the Across Borders computer project and the Museum of Memory, as well as other projects like them, but it would be wrong to see in them only a pathetically sentimental effort by Palestinians to safeguard their collective identity as a people with a political will of their own. They will continue to ferment so as to rectify and modify those injustices of the past that have either not been addressed or have been perpetuated in the present. Innovations and projects such as I have mentioned here are small symbols of the continuing struggle by Palestinians against oblivion and the silence of terminal surrender. At least that is my symbolic reading of the importance of such efforts at this precise moment in our history. I am sure I am right in supposing that peace made under duress will not gain many converts, particularly when the vast majority of Palestinians have either been left out or remain unconsulted, and are therefore stateless and exiled.
Dispossession is still the basic Palestinian condition.