This article examines memory laws as a new form of social control, demonstrating the significance of cultural memory to law and society scholarship. It focuses on two Israeli laws that seek to control public debate by giving voice to one marginalized group in order to silence another. The article presents two forms of such utilization of the law: forced forgetting and the balancing of atrocities. Forced forgetting validates the memory of one group of people over another group. Balancing atrocities equates victims, pitting the suffering of one group against that of another for the purpose of dismissing the former’s claims for recognition and redress. The 2011 Nakba Law, an example of forced forgetting, dismisses the Palestinian minority’s experience to amplify the memory of the Jewish majority, while the 2014 Jewish Nakba Law creates an analogy between Palestinian redress claims and those of the Mizrahi Jews in order to balance the atrocities that these groups suffered. We show that both forms of control have limitations that create gaps between legislation and implementation, yet their political-symbolic impact is much greater.

中文翻译：

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平衡暴行和强迫遗忘：记忆法作为以色列社会控制的一种手段

本文将记忆法作为一种新的社会控制形式进行考察，论证了文化记忆对法学和社会学的重要意义。它侧重于以色列的两项法律，这些法律旨在通过让一个边缘群体发表意见以使另一个群体保持沉默来控制公共辩论。文章介绍了这种法律运用的两种形式：强制遗忘和平衡暴行。强制遗忘验证了一组人对另一组人的记忆。平衡暴行将受害者等同起来，将一个群体的苦难与另一个群体的苦难相提并论，目的是驳回前者的承认和补救要求。2011 年的 Nakba 法是强迫遗忘的一个例子，它驳斥了巴勒斯坦少数群体的经历，以扩大对犹太人多数的记忆，而 2014 年的《犹太人大灾难法》则在巴勒斯坦人的救济要求与 Mizrahi 犹太人的要求之间进行了类比，以平衡这些群体遭受的暴行。我们表明，这两种控制形式都有局限性，会在立法和实施之间造成差距，但它们的政治象征影响要大得多。