The Contemporary Historiographical Debate in Israel on Government Policies on Arabs in Israel During the Military Administration Period (1948–1966)

Abstract

The historiographical debate over Israel’s early statehood policy on its Arab minority intensified in the last two decades. A new wave of historiography emerged in the 1990s and joined the two traditional waves in this debate: supporters and critics. While the supporters sought to justify the policy in retrospect and the critics denounced it, members of the third wave strove to offer a more balanced analysis, taking into account both positive and negative aspects of the policy. Asking similar questions but applying different points of view and methodologies to their inquiry into the past, the members of these three historiographical streams reached different, often contradictory, conclusions. This contemporary historiographical debate is yet another illustration of the growing connection between contemporary Israeli society and its formative years of statehood. Then and now, the issue at stake was the extent to which the Jewish state was obligated to maintain its democratic character and treat all its citizens equally.