A question on the history matriculation exams this summer surprised people familiar with the battle of narratives that plagues the subject. For the first time in this exam that accompanies high school graduation, students were asked to analyze a historical source on the Palestinian Nakba – when more than 700,000 Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1947-49 war – and the Israeli responsibility for it, even it it’s partial.
The text that students were asked to address isn’t an insignificant one; it comes from the memoirs of Yigal Allon, who commanded the elite Palmach strike force and was later a leader of the new Israeli army during the war. Allon wrote proudly about how, in the war, he managed to “cleanse the interior of the Galilee” of its Arab residents via psychological warfare.
This thought-provoking question was intended for students in a more-thorough history curriculum than the regular one, but its principles are already trickling down into the exam for the regular program.
The question on “the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem” appears in the exam in history in a special program underway at around 55 high schools. The program covers less
— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Or Kashti (Haaretz) | 19 Sep 2021