The Contemporary Historiographical Debate in Israel on Government
Policies on Arabs in Israel During the Military Administration
Period (1948–1966)
Arik Rudnitzky
Israel Studies, Volume 19, Number 1, Spring 2014, pp. 24-47 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
For additional information about this article
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/is/summary/v019/19.1.rudnitzky.html
Access provided by Tel Aviv University (17 Dec 2013 10:26 GMT)
Arik Rudnitzky
The Contemporary Historiographical
Debate in Israel on Government
Policies on Arabs in Israel During
the Military Administration Period
(1948–1966)
ABSTR ACT
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.
I
INTRODUCTION
n a recent article published in this journal, Assaf Likhovsky
pointed to a relatively new turn in Israeli historiography known as “the
third wave in Israeli historiography”, or what he called “post-post-Zionist”.
24
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 25
This trend emerged in the late 1990s in response to the “post-Zionist” trend
that assumed center stage in the late 1980s following the publication of the
studies of the New Historians. Likhovsky traced this new phase in Israeli
historiography to a shift from an interest in political and economic history to an interest in the history of culture. Analyzing the features of the
new “post-post-Zionist” trend, Likhovsky concluded that scholars affiliated
with this trend posed new questions about the past and used new types
of sources, and, more significantly, adopted a more empathic attitude to
Zionism, compared to their immediate predecessors, the “post-Zionist”
scholars.1
Likhovsky’s conclusion, however, seems to be partially true. Indeed, as
demonstrated below, a profound historiographical debate is taking place in
Israeli academia between members of the post-Zionist historiography and
members of the “third wave” historiography, over the history of the early
years of Israel’s independence. It is also true that the third wave scholars
demonstrate a more empathetic attitude toward Zionism than their postZionist counterparts. However, the rise of the most recent wave of historiography should not necessarily be attributed to a shift of attention from
political history to social or cultural history, as Likhovsky contended. In
fact, contemporary historiographical debate continues to involve political
history, and the disputants offer diverse, occasionally conflicting, answers
to the same questions. This article elaborates on the discussion initiated by
Likhovsky and analyzes the historiographical debate that has ensued for
more than two decades, between three Israeli streams of historiography on
government policy toward Israel’s Arab population between 1948 and 1966,
when the Military Administration was in force.
The history of the Military Administration period is beyond the scope
here but a short review is in place. Under the deep impression created by
the war of 1948, and as long as the state of war ensued between Israel and
its Arab neighbors, the Israeli government considered the Arab population
remaining in the state as a security concern, and a potential or actual “fifth
column”. The Military Administration, originally established in October
1948 in Arab-populated areas that were designated for the Arab state according to the November 1947 UN Partition Resolution, quickly became the
major instrument through which the government exercised its policy of
security control over the Arab minority. This instrument had almost unlimited powers, and these were manifested in its authority to restrict the movements of Arab citizens, and expropriate their land and property.2 The Arab
citizens despised the Military Administration that interfered in their lives
as individuals and as a collective, and considered it a symbol of the state’s
26 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
real attitude to them, preventing their civic integration or exercise of their
lawful rights.3 In December 1966, following a turbulent public and political
campaign that called for its abolishment and after it had become clear that
the perceived security risk was groundless, the Military Administration was
officially abolished.
THE EVOLUTION OF A HISTORIOGR APHICAL DEBATE
The period under discussion here extends over three decades, from the early
1980s to the end of the first decade of the current century. In the late 1980s,
a historiographical debate arose between the New Historians and their
predecessors over the circumstances that led to the 1948 War, the birth of
the Palestinian refugee issue, and the establishment of the State of Israel.4
Concurrently, and perhaps consequently, another historiographical debate
arose, involving a reconsideration of the fates of those Palestinians who
did not flee from their homes in the course of the 1948 war and become
refugees, but instead remained in their homeland and became citizens of
the new state. Participants of this debate reexamined the evolution of the
status of these Arabs who became citizens of the state and the manner in
which government policy toward them evolved.
It should be noted, however, that the debate over Israeli government
policy on the Arab minority in the first years of statehood is as old as
the history of the State of Israel. Immediately after independence, when
the Military Administration was in force, a debate emerged between two
camps: supporters and critics of the Israeli government’s early Arab minority policy. The supporters, who identified with the Israeli establishment,
and some of whom were themselves members of the political and security
establishment, sought to justify the policy toward the Arab minority in light
of the political and security challenges facing the budding state at the time.5
In contrast, the critics, who identified with the leftist political opposition to Mapai, the ruling party at the time, stressed the negative aspects of
the government policy and some even tended to ignore its positive aspects
altogether.6 The debate between “supporters” and “critics” continues to
this very day, although in contrast to the early historiographical debate,
which bore a significantly political nature (its participants were classified by
their political ideology and affiliation), the contemporary debate is taking
place mostly in the academic arena, since the question under discussion
is historical and academic in nature and not related to current events or
political ideologies. The contemporary debate also assumed a new character
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 27
due to the change in the composition of the supporters’ and critics’ camps:
Both the supporters and the critics in the contemporary debate are mainly
academic scholars affiliated with academic institutions in Israel, or have an
academic education.
Although the contemporary debate on early Israeli policy on the Arab
population was fanned by the critical studies published by the New Historians in the late 1980s, the shift in the historiographical debate dealing
specifically with Israel’s minority policy can be traced to the 1980 publication of Ian Lustick’s, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National
Minority.7 While he did not have access to the archival documents that were
disclosed several years later and constituted the foundation for the works of
the New Historians, he introduced an innovation into the debate on Israel’s
early policy on the Arab minority: He proposed a new theoretical model,
the system of control model, which he used to explain the government’s
Arab minority policy since the establishment of the state. According to
Lustick, the government’s system of control and supervision of the Arab
minority was based on three factors: segmentation, dependence, and cooptation. “Segmentation” refers to the Arab minority’s external isolation
from the Jewish population and its internal fragmentation; “Dependence”
refers to the Arabs’ reliance on the Jewish majority for access to important
economic and political resources. “Co-optation” refers to the penetration
of the Arab sector by the Jewish majority and to the use of side payments
to Arab elites or potential elites to achieve this penetration. Significantly,
the majority of the critical essays published since Lustick on Israel’s Arab
minority policy have relied on his model.
Affected by the political developments of the 1990s, academic interest
in the study of the history of Israel’s Arab minority has since continued
to intensify. Progress in the peace negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians (especially between 1993 and 1995), which coincided with a
policy of affirmative action for Israel’s Arab population instituted by the
Rabin-Peres administration (1992–96), intensified academic and public
engagement with issues related to the future status of the Arab minority
within Israel should a permanent settlement agreement between Israel and
the Palestinians ultimately come into force. At the same time, these developments triggered a debate over the historic development of the status of
the state’s Arab citizens.8 The October 2000 riots in the Galilee and the
Triangle, which left an almost traumatic imprint on both Jewish and Arab
citizens, and the publication in September 2003 of the Report of the Or
Commission (a government commission of inquiry appointed to examine
the circumstances surrounding the riots), encouraged scholars (especially
28 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
critical scholars) to trace the historic roots of the discrimination and disparities that constituted the backdrop for these riots and that were mentioned
in the Or Commission Report.9
At the same time, following the intensified academic debate over the
historical roots of the government’s Arab minority policy, a third historiographical stream emerged. The members of this stream, all academic
scholars, dedicated their efforts to a reexamination of the same core issues
that had been discussed by the two longstanding groups of supporters
and critics. They strove to present a more balanced analysis that takes into
account both positive and negative aspects of the government policy. The
emergence of the third stream marked the beginning of a purely academic
historiographical debate between these academic scholars and the critics who preceded them. In this “archival war”, each group grounded its
arguments in a variety of primary sources from the period in question.
Several core issues dominate the contemporary historiographical
debate. While these issues were never explicitly enumerated by authors
from any side of the debate, they are clearly reflected in their works. One
issue is the question of whether the government’s Arab minority policy was
coherent and consistent, and whether the discrimination and disparities
historically experienced by the Arab minority (and documented by the Or
Commission Report) were the result of a government policy that had been
premeditated and applied against this minority since the establishment of
the state. A second, related, issue is the formative effect, if any, of external
political and security circumstances involving Israel’s relations with its Arab
neighbors at the time on the government’s domestic policy on the Arab
minority. In other words, did Israel’s geopolitical circumstances, and more
specifically, did its security dilemmas, affect its policy on the Arab minority, or was the government’s Arab policy designed independently of the
country’s geopolitical and security situation? The third issue concerns the
balance between a “light handed” policy and a “heavy handed” policy: Did
the government’s Arab minority policy have a liberal face that aligned with
the spirit of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and the state’s democratic
ethos, or was government policy dictated, first and foremost, by security
considerations grounded in the conceptualization of the Arab minority as
a potential security threat for the budding state? The position of each historiorgaphic stream on Israel’s early government policy on the Arab minority
in light of these core issues is analyzed below.
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 29
THE SUPPORTERS: THE ZIONIST CAMP
Supporters of the government’s early policy on the Arab minority include
authors who are identified with the state’s security and political establishment, including Amnon Linn, Isser Harel, Ori Stendel, and Raanan
Cohen.10 Linn, Harel, and Stendel had personally experienced the events
they studied: They had been active partners in the dilemmas and deliberations of the top echelons of the government and the security establishment
in developing a policy toward the Arab minority in the State’s early years.
Most of the works of these authors did not follow a pure academic format.
Harel’s 1989 book11 and Linn’s 1999 book12 were in fact political autobiographies based on the authors’ own political careers; Cohen’s first book,
published in 1990, offered a guideline for an Arab minority policy based on
his personal experiences,13 while Stendel’s 1992 volume was published in the
form of an encyclopedia entry.14 Stendel’s 2000 essay15 and Cohen’s later
book ( published in 2006)16 were written and edited in a more academic
manner, but they were reminiscent of policy papers based on their own
career experience. Although all the above mentioned essays were not purely
academic, some scholars have considered such essays as a class of history
writing and a layer in the historiography of the period in question,17 hence
their relevance and importance to our historiographical discussion.
These essays have additional value for our purpose—most were published in or after the 1990s, several years after the publications by the New
Historians. By then, critical academic historiography had already emerged
regarding Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians in the 1948 War
and regarding the government’s policy on the Arabs who remained in Israel
after the war. Therefore, a study of the historical essays of the supporters
allows us to understand how the critical historiography concerning 1948
affected the very individuals who were members of the inside circle of the
Zionist establishment.
Adopting a retrospective perspective, the supporters believed that the
preponderance of evidence weighed in favor of the government’s policy.
Their essays are classic representations of modernization theory applauding
the government’s achievements in promoting the economic development
of the Arab towns and villages, which they listed as part of the positive
historical developments that the Arabs experienced under Israeli rule. The
essays by Amnon Linn and Ori Stendel are representative examples of this
position. Linn mentioned that most of the Arab population that remained
in Israeli territory after the state’s independence initially lived in dire socioeconomic circumstances. Against this backdrop, he argued,
30 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
The new, imposed Israeli rule brought with it a wave of development and
progress that even the harshest critics cannot deny. It might have been argued
that this wave far from satisfied the needs, that it was inferior in comparison to
what was happening in Israel’s Jewish population, but no sensible person can
deny that it existed, and certainly in comparison to the original situation.18
Stendel reviewed the modernization in the Arab towns and villages
that was the result of an improvement in the means of transportation
from the villages to the city, and increased employment of Arab villagers in Jewish cities. His description suggests that the process was, overall,
a positive development, as it caused the Arab residents of the villages to
abandon a traditional lifestyle and adopt a modern, Western lifestyle that
offered greater opportunity for members of the Arab society to express their
individual desires. Explaining the economic motives that drove the Arab
villagers to seek employment in Jewish cities, Stendel stated that “the loss
of lands in the villages” led to a decline in the significance of agriculture as
the source of Arab villagers’ livelihood,19 euphemistically referring to the
government’s extensive confiscation of Arab-owned lands in the 1950s and
1960s. The government’s land policy remained the target of fierce criticism
by the Arab public over the years, yet Stendel’s description clearly reflected
his desire to minimize this aspect of the government’s policy.
The supporters concurred that the government’s Arab minority policy
was characterized by inconsistency throughout the period of the Military
Administration. The main reason for this, they argued, was the security
exigencies facing the State since it gained independence. The authors of
this group were united in the opinion that the political circumstances that
evolved after the war between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries,
and especially Israel’s day-to-day security challenges, headed by the need to
protect the country’s borders against Palestinian infiltration, were serious
considerations at the time that, all in all, justified—even in retrospect—the
government’s policy on the Arab minority.20 Consequently, as these authors
reexamined the dilemmas and deliberations that accompanied government
policy making on the Arab issue, they defended the government’s handling
of these constraints, which they viewed as having forced the government to
adapt the emerging Arab minority policy to the country’s security needs.
In any case, their essays suggest that the government did not intentionally
avoid formulating a coherent policy on the Arab minority. Stendel, moreover, dismissed the criticism voiced in retrospect against the government’s
failure to formulate a clear policy on the Arab minority. He argued that
a comprehensive policy, in fact, developed gradually, and it emphasized
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 31
equality before the law and aspired to develop the services, education, and
employment in the Arab towns.21
Did the Arab population pose a security threat for the young state? In
retrospect, the authors in this group were united in the opinion that that
was indeed the case. Isser Harel firmly argued,
The presence of a hostile minority in the State of Israel, which has just recovered from the war, constituted a grave security concern. Despite the cease-fire
agreements, calls for revenge and for a second round of fighting were heard
from across the border. There was a solid foundation for the apprehension
that the Arabs in Israel would function as a “fifth column” within the Jewish
state and that their ties with their brethren across the border would produce
subversive activities.22
Raanan Cohen, in his first book (1990), explained that Israel’s security
establishment was compelled to grapple with the border infiltration issue,
which he called “guerilla warfare”. He wrote that the infiltrators penetrated
Israel’s borders “to commit acts of terror, agitate the Arab population, and
gather information.”23 Stendel and Linn emphasized the political aspect of
the conception of the Arabs as a security threat: They considered Maki (the
Israeli Communist Party) and Al-Ard (an Arab nationalist group) as security
threats for all intents and purposes rather than as legitimate political groups
working in opposition to Mapai, the ruling party at the time. Stendel and
Linn argued that these two organizations, which were inspired by Arab
nationalist ideology of then-Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser, operated seditiously to inflame the Arab population against the State in order
to enhance their political power on the Arab street.24
From these arguments we learn why the supporters retrospectively
justified the imposition of military rule on the state’s Arab towns and
villages. Their essays reflected a strong belief in the justness of the government’s policy at the time (a belief that was typical of Zionist historiography). Cracks, however, appeared in this veneer of confidence. The essays
published by the supporters in the late 1990s and thereafter already clearly
carried the imprint of the New Historians’ critical historiography. Occasionally, the supporters adopted an apologetic and more defensive tone, and
were willing to admit that the government policy in the period in question
was not flawless. In his 2000 paper, Stendel, for example, commented
that the military government was “a stumbling block” and its removal was
essential in order to allow the Arabs’ integration in the state.25 Raanan
Cohen, in his more recent book ( published in 2006), argued that the
32 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
Military Administration period was characterized by “neglect of the Arab
population, and the establishment’s almost complete indifference toward
social changes that had already began to affect the Arab population.”26 This
argument was an uncharacteristic comment for a member of the Zionist
camp, and was even more unexpected than the arguments Cohen himself
had voiced in his earlier book, published in 1990.
Linn’s work is worthy of special attention as it sharply illustrates how
the critical historiography affected the supporters’ position. In chapter 12
of his book, “The Military Administration and Time”, he set out to refute
the criticism leveled at the Military Administration over the years. At the
beginning of this chapter, he wrote,
I am not trying to describe the Military Administration at the time as a
paragon of virtue; I can certainly list a series of defects in its work and have
no doubt that it lasted longer than necessary. But I believe that we should
not forget the other side of this coin. I have no doubt that after weighing all
its aspects, its overall balance tends to be favorable. . . . I therefore venture
to determine that the provisional government headed by David Ben-Gurion
was entirely justified in imposing military rule on all the Arab settlements
during the War of Independence. . . . It is also clear to me that there were
weighty reasons for continuing the Military Administration after the cease-fire
agreements with the Arab states were signed.27 [emphasis added]
Linn’s arguments clearly reflect the intensity of the criticism leveled
against the Military Administration over the years, both concerning its
effectiveness in addressing security risks, and the arbitrary nature of its
operations, which unfavorably affected the Arab population. His arguments
were articulated approximately a decade after the appearance of the New
Historians, at a time in which doubts had begun to gnaw at the supporters’
sense of justness of the State’s past course of action. While a purely historical debate is not required to determine whether the imposition of military
rule on the Arab towns and villages was just or moral, but rather to explore
the historic circumstances that led to this decision, Linn apparently was no
longer able to ignore the denunciation of the policies of the governments,
in which he himself had been a partner, and therefore discussed the historic justification for these policies. Linn’s position is typical of the overall
position of the supporters: Writing today, they were still unable to separate
their conclusions from the zeitgeist of the period in question, the period
of the Military Administration. As a result, their works were imbued not
only with the motivation to analyze and explain the course of events, but
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 33
also (and perhaps, primarily) to provide retrospective justification for the
actions taken.
THE CRITICS: THE POST-ZIONIST CAMP
Most of the authors in this group are academic scholars, either of history
(Tom Segev, Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, Yair Bäuml, and Hillel Cohen) or of other
disciplines (Alina Korn is a scholar of criminology), while the minority are
journalists (Simha Flapan, Uzi Benziman, and Atallah Mansour). Many of
the post-Zionist authors share a marked writing and analytical style with the
authors from the Zionist camp: They put government policy and action to
the test of time, assessing it from a worldview situated in the present. However, contrary to their Zionist counterparts who based their arguments on
the period’s zeitgeist, the post-Zionist writers based their arguments mostly
on primary archival sources from the period they studied. Hence, from a
retrospective examination of the period in question, using their knowledge
of the ultimate consequences of the historical process under review, they
were harsh judges of the government’s early minority policy.
Can a historical policy assessment be performed in the absence of a
consistent official policy, as the supporters argued? On this question, the
critics adopted Sammy Smooha’s thesis, which he first introduced in the
early 1980s. Smooha proposed that the term “policy” includes a formal
element, validated in government resolutions and documented, and an
informal element that includes operating procedures and norms that have
the effect of formal policy, although they are not documented in official
records. Smooha further argued that any assessment of government policy
toward the Arab minority should take into account an additional element,
which he called “policy by default”, which represents the government’s lack
of readiness to modify policies that, even unintentionally, create minority
discrimination.28
From a historical perspective, the critics emphasized two key elements
of the government’s policy, against which they directed the brunt of their
critique. One element was the discrimination suffered by the Arab citizens
since the establishment of the state; the second element was the rigorous
control of the Arab population that was exercised throughout the entire
period of the Military Administration. These two elements received extensive attention in the writings of all post-Zionist critics, but their criticism
became intense and more strongly supported by reasoning as the years
passed. While earlier critical writings, published in the 1980s and 1990s, also
34 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
noted several positive aspects of the government policy, the critics’ more
recent works, published in the past decade, adopted a scathing, censorious tone, whose main message was that the entire aim of the government
policy, by serving the interests of the Jewish majority, was to debilitate the
Arab minority.
The books by Segev (1984) and by Benziman and Mansour (1992) are
examples of the early, more moderately critical post-Zionist works. Segev
elaborated on the arbitrary nature of the military government apparatus as
an expression of the government’s “heavy handed” policy toward the Arab
sector. Nonetheless, he explained that government policy in the early years
after independence oscillated between integrating the Arabs into the daily
life of the state and isolating them as potential traitors. Segev stated that
this policy “expressed predefined security, economic, and political interests, but also expressed anxiety and a desire for vengeance. Government
policy changed direction from time to time, reflecting the internal conflict
between a ‘light-handed’ and a ‘heavy-handed’ policy.”29
Benziman and Mansour explained that the policy toward the Arab
minority in Israel’s first decade was strongly oriented toward the imposition of governmental interests on the Arab minority, and perpetuation of
their disadvantaged status, with little consideration for the minority’s own
wishes or interests. They argued that this policy mindset resulted from the
Israeli government’s perception of the Arab public as a security threat and
as the enemy; the government consequently implemented a policy designed
to contain this threat. In contrast, Benziman and Mansour favorably mentioned the operations of the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the tolerant,
considerate attitude to the Arab citizens by Bechor Shalom Shitrit, who
headed the Ministry,30 although this Ministry operated only 14 months
(from May 1948 to July 1949). They also described the internal government
deliberations between 1950 and 1952 on the status of the Arabs as citizens
of the State of Israel. The authors explained that Ben-Gurion wished to
apply the principle of equality and even convened a panel of experts to discuss this topic, but the actions to implement equality were not successful.
Benziman and Mansour stated that even after instructions were issued to
implement the principle of equality, senior officials and other state leaders
continued to treat the Arab public as a security threat and a legitimate target
of discrimination.31
The works by the post-Zionist critics published at the beginning of
this century demonstrate how their argument, that discrimination against
Arab citizens was ingrained in government policy since independence, had
become an integral, fixed element in their writing. Sarah Ozacky-Lazar
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 35
explained that the government’s official position vacillated between the
ideological sphere, which had room only for Jews and for the realization of
the aims of Zionism, and the civic sphere, which also allowed for the Arab
minority as well. According to her, the ideological sphere was dominant.
It was expressed in absorption of new Jewish immigrants, establishment
of Jewish settlements on confiscated Arab lands, segmentation and control of the Arab citizens together with legislation that provided the legal
foundation for such actions.32 Alina Korn’s work sets out to prove that
discrimination against the Arab citizens had been grounded in legislation
since independence. She analyzed Israel police crime statistics in the Arab
population during the period of Military Administration, and concluded
that a large number of classes of offense were defined in advance in relation to Arab citizens. Korn argued that by supporting selective political
control of the Arab population, the legal system increased the chances of
the minority committing offences and coming into the reach of the law
enforcement system.33
In a more recent article published in 2008, Korn argued that conceptualizing the Arab minority as a state security threat was a political
decision. She explained that the decision to dismantle the Ministry of
Minority Affairs, which in its short period of existence tried to imbue a
more humanitarian perception of the Arab population, was part of a process
in which security arguments were used to justify curtailment of the Arabs’
rights, in the interests of the broader good of the Jewish majority. In that
manner, she explained, the Military Administration was instrumental in
gaining control over land.34 In her discussion of the short-lived Ministry of
Minority Affairs, Korn set out to prove that “another option was available,
and it might have diverted history to an entirely different direction.”35
Several comprehensive critical studies based on primary sources were
published in the decade since 2000. Notable on this list are studies by
Yair Bäuml and Hillel Cohen, who made a significant contribution to the
critical historiography concerning government policy.36 Both Bäuml and
Cohen followed the critical line of Lustick and Smooha: Their primary
innovation was to provide a firmer evidentiary basis for the criticism posed
by Lustick and Smooha, including primary sources from the period in
question.
In a 2006 paper entitled “The Discrimination Policy towards the Arabs
in Israel,” Bäuml introduced a methodical thesis on the discrimination
against the Arab citizens in the Military Administration period.37 Adopting
Smooha’s concept of “policy by default”, Bäuml stated that in retrospect, it
is possible to identify a clear policy line that was consistently implemented
36 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
by various official agencies and government organizations that interacted
with the Arab citizens, although he admitted that no archival documentary
support was available to support this argument. Bäuml did mention that
the socio-economic and security concerns caused the young state to neglect
its treatment of the Arab population. His arguments nonetheless reinforce
the understanding that such neglect was a conscious result of preconceived
policy. In fact, it is difficult to shake off the impression that he would judge
any government action involving the Arab population as discrimination
against Arabs, even if the action reflected consideration of this population’s
special status or needs, such as in the decision to exempt Arab citizens from
compulsory military service, or official recognition of the autonomous
status of the Muslim shari’a courts.38
Bäuml elaborated on this line of argumentation in a more recent
paper, published in 2009, bearing the charged title “The Subjugation of
the Arab Economy in Israel to the Jewish Sector.”39 In the summary of this
paper, he admitted that the archives failed to reveal evidence of any grand
preconceived program of action executed by the Israeli establishment in the
economic field, and at most showed that several isolated programs had been
operated concurrently. And yet, he stated that these programs were consistent with the “zeitgeist” of the period, which had a specific goal: “Even
if an Arab minority remained in Israel, it is only proper to apply a policy
that marginalizes and effectively excludes it from society, without factors of
production, dependent on the largess of the Jewish government in Israel.”40
Good Arabs by Hillel Cohen (2006) is undoubtedly one of the most
comprehensive studies written in recent years on the government policy
of supervision and control. Based on an analysis of security operations
involving the Arab population during the Military Administration period,
Cohen sought to prove the model that Lustick proposed two decades earlier.
One of Cohen’s key arguments was that the regional committees, which
were established in 1954 to coordinate the activities of the various agencies
that handled Arab affairs, functioned as the most significant authority on
the ground that determined all aspects of the Arabs’ lives.41 He described
these committees as the “major instrument in the state’s system of control and supervision, and its long arm into Arab politics and society.”42
According to Cohen, the committees’ decisions indicate that they gave
absolute preference to maintaining and enhancing their control, over all
other considerations.43 In the summary to his book, Cohen stated that the
government policy toward the Arabs in Israel was not determined at the
civic level by various government ministries, but rather by members of the
security establishment who operated in the field:
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 37
In the absence of a clear policy or instructions from the political echelon, the
officials in the field became decision makers. . . . The regional committees,
whose members included representatives of the security establishment, determined the fates of communities, villages, and individuals, for better or for
worse. As a result of their far-reaching authority and their intense involvement
in the field, the committees became “rulers of the Arab sector”.44
Cohen did mention several positive aspects of the government policy,
including not only the economic development of the Arab towns and villages, and the modernization of Arab society, but also the state’s very commitment to its democratic ethos, which acted as a counterweight to the
Military Administration’s actions.45 In this respect his approach is unique
among the other post-Zionist critical works published in the last decade.
THE THIRD HISTORIOGR APHICAL WAVE
The focus of most post-Zionists on the negative aspects of the governmental policy triggered a counter-response third wave of historiography, whose
members are all historians: Elie Rekhess, Eyal Kafkafi, Alisa Rubin-Peled,
and Yoav Gelber. Some have explicitly argued that the post-Zionist critics’
conclusions were biased and overly critical, and failed to faithfully represent the complex reality of 1948. This is not to say that members of the
third wave set out to justify the government’s policy. On the contrary, their
studies were free of the apologetic tone that characterized the earlier works
published by members of the Zionist camp. More than anything, members
of the third-wave highlighted the dialectical and non-linear development
of Israel’s Arab minority policy since the declaration of Independence in
May 1948. They wished to recover what they believed had been obscured
by the numerous critiques voiced in the late 1980s, both on Israel’s policy
in and after 1948, and on the political circumstances in which this policy
evolved.
The beginning of the counter-response discourse can be marked by two
articles by Rekhess, published in the early 1990s.46 Rekhess, who directed
his criticism at the arguments voiced by Ian Lustick and Sammy Smooha
in the early 1980s,47 believed that both had offered a biased account of the
policy toward the Arabs who remained in Israel after the 1948 war. His
main argument was that Lustick and Smooha, by placing disproportionate emphasis on security considerations, effectively ignored the complex
realities of 1948.48
38 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
A decade after the publication of Rekhess’s papers, the concept underlying the third historiographical wave found explicit expression in studies
by Rubin-Peled and Gelber. Rubin-Peled’s 2002 article, entitled “The Other
Side of 1948: The Forgotten Benevolence of Bechor Shalom Shitrit and the
Ministry of Minority Affairs”, above all illustrates the dominance of the critical historiography at the time and the consolidation of the historiographical counter-wave.49 Rubin-Peled spoke out against the critical historiography produced by the New Historians, as a result of which research discourse
became dominated by the negative dimensions of the government’s Arab
minority policy, while the positive aspects of the policy—what she called
the “forgotten benevolence” bestowed on the state’s Arab citizens by the
government— became “the other side”. While she stated that the history of
the Ministry of Minority Affairs was little known and that this historic affair
had been ignored completely by the New Historians,50 her argument in
effect added little novelty to the research discourse. The Ministry of Minority Affairs had been mentioned briefly by Rekhess in one of his articles,51
and was addressed more expansively in the 1992 book by Benziman and
Mansour,52 several years before Rubin-Peled’s article. It appears that she
set out to reshape the historiography of the developing government policy
toward the Arab minority and re-inject the historic case of the Ministry of
Minority Affairs into the research discourse as an illustration of the liberal
components of the government’s policy.
Gelber’s 2004 book, Independence versus Nakbah, is a comprehensive
study substantially based on archival materials and other primary sources.
Immediately in the introduction, Gelber made his intention clear: to introduce order into the historical narrative of the 1948 war and its aftermath
and to take to task the historiographical turn that was triggered by the
studies by the New Historians. Gelber offered a methodical review of the
history of the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine,
from the late nineteenth century to 1948. In doing so, he directed many of
his arguments against the New Historians in order to refute their claims,
which had, over the last two decades, assumed a major role in the research
discourse.53 In a more recent article, he expressly stated that his aim was
to fill a lacuna in the academic discourse on government policies towards
Israel’s Arab minority, since, as he argued, most of the academic historical
research on the Arabs in Israel has been conducted from the Arab minority’s
(i.e., critical) point of view.54
Members of the “responsive discourse” did not set out to disprove the
critics’ key argument that, as history proved, security considerations dominated government policymaking at the time. This was an argument that
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 39
they, too, accepted: Rekhess and Kafkafi mentioned the Military Administration’s role in the political supervision of Arab citizens and the restriction of their movements.55 Gelber admitted that while the Arab citizens
theoretically had equal rights, in practice they were subject to supervision
and their movements subject to restrictions because they were considered
a security threat.56 The fundamental difference between these two historiographical streams was a methodological one: While the majority of the
post-Zionist critics tended to assess government policy retrospectively, from
a viewpoint situated in the present time of their writing, the members of
the responsive discourse wished to examine the government’s policy from
a standpoint that was as close as possible to the circumstances of the early
days of statehood. They examined the process of policy making, taking into
account the complexities of the time that affected this process, and not
merely assessing its ultimate results.
Armed with a different methodology, the members of the “third
wave historiography” reached two conclusions: The first conclusion was
that the Arab minority policy was not a uniform or monolithic policy
preconceived with the intention of discriminating against the Arab citizens, contrary to the impression created by the critics’ essays. According
to the picture painted by the members of the responsive discourse, the
government’s policy toward the Arab minority evolved in a haphazard,
non-linear manner, strongly influenced by the geopolitical conditions
created after the 1948 war. Rekhess explained that the cabinet ministers
never discussed the relationship between the Jewish majority and the Arab
minority, and never developed a consistent policy on this issue. He noted
that the policy toward the Arabs who remained in Israel evolved gradually as the war continued, when, as he stated, the state’s very existence
was threatened.57 Rubin-Peled contended that the case of the Ministry of
Minority Affairs proved that the history of the first year of independence
was much more complicated than the superficial interpretation offered by
the New Historians, and that it also weakens the latters’ argument that the
government’s minority policy was monolithic in nature from the outset.
Like Rekhess, Rubin-Peled argued that the government’s minority policy
was the outcome of protracted debates and power struggles involving all
government ministries deliberating under the uncertainty of the persistent
state of war.58
Gelber’s main argument in his 2013 article was that in the absence of
preconceived strategies, Israel’s initial policy towards its Arab minority was
shaped in a process of trial and error. This process, he explained, fluctuated between ideological aspirations and good intentions and the need to
40 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
address the challenges on the ground, such as the border infiltrations and
a possible second comprehensive war with the Arab states.59 In his 2004
book, Gelber argued that the policy toward the Arabs, who recently became
citizens of the state, was influenced by the conditions created by the war. He
discussed the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Military
Administration extensively, and expanded on the deliberations of the new
state cabinet on whether to establish a military administration, and subsequently whether to retain or abolish it.60 In this manner, Gelber wished
to convince his readers that, from the earliest days of the state’s existence,
the decisions pertaining to the Arab population were made after a long
thoughtful process of deliberation and disagreement, which was strongly
influenced by the flux of reality.
The second conclusion that the members of the responsive discourse
highlighted was that the government policy embraced security considerations alongside a liberal approach. The liberal approach was grounded in
the State’s democratic ethos, reflected in the Declaration of Independence,
and was effectively expressed in the citizenship rights granted to the Arabs
and in maintaining equality of rights to all state citizens. According to
Rekhess, the dominant status of the security considerations in the minds
of Israeli policymakers did not invalidate the importance of the liberal
approach. To support his argument, he noted that the government had,
since the earliest days of statehood, initiated development programs in Arab
towns and villages. Rekhess also elaborated on the positions of several government ministers who had served in the early government administrations
and publically expressed a liberal attitude to the Arab citizens, advocating
Arab integration in the newly established Jewish state as citizens with equal
rights. In this context, he mentioned figures such as Yitzhak Greenboim
(the first minister of interior), Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (the second president), Pinchas Lavon (who later served as minister of defense), and Bechor Shalom
Shitrit (the first minister of police who also headed the Ministry of Minority Affairs until it was dismantled). These governmental officials, Rekhess
noted, urged the Jewish public to demonstrate tolerance toward the Arabs
in their position as a minority, specifically because of the Jews’ own bitter
experience throughout history as a persecuted minority.61 He argued that
the critics of government policy had ignored the dilemmas that engaged
policymakers at the time in choosing a “heavy handed” or a “light handed”
policy. The policy toward the Arabs in Israel in the early years of statehood,
he concluded, reflected a genuine conflict of values.62
Other writers traced the government’s inconsistent policy toward the
Arab minority to the differences of opinion inside the government, and
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 41
even within the ranks of Mapai itself. Rubin-Peled argued that a deep
divide split Israeli policymakers from the outset, separating advocates of a
benevolent approach, who supported a certain degree of cultural autonomy
to the Arab minority, from the advocates of a stricter approach, dictated
by considerations of control and security. According to her, the dichotomy
between the liberal and the security-oriented approaches was manifest in
almost every aspect of policy toward the Arab minority.63 Kafkafi argued
that Mapai typically failed to reach a consensus on policy issues of all types:
Before statehood, Ben-Gurion represented only one of several policy lines
that existed among the party’s ranks; even when his approach became dominant after independence, disputes over policy issues within Mapai persisted.
As proof, she described Lavon as a representative of the counter-approach
to Ben-Gurion, noting that Lavon had supported full equality of rights for
the Arabs since the beginning of statehood, and he also demanded that the
Military Administration be abolished already in 1952.64
CONCLUSION
The contemporary historiographical debate on the government’s early
policy toward the Arab minority has been influenced by far-reaching developments of the last two decades. At the global level, following the changes
in Europe’s political map in the early 1990s, public and academic interest
increased in the status of homeland minorities in nation states, and their
rights as indigenous communities.65 At the local level, Israel’s “constitutional revolution” of the early 1990s and the intricate network of civil
society organizations increased public awareness of human and civil rights
and the significance of the individual in Israeli society.66
It is therefore not surprising that the contemporary observer considers the policy of control and supervision that characterized the Military
Administration period as a blatant violation of civil rights and an illegitimate course of action for a democratic state. In the 2000s, specifically following the 2003 publication of the Or Commission report that contained
an extensive discussion of the discrimination and disadvantage of the Arab
citizens in Israel, government policy during the Military Administration
period was treated as a “primal sin” committed by the state against its Arab
citizens; a sin that calls for “a historical apology by the state, in the name
of previous governments, for the injustice and exclusion.”67 The imprint
of such perceptions is clearly articulated in the essays of the members of all
three historiographical streams reviewed above.
42 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
The supporters of the government policy toward the Arab minority
adopted an apologetic, somewhat defensive, tone. They remained convinced that the policy had been justified, even in retrospect, but admitted
that it was not free of negative aspects that adversely affected the Arab
population. The post-Zionist critics’ criticism became increasingly sharp
over the years: The primary sources available to them allowed them to use
conventional tools of academic research to support a solid, well-reasoned
set of arguments. As for members of the third historiographical stream,
while they did not necessarily challenge the harsh criticism articulated by
the critics, they were critical of the post-Zionists’ methodology in studying
the historic past. They set out to prove that the government’s Arab minority
policy should not be viewed as a deterministic process with preconceived
aims and outcomes.
The reality of early statehood was very different from the present.
Sixty years ago, the public agenda in Israel was focused on the existence
of the State of Israel as a sovereign state in the Middle East, and had less
interest in the civic rights of the Arabs in Israel or in the collective rights
of minorities worldwide, compared to the present day. In that reality, the
supervision and control imposed by state agencies on the Arab minority
were presumed to be no different from the policies adopted by any other
country facing similar threatening circumstances, surrounded by a hostile
political environment, and containing what was considered to be an enemyaffiliated minority. In such circumstances, it was not surprising that leaders
of the government and the security establishment treated the Israeli Communist Party, which represented Arab society’s mainstream nationalists, as
a security threat rather than a legitimate political opposition. For the sake
of comparison, in the early 1950s, anti-communism was considered official
and legitimate state policy in West Germany. In December 1949, Konrad
Adenauer, the country’s first post-war chancellor, argued that the KPD,
Communist Party of Germany, was explicitly based on what he called
“national treachery”. Eventually, in August 1956, the KPD was officially
outlawed by Germany’s Constitutional Court.68 Furthermore, the conception of Soviet communism as a danger to global political stability and
security was initially and most of all promoted by President Harry S Truman’s speech before the Congress on 12 March 1947, a speech that became
one of the founding pillars of the Cold War and later became known as
“the Truman Doctrine.”
Against this historical backdrop and while addressing early state history from a contemporary perspective, we should bear in mind Benedetto Croce’s well-known saying that “All history is contemporary history”.
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 43
Quoting Croce’s paraphrase in his 1961 book, What is History? E. H. Carr
explained: “We can view the past, and achieve our understanding of the
past, only through the eyes of the present. The historian is of his own age,
and is bound to it by the conditions of human existence.”69
Carr’s arguments underscore the understanding that the contemporary
historiographical debate on government policy toward the Arab minority
during the Military Administration period, and its formative influence on
the nature of the State, have exceeded the boundaries of academic discourse:
This debate has become part of the public discourse on the country’s contemporary character and the government policy toward the Arab citizens
today. While the members of the various historiographical streams engaged
in the study of the past, no less so did they engage with the implications
of their work for the present, which is merely the reality that evolved from
that past. Then and now, the issue at stake is the extent to which the Jewish
nation state is obligated to maintain its democratic character and treat all
its citizens equally.
Notes
1. Assaf Likhovsky, “Post-Post-Zionist Historiography,” Israel Studies 15.2
(2010): 1–23.
2. Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, “The Military Government as a Mechanism of Controlling Arab Citizens: The First Decade, 1948–1958,” Hamizrah Hehadash 43
(2002): 103–32 [Hebrew].
3. Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (New York, 1976).
4. Avi Shlaim, “The Debate about 1948,” International Journal of Middle East
Studies 27 (1995): 287–304; Benny Morris, Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936–
1956 (Tel-Aviv, 2000), 11–21 [Hebrew].
5. For essays written by the early supporters, see Yaacov Shimoni, The Arab
Minority in the State of Israel ( Jerusalem, 1950) [Hebrew]; Zev Vilnay, Minorities in
Israel: Muslim, Christian, Druze and Baha’i ( Jerusalem, 1959) [Hebrew]; Yigal Alon,
A Curtain of Sand: Israel and the Arab States between War and Peace (Tel-Aviv, 1959)
[Hebrew]; Jacob M. Landau, The Arabs in Israel: A Political Study (London, 1969).
6. For early critical essays, see Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World (TelAviv, 1964) [Hebrew]; Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel.
7. Ian S. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National Minority
(Austin, TX, 1980).
8. See Jacob M. Landau, As’ad Ghanem, and Alouph Hareven (eds.), The Arab
Citizens of Israel Towards the Twenty-First Century ( Jerusalem, 1995) [Hebrew].
44 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
9. Theodor Or, “The Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the
Events of October 2000,” Israel Studies 11.2 (2006): 25–53.
10. Amnon Linn served as a member of the Knesset (MK) representing the
Labor Party from 1967 to 1969; from 1974 to 1988 he alternately represented the
Labor and the Likud. Linn also served as the national director of Mapai’s Arab
Department from 1965 to 1969. Isser Harel served as the first director of the General
Security Services from 1948 to 1952, director of the Mossad from 1952 to 1963, and
as an MK from 1969 to 1974. Raanan Cohen was the chairman of the Labor Party’s
Division of Arabs and Druze between 1975 and 1986, and served as a Labor MK
from 1988 to 2002. Ori Stendel served as an advisor on Arab affairs to three PMs;
David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and Golda Meir.
11. Isser Harel, Security and Democracy (Tel-Aviv, 1989) [Hebrew].
12. Amnon Linn, Stormy Skies—Jews and Arabs in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1999)
[Hebrew].
13. Raanan Cohen, Complexity of Loyalties, Society and Politics: The Arab Sector
in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1990) [Hebrew].
14. Ori Stendel, The Arabs in Israel: Between Hammer and Anvil ( Jerusalem,
1992) [Hebrew].
15. Ori Stendel, “The Arabs in Israel: Between Hammer and Anvil,” in The
Second Decade: 1958–1968, ed. Zvi Zameret and Hanna Yablonka ( Jerusalem, 2000),
193–218 [Hebrew].
16. Raanan Cohen, Strangers in Their Homeland: Arabs, Jews and the State of
Israel (Tel-Aviv, 2006) [Hebrew].
17. Mordechai Bar-On, “A History That Was Not—Further Observation on
‘New History’,” Yahadut Zemanenu 10 (1996): 3–39 [Hebrew].
18. Linn, Stormy Skies, 94; Author’s translation.
19. Stendel, “The Arabs in Israel,” 194.
20. See Harel, Security and Democracy, 14–15; Cohen, Complexity of Loyalties,
44–5; Stendel (1992), 23–4.
21. Stendel, The Arabs in Israel, 29.
22. Harel, Security and Democracy, 440. Author’s translation.
23. Cohen, Complexity of Loyalties, 44–5. Author’s translation.
24. Stendel, The Arabs in Israel, 23–5; “The Arabs in Israel,” 201–12; Linn, Stormy
Skies, 109–10.
25. Stendel, “The Arabs in Israel,” 215.
26. Cohen, Strangers in their Homeland, 46–7. Author’s translation.
27. Linn, Stormy Skies, 123–4. Author’s translation.
28. Sammy Smooha, “Existing and alternative policy towards the Arabs in
Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 5.1 (1982): 71–98.
29. Tom Segev, 1949—The First Israelis ( Jerusalem, 1984), 58–9 [Hebrew].
Author’s translation.
30. Uzi Benziman and Atallah Mansour, Subtenants ( Jerusalem, 1992), 61–5
[Hebrew].
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 45
31. Ibid,. 68–70.
32. Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, “Jewish-Arab Relations in the First Decade,” in A State
in the Making: Israeli Society in the First Decades, ed. Anita Shapira ( Jerusalem,
2001), 61–72 [Hebrew].
33. Alina Korn, “Crime and Legal Control: The Israeli Arab Population during
the Military Government Period (1948–66),” British Journal of Criminology 40.4
(2000): 574–93.
34. Alina Korn, “Good Intentions: The Short History of the Minority Affairs
Ministry (1 May 1948—1 July 1949),” Cathedra 127 (2008): 113–40 [Hebrew].
35. Ibid, 114. Author’s translation.
36. Yair Bäuml, A Blue and White Shadow: The Israeli Establishment’s Policy
and Actions among its Arab Citizens: The Formative Years, 1958––1968 (Haifa,
2007); Hillel Cohen, Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Services and the Israeli Arabs
( Jerusalem, 2006) [both in Hebrew].
37. Yair Bäuml, “The Discrimination Policy towards the Arabs in Israel, 1948–
1968,” Iyunim Bitkumat Israel 16 (2006): 391–413 [Hebrew].
38. Bäuml argued that awarding judicial autonomy to the shari’a courts undermined the status of the Muslim community in Israel, since this move allowed
the Israeli legislature to formulate the state laws exclusively on the basis of Jewish
tradition, and to disregard the Muslim citizens. He also argued that this move
“depressed the modernization” of the Muslim society, since religious law by nature
is frozen and does not adapt to contemporary needs (Bäuml, ibid., 407). Arguments such as these stand in direct contradiction to the conclusions of Aharon
Layish, one of the foremost scholars on Muslim jurisprudence in Israel. In an
article published as early as 1963, Layish argued that the legislative system in Israel
intervened in the shari’a law in order to adjust it to the legal system of a modern
state. In 1995 Layish determined that the state intervened to a considerable extent
in the law applied by the shari’a courts, and interjected secular principles into this
jurisprudence to such an extent that it created a new legal system that deviated from
classic Muslim jurisprudence. Aharon Layish, “Muslim Religious Adjudication in
Israel,” Hamizrah Hehadash 13 (1963): 19–38; “The Status of Muslim Women in the
Shari’a Court in Israel,” in Women’s Status in Israeli Law and Society, ed. Frances
Raday, Carmel Shalev and Michal Liban-Kooby ( Jerusalem, 1995), 364–79 [both
in Hebrew]. Furthermore, more recently Qadi Iyad Zahalka, who served as head
of the Muslim shari’a courts in Israel between 2003 and 2009, contended that the
shari’a court system in Israel had adapted itself to the changing lifestyle of Israel’s
Muslim citizens as well as to the practices of the Israeli legal system. Iyad Zahalka,
The Sharia Courts: Between Adjudication and Identity (Tel-Aviv, 2009) [Hebrew].
While Bäuml’s argument apparently matches the general spirit of his interpretation, and his attempt to prove how government policy contributed to the institutionalization of discrimination against the Arab minority, this argument stands in
complete contradiction to the solidly grounded research discourse that developed
over several decades on this issue.
46 • isr ael studies, volume 19 number 1
39. Yair Bäuml, “The Subjugation of the Arab Economy in Israel to the Jewish
Sector, 1958–1967,” Hamizrach Hehadash 48 (2009), 101–29 [Hebrew].
40. Ibid., 129; Author’s translation.
41. Cohen, Good Arabs, 51–2.
42. Ibid., 230–1. Author’s translation.
43. Ibid., 245–6.
44. Ibid., 263. Author’s translation.
45. Ibid., 266.
46. Elie Rekhess, “The Underlying Principles of the Policy towards the Arabs
in Israel,” in Transition from ‘Yishuv’ to State, 1947–49: Continuity and Change, ed.
Varda Pilowsky (Haifa, 1990), 291–7 [Hebrew]; and “Initial Israeli Policy Guidelines towards the Arab Minority, 1948–1949,” in New Perspectives on Israeli History:
The Early Years of the State, ed. Lawrence J. Silberstein (New York, 1991), 103–23.
47. Ian Lustick, “Zionism and the State of Israel: Regime Objectives and the
Arab Minority in the First Years of Statehood,” Middle Eastern Studies 16.1 (1980):
127–46; Smooha, “Existing and Alternative Policy”.
48. Rekhess, “Initial Israeli Policy Guidelines,” 116–17.
49. Alisa Rubin-Peled, “The Other Side of 1948: The Forgotten Benevolence
of Bechor Shalom Shitrit and the Ministry of Minority Affairs,” Israel Affairs 8.3
(2002): 84–103.
50. Ibid., 84–5.
51. Rekhess, “Initial Israeli Policy Guidelines,” 112–13.
52. Benziman and Mansour, Subtenants, 32–8, 61–5.
53. Yoav Gelber, Independence versus Nakba (Or Yehuda, 2004), 11–17 [Hebrew].
54. Yoav Gelber, “Israel’s Policy towards its Arab Minority, 1947–1950,” Israel
Affairs 19.1 (2013): 51–81.
55. Rekhess, “The Underlying Principles,” 291–7; Eyal Kafkafi, Pinchas Lavon—
Anti-Messiah: A Biography (Tel-Aviv, 1998), 271–8 [Hebrew].
56. Gelber, Independence versus Nakbah, 429.
57. Rekhess, “Initial Israeli Policy Guidelines,” 109–10, 118.
58. Rubin-Peled, “The Other Side of 1948,” 99–100.
59. Gelber, “Israel’s Policy towards its Arab Minority,” 51.
60. Gelber, Independence versus Nakbah, 397–429.
61. Rekhess, “Initial Israeli Policy Guidelines,” 104–6.
62. Ibid., 117–19.
63. Alisa Rubin-Peled, Debating Islam in the Jewish State: The Development Policy
toward Islamic Institutions in Israel (New York 2001), 1–16.
64. Eyal Kafkafi, “Segregation or Integration of the Israeli Arabs: Two Concepts
in Mapai,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 30 (1998): 347–67; AntiMessiah, 167–9, 270–3.
65. Duncan Ivison, “Indigenous Rights,” in International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, 2nd ed., ed. William A. Darity (Farmington Hills, MI, 2007),
614–17.
Policies on Arabs During the Military Administration Period • 47
66. The term “The Israeli Constitutional Revolution” has been traditionally
attributed to Justice Aharon Barak who served as the president of the High Court
of Justice in Israel between 1995 and 2006. See Aharon Barak, “The Constitutional
Revolution: Protected Human Rights,” Mishpat Umimshal 1 (1992): 9–35 [Hebrew].
On the growth of the Arab civil society and its contribution to the national mobilization of Arabs in Israel see Shany Payes, Palestinian NGOs in Israel: The Politics
of Civil Society (London, 2005).
67. The demand for an official “historical apology” by the State to its Arab
citizens appeared in an emergency report submitted in November 2000 to Ehud
Barak, then prime minister by a Jewish-Arab inter-university research team, shortly
after the violent events in the Galilee and the Triangle areas in October 2000. The
report was entitled, “After the Rift: New Directions for Government Policy towards
the Arab Population in Israel.” See Elie Rekhess, “The Arabs of Israel after Oslo:
Localization of the National Struggle,” Israel Studies 7.3 (2002): 32.
68. Patrick Major, The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in
West Germany, 1945–1956 (Oxford, 1997), 257–93.
69. E. H. Carr, What is History? (Cambridge, 1961), 21–4.