Nakba & Democracy

For general interest I am posting here the translation of a historical document from an Israeli security officer regarding the Palestinian Nakba and a 2019 article here by Hagar Shezaf relating to it and other documents being hidden/removed from Israeli archives. The original document was used by Benny Morris in a 1986 article on the subject. It was written in late June 1948 by an officer in Shai, the precursor to the Shin Bet security service. Providing granular, statistical detail, the twenty-five page document details the factors contributing to the explusion/flight of Palestinans during the 1948 Israel War of Independence: mainly military operations by regular armed Israeli forces and “dissident” forces (i.e. Irgun and Lehi forces) and also general fear and waves of “evacuation psychosis” among the Palestinian-Arab public. Insofar as Israeli history is Jewish history, so is the Nakba. In her article, Shezaf cites the view presented in a report by Yaacov Lozowick, the previous chief archivist at the State Archives, who wrote upon his retirement that “a democracy must not conceal information because it is liable to embarrass the state.”

About zjb

Zachary Braiterman is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. His specialization is modern Jewish thought and philosophical aesthetics. http://religion.syr.edu
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1 Response to Nakba & Democracy

  1. dmf says:

    the many denials of the Catastrophe are telling, dire for our (USA) democracy as well as theirs

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