Honesty in history
 

Israel is starting to look at itself critically. To me, it looks like a positive step in its relationship with its Arab population.

Historic revisionism is now under way. Without fanfare, just below the media radar screen, the Israeli Education Ministry has approved a textbook for Arab third-graders in Israel that concedes the war that gave birth to Israel was a “nakba” for the Palestinians. The textbook refers to the “expulsion” of some of the Palestinians and the “confiscation of many Arab-owned lands.”

Textbooks for Jewish Israelis in the same grade make no such verbal concession. But Israel’s “new wave” historians have been combing through fresh material now available from the British mandate period and Israeli archives that document the history of Israel before and after it became a state. Long-lasting myths are being debunked.

Denial of Arab expulsions will probably last longer in the US where myth and reality don't have to look each other in the eye. I keep coming back to the Irish experience where Irish-Americans were once a stumbling block to peace because they didn't have to actually live in Ireland.

This is a good step in the right direction but they still have a long way to go.

Separate but equal textbooks/classes? Yeah, that works really well here.

big problem