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Ha'aretz; Tuesday, September 14, 1999
Who is threatening the history inspector?
By Relly Sa'ar
Michael Yaron never imagined that his job would make
him the target of threatening letters and place him
in the center of a public controversy. But in recent
weeks, Yaron has learned to be careful when opening
his mail: He has received death threats in anonymous
letters sent from the United States and been called
"Nazi," "Kapo" and "shit."
Yaron is the Education Ministry's inspector for
history instruction. His job is to make sure that
schools are using the prepared curriculum and to
monitor the level of instruction and student
achievement. The storm broke following the approval
of a new junior high curriculum, one which
integrates (for the first time) the teaching of
Jewish history (yeda am, or history of the people)
with general history and provides the students with
a less heroic and more balanced description of the
War of Independence and the state's establishment.
At the center of the dispute is the question, Is the
aim of the study of history to create a national
consciousness and educate young people in our rights
to the country, or should history be taught as
objectively as possible?
From the period of the Yishuv - the Jewish community
in Palestine prior to 1948 - to the Jubilee of the
state's creation, the education system preserved the
myth. The 1948 war was one of "few against many,"
and most of the history of the State of Israel -
every event of which is suffused with public and
political controversy - simply remains outside the
classroom.
Fifty years after independence, the education system
decided that enough time had passed to allow an
honest look in the mirror: there are no happy wars,
and even the War of Independence, which led to
Israel's creation, was not a sterile event. As in
all wars, the vanquished - the Arabs - suffered at
the hands of the victors. Generations of children
learned that the Arabs became refugees after fleeing
of their own free will.
The new curriculum was introduced into schools
gradually. Three new textbooks were approved for use
in the ninth grade, including "Hame'a Ha'20 al Saf
Hamahar" (The 20th Century on the Brink of Tomorrow)
by Dr. Eyal Naveh.
This is how Naveh describes to 15-year-olds the
causes for the victory of the Jewish Yishuv in the
1948 war: "In almost every sector and in every
battle, the Jews had the advantage over the Arabs,
both with regard to planning, organization and
operation of equipment as well as the skilled
soldiers who took part in the battle." It is not
hard to see why those who insist on preserving the
myth of "few against many" in 1948 are outraged by
these lines.
The controversial passages take up little space in
the book, which documents the history of the world
since the 1920s. Naveh, 47, knew exactly what he was
writing, and the intellectual inheritance that he
wants to pass on to the next generation can be found
hiding between the dry lines recounting the events
of 1948: "In my generation, we were raised on the
myth of the few against the many." At 21, I was a
young artillery officer on the Syrian [Golan]
heights on that sad day, October 6, 1973, when we
used up our ammunition and had to withdraw. I did
not believe that we were the first Jews who had
lost, since we were taught different. A month before
the war Moshe Dayan visited us, and we asked him how
we could face thousands of Syrians. Dayan said that
with us, the quantity was not decisive because we
were Jews, and like a fool I bought it. Today I want
students to be critical - I was not."
Curricula are usually discussed in closed conference
rooms in the Ministry of Education and receive
little public notice. This time the silence was
broken by a writer from The New York Times, Ethan
Bronner, who published a long article on how Israel
is relearning, and reteaching, its history.
This airing of dirty laundry in the international
breeze set off a deep dispute in Israel. On one side
are the ranks of those who supported the new
curriculum and claimed that our children must hear
the truth and be exposed to the tough dilemmas of
Israel's independence. On the other side is a group
of right-wing intellectuals and politicians who
charge that destroying the myth would shake the
young generation's belief in the justification for
the state. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the rightist
group published an advertisement in [the Hebrew
edition of] Ha'aretz calling on schools to boycott
Naveh's book. "The book is written in a post-Zionist
fashion that weakens the student's feeling of the
justice of the Zionist path and the establishment of
the State of Israel - to the point of questioning
our right to our land," said the ad, signed by
dozens of rightists.
"Students should not be forced to learn history in
such a one-sided way," says Dr. Ron Breiman, one of
the group's leaders. "The myth of the few against
the many is not necessarily fallacious. In my eyes,
the myth of the peace is fallacious."
Naveh regrets the fact that his book has become a
whipping post for the right. "I give the students a
different, more mature approach toward studying
history. The right feels threatened because it needs
to feel 'we were right all along' in order to
continue."
But the struggle of the right is a rearguard action.
It seems there is no way back from the new Israeli
history. Michael Head, professor of history at
Jerusalem's Hebrew University and head of the
Education Ministry's professional committee, says,
"We want to educate students to identify with the
state and the fundamental principles of Zionism and
Israel, but from a critical angle. It is precisely
from a self-confident Zionist point of view that we
can learn about the less attractive sides of the
history of the Yishuv, such as the War of
Independence." And with Yossi Sarid as Minister of
Education, it is clear that the new history
curriculum will get full political backing.
(c) copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
