New History for a New Israel: Two Landmark Looks at a Sentimentalized Past

The education minister in the dovish new Israeli government led by Ehud Barak caused a stir recently. Yossi Sarid decided that Israeli high schools should teach their students about something most Israelis would just as soon not dwell on: the massacre by Israeli soldiers of dozens of Israeli Arab civilians who broke a curfew in and near the village of Kafr Kasim some 43 years ago. The shootings were followed by a trial and an Israeli court's landmark decision to pin individual responsibility on Israeli soldiers who follow illegal orders. With Sarid's directive, dirty laundry from Israel's founding era was to