The image of the 1967 War in Israeli history textbooks as test case: studying an active past in a protracted regional conflict

Abstract

This article seeks to shed light on the dilemma facing history education in regions beset by a protracted, and as yet unresolved ethno-political conflict. The article will examine this issue by means of a unique test case that observes a dramatic war event in Israeli textbooks. The event in question is the Six-Day War of 1967 and the study of its outcomes. This war stands in the twilight between memory and history and there is an extreme gap between the public history and the formal representation of that war in school textbooks. The question that begs an answer is why such a seminal event in Israeli history is not presented in history textbooks like the country’s other wars. The research methodology, which was conducted on two generations of textbooks, is based upon a comparative discourse analysis. A discussion of the findings contends that a critical pedagogy approach to history education might equip adolescent students with more powerful lenses through which to view several plausible scenarios for healing the wounds of the present by means of a rational and grounded perception of the past.

Keywords:

• History education
• history textbooks
• the 1967 ‘Six-Day War’
• discourse analysis
• intractable conflicts
• reconciliation

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Mr Edgar Prais for the important input and advice he gave regarding the English edition.