ABSTRACT
In an essay of 1988, the Israeli historian Benny Morris made a distinction
between the terms ‘‘revisionism’’ and ‘‘new history,’’ rejecting the first and
adopting the second for the historiography of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
which he and several other scholars were producing. Morris claimed that
the term ‘‘Revisionist’’ only applied when there was a ‘‘solid, credible – if
wrongheaded – body of historiography’’ about a particular subject which
‘‘latest fashion is bent on overthrowing.’’1 Previous Israeli treatments of the
1948 War, Morris contended, were not serious scholarship, but rather tendentious and apologetic works of official history, written by career officers,
bureaucrats, and public figures. Thus, Morris claimed, he was part of the
first generation of bona fide historians of the 1948 War and, by extension, of
the birth and establishment of the state of Israel.
