ABSTRACT
AVRAHAM SELA: Basically, I discerned three main phases in the development of Israeli historiography regarding the 1948 war. Of course, I don't mean precisely from a certain year or a certain day. Until the early 1980s, it was mostly a collective mobilized historiography meant to meet the needs of state-building and nation-building, and to address the regional problems of security and defense and so on. The second phase begins with the gradual dismantling of this collectivist approach, and is primarily marked by the appearance of what we call the New Historians. In my view, what is meant by this is New Historians, not new history. The third phase, from approximately the beginning or mid-1990s, is characterized by an attempt to conceptualize a comparative study, including some criticism of the New Historians regarding the war. This includes, for example, new studies now being conducted around ethnic conflicts or civil wars and discussions of issues such as institution-building.
