The present article is divided into two parts. In the first section, we shall present the development and changes which occurred in the Ministry of Education's policy with regard to integration in Israeli schools from a chronologicaltheoretical point of view. We shall indicate the three stages of this evolutionstages which represent fundamental shifts over the three decades since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In the second section, we shall propose several hypotheses explaining how and why these changes occurred.