ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter takes place in the aftermath: with Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, a moment which heralds the transformation of the JNF archive from an instrumental, organizational system to a crucial component of official state archives. Ironically, it is precisely the archive’s commissioned, staged materials that enabled participants in the landscape to accept its “master narrative” as documented “truth” at a moment when local narratives were divided: as the 1948 War was declared a War of Independence by the Jewish community, and as Nakba, or catastrophe, by the Arabs. During these moments of transition, the archive’s operations shifted, as another archival machinery was put into action—a national archive organized and maintained by the state. By way of conclusion, this chapter observes photographic repositories created by Zionist underground organizations prior to and after 1948, as the epitome of the desired body formation the Zionist archive conceived.
