ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The political mood in Israel affects directly the fortunes of the critical historiography in the state. In terms of producing historiographical works, it meant first retracting from the critical impulse of the 1990s and returning to the hegemonic narrative. For this to happen there was a need to adopt an even firmer loyalty to the Meta Zionist narrative. The new political mood however affected these two major areas of inquiry at the heart of the local historiography in two diametrically opposed ways. The factual account provided by the new history of the 1948 war was acknowledged by the scholarly community. The debate about the history of the 1948 war in Israel was never confined to the academic ivory towers. The book discusses settler colonialism refers to movements of white settlers. The main obstacle was the native population.
