Israel’s Vanishing Files, Archival Deception and Paper Trails

Israel has a staggering 17 million files in its two most important archives: the State Archives and the archives of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). These archives contain not just the history and heritage of Israel or Jews, but also the stolen cultural heritage of Palestinians. During successive wars for control of the territory: the 1948 Nakba, the 1956 War, the 1967 War, the 1982 War, and subsequent assaults on Gaza—Israel has looted materials from hundreds of Palestinians institutions, libraries and private collections and transferred their contents to its own archives. These collections contain tens of thousands of official documents, rare books, poetry collections, administrative records from institutions like orphanages and hospitals, as well as some of the earliest blueprints for the formation of a Palestinian state. The seizure and destruction of materials and records has occurred throughout the conflict, but as scholars and activists seek to revise, and sometimes debunk, the narrative of Zionism and expanded settlement, the Israeli state has tightened its grip on archive access for both its own citizens and Palestinians.
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It became a little more difficult to study the history of Palestine and Israel on January 21, 2019, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a new amendment to the archive law extending the classification period for certain materials from 70 to 90 years. The extension includes the archives of Shin Bet (the domestic intelligence service), Mossad (the foreign intelligence service), the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, the Israel Institute for Biological Research and an array of military units collecting “raw intelligence material.”1 The complete list of the military units is not even available, since it too has been classified.2 In other words, even what is classified is classified.
The government is extending the period of classification at the same time that Israel’s Ministry of Defense is aggressively expanding the kinds of materials under its purview—effectively removing them from public view. A recent exposé by the Israeli NGO Akevot: Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research revealed that officials from the Ministry of Defense have been conducting unannounced visits to a number of non-official archives—like those of the kibbutz movement—and confiscating what they argue are classified documents that should not have been stored there. Even those documents that have long been used by scholars may suddenly disappear without notice. A former top official at the ministry did not even bother to hide the purpose: to discredit historians working on topics the state deems sensitive by insinuating that they falsified documents.
These new restrictions on the public availability of certain archives are part of a much longer history of Israel seeking to control the stories historians tell about its past. The chief Israeli archivist admitted as much in a rare moment of candor in January 2018, noting that choices of what to declassify sometimes involve “an attempt to conceal part of the historical truth in order to build a more convenient narrative,” particularly those materials that might “incite the Arab population” or “be interpreted as Israeli war crimes.”4
The new restrictions are thus setbacks in the long struggle to use official Israeli records and materials to ascertain a more complete history of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Palestinian exodus or Nakba, the military government over Palestinian citizens of Israel or the post–1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Even those interested in the involvement of the Israeli intelligence community in suppressing the protest of Mizrahim (Jews of North African or Middle Eastern descent) would be stonewalled.
Nevertheless, the new amendment and recent reclassification measures by the Ministry of Defense will not succeed in erasing all the paper trails in the Israeli archives. Israel prides itself on operating a professional system of archives, based on a German model and liberal declassification laws. As long as these principles—if only rhetorically—continue to drive the state’s actions it will prove very difficult, if not impossible, to erase all those trails, even if searching for them will become more laborious. As examples from my own work as a historian over the past decade illustrate, some of these trails will continue to challenge the official narrative in ways that exceed the state’s ability to control.
Additional Resources
Articles/Websites
- Archives of Israeli Oppression
- Akevot: Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research
- Society of American Archivists: What Are Archives?
- Ottoman State Archives
- The Palestine Museum Digital Archive
- Brown University Library Guide of Palestinian Studies
- International Council on Archives: What are archives?
- Librarians and Archivists with Palestine
Podcasts/Webinars
- Ottoman History Podcast: The Politics of 1948 in Israeli Archives
- Ottoman History Podcast: Dear Palestine
- Teacher Webinar – Shay Hazkani | The Israeli Settler Movement
- Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War
Interactive Maps/Infographics
- Visualizing Palestine Interactive Map: Explore how the Nakba Transformed Palestine
- Palestine Open Maps
- Palestine Oral History Map