Questions surrounding Israel’s handling of the Palestinian Nakba continue to resurface as the 78th anniversary of the catastrophe approaches, particularly regarding the role of Israel’s own state archives and decades long attempts to construct a narrative denying the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.
Years before the so called “New Historians” exposed the reality of Palestinian expulsions during the Nakba of 1948, then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had already recognised the political danger posed by the refugee issue.
According to a lengthy investigation published by Haaretz, American pressure at the time to allow Palestinian refugees to return pushed Ben Gurion to commission what was presented as “academic research” designed to persuade the world that Palestinians had voluntarily “left” their homes rather than being forcibly expelled.
A Breach Inside Israel’s Sealed Archives
The report revealed that Israeli censors and archival authorities failed to detect a classified file identified as “Gimel Lamed 17028/18” within the Israeli State Archives.
The file concerns what Israeli officials referred to as the “Palestinian exodus” of 1948.
According to the report, documents relating to Palestinian displacement during the Nakba are usually sealed within Israeli archives, despite the fact that the legal period of confidentiality expired long ago under Israeli law.
Even files that had once been publicly accessible and used by Israeli “New Historians” during the 1990s and early 2000s were later reclassified after the publication of books that caused widespread controversy inside Israel.
Documents detailing the expulsion of Palestinians, massacres, rape committed by Israeli soldiers, and other incidents considered embarrassing to the Israeli establishment were reportedly redesignated as “top secret”.
Researchers attempting to trace archival references used by historians such as Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, and Tom Segev repeatedly encountered blocked access and sealed records.
For that reason, access to the file titled “Flight in 1948” was described as highly unusual.
Ben Gurion’s Battle Over the Narrative
The documents contained in the file were written between 1960 and 1964 and reflected what the report described as an organised effort led by Ben Gurion to entrench the Israeli narrative surrounding the Nakba and provide it with academic legitimacy.
Leading Orientalist scholars working closely with the Israeli state were tasked with producing evidence claiming Palestinians had fled voluntarily rather than being expelled.
The report stated that although Ben Gurion likely never used the word “Nakba”, he fully understood the importance of narrative warfare by the late 1950s.
He reportedly recognised that just as Zionism had succeeded in constructing a modern narrative for the “Jewish people”, Palestinians would eventually develop their own counter narrative regarding what happened in 1948.
Ben Gurion reportedly believed the refugee issue would become central to Israel’s diplomatic struggle internationally, especially as the Palestinian national movement gained momentum.
If Palestinians were recognised as having been expelled, their demand for return would appear morally justified before the world. But if they had “left voluntarily”, Israeli officials believed their claims would lose legitimacy.
Historians Confirm Widespread Expulsions
The report noted that most historians, regardless of whether they support Zionism, agree that Palestinian residents were forcibly expelled from at least 120 villages out of approximately 530 depopulated communities during the Nakba.
In roughly half of the villages, residents fled because of direct fighting but were later prevented from returning.
Only a small number of villages saw departures following instructions from local Arab leaders or village elders.
According to the report, Ben Gurion was likely fully aware of this reality.
Although many military evacuation and expulsion orders remained classified at the time, archival documents show Israeli military commanders repeatedly informed him about village demolitions and expulsions, often obtaining prior approval, particularly in cities such as Lydda and Ramla and villages along the northern front.
Early Efforts to Conceal the Expulsions
Even before the war ended, Israeli propaganda efforts were already attempting to conceal evidence of expulsions.
Israeli historian Mordechai Bar-On quoted former Agriculture Minister Aharon Zisling as saying during the expulsions from Lydda and Ramla:
“We did not expel the Arabs from the Land of Israel. After they remained under our rule, not a single Arab was expelled by us.”
Meanwhile, journalist “A. Ofir” wrote in the Israeli newspaper Davar:
“We shouted in vain after the Arabs flowing beyond the borders: stay with us!”
The report stressed that figures such as Bar On, Zisling, and Ofir were deeply connected to the Israeli military and governing establishment and fully understood that large numbers of Palestinians had indeed been expelled and permanently barred from returning.
They also understood that this reality had to remain hidden.
Kennedy Era Pressure and Israeli Anxiety
With the arrival of John F. Kennedy to the White House in 1961, pressure intensified inside the American administration for Israel to permit at least partial refugee return.
Israel had previously agreed in 1949 to allow 100,000 Palestinian refugees to return as part of a broader peace arrangement, but by the 1960s Israeli officials refused even that figure, discussing only 20,000 to 30,000 refugees at most.
Against the backdrop of American pressure and an upcoming United Nations General Assembly meeting, Ben Gurion convened a high level meeting attended by senior figures from the ruling Mapai Party, including Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Moshe Sharett.
Ben Gurion reportedly insisted the refugee issue was fundamentally a propaganda battle and argued Israel could still convince the world that Palestinians had fled voluntarily.
He claimed that “most of those who fled did so before the establishment of the state and against the wishes of the Haganah”.
He further claimed that after the establishment of Israel, only the Palestinians of Lydda and Ramla had been pressured to leave.
According to the report, everyone in the meeting knew these claims were historically inaccurate.
The Shiloah Institute and State-Directed Research
In response to what Ben Gurion described as the need for “serious action”, he approached the Shiloah Institute in 1961 to gather material regarding what Israeli officials called the “Arab flight”.
The institute, which later became the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies, operated during the 1950s as a joint project between the Hebrew University, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of War.
It was established by Reuven Shiloah after leaving Mossad and was directed by intelligence officer Yitzhak Oron.
The report explained that the institute worked closely with Israeli military intelligence, which regularly supplied researchers with classified documents.
Researchers reportedly viewed themselves as state employees rather than independent academics, and much of their work remained unpublished and classified.
Testimony From Researcher Ronnie Gabbay
One of the researchers involved was Ronnie Gabbay, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant who completed a doctoral thesis in Switzerland in 1959 focused on Palestinian refugees.
According to the report, Ben Gurion likely did not realise that Gabbay’s earlier work had already acknowledged cases in which Jewish forces expelled Palestinians and destroyed villages.
When Gabbay began working on Ben Gurion’s project, he received rare access to sealed archives, including intelligence files collected by Shin Bet.
He later recalled being told:
“We don’t know what to do with these boxes.”
Gabbay said he spent three days inside Shin Bet headquarters reviewing materials before many of the documents were later burned.
However, he was denied access to cabinet meeting records.
In a 1961 letter to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Gabbay wrote that Palestinian flight had resulted from “political, military, and psychological factors highlighting Arab responsibility”.
He concluded the letter by expressing hope that the research booklet would “faithfully serve Israeli foreign policy”.
Years later, however, Gabbay presented a different account, admitting he found no evidence in intelligence recordings that Arab leaders instructed Palestinians to flee.
He stated that what occurred in Haifa was an exception that unfolded amid Haganah shelling of the Arab market.
The “White Book” and the Manufacturing of a Narrative
Ben Gurion was reportedly dissatisfied with Gabbay’s findings and ordered Uri Lubrani to oversee a new research effort.
The task was assigned to Moshe Maoz, who collected around 150 documents and conducted interviews with military officers and Palestinians.
In comments published years later, Maoz admitted his research clearly documented expulsions in Lydda and Ramla.
However, archival records indicate that the summaries he produced at the time aimed to prove Palestinians fled because of their own leaders while portraying Jewish organisations as attempting to prevent the departures.
Another researcher, student Uri Stendel, later met Ben Gurion in 1963 regarding what became known as the “White Book”.
Stendel recalled Ben Gurion telling him:
“We need this book because they say the Arabs were expelled. Write the truth.”
But when Stendel later informed him that there was no doubt expulsions had occurred in Lydda and Ramla, Ben Gurion reportedly responded with visible shock, asking:
“Are you sure?”
According to the report, modern historians now possess extensive evidence confirming Ben Gurion was fully aware of and approved many of the expulsions.
“Manufacturing the Illusion”
Toward the end of 1961, former Israeli Prime Minister and Jewish Agency chairman Moshe Sharett proposed secretly leaking the material to foreign journalists so it could appear as independent and objective international reporting rather than Israeli state propaganda.
Correspondence cited in the report showed coordination efforts had already begun with Israeli Foreign Ministry officials to place the material in a major international publication, although the plan was never fully completed.
The report concluded that the file reflects the evolution of Israel’s relationship with the Nakba itself.
During the 1960s, public acknowledgment of expulsions remained politically impossible inside Israel.
Decades later, some of the same researchers involved admitted their understanding had changed after studying Palestinian perspectives and revisiting archival evidence.
The investigation concluded:
“These researchers may not have consciously lied in every case, but they sought to deceive themselves to paint an idealised picture of 1948, the year that established the state while displacing another people. Ben Gurion attempted to erase the story of that displacement through manufactured academic tools.”
