[7] Beginning in the 1980s, the New Historians, working from declassified archives, advanced historical accounts which challenged Nakba denial[8] and significant volumes of Israeli Jewish literature have also emerged shedding more light on the period.
[9] In 1998, Steve Niva, editor of the Middle East Report, used the term "Nakba denial" in describing how the rise of the early Internet led to competing online narratives of the events of 1948.
[13] The term "Nakba denial" was used in 1998 by Steve Niva, editor of the Middle East Report, in describing how the rise of the early Internet led to competing online narratives of the events of 1948.
And this exclusion, according to Ilan Pappé, "is the main constitutive element in the construction of collective Jewish identity in the state of Israel.
"[14] According to scholar Nur Masalha, in Israel there is a politics of denial around the Nakba, embodied by statements by the likes of Golda Meir, such as the famous line "There was no such thing as Palestinians".
[5] In historian Maha Nassar's analysis of Leon Uris' 1958 novel Exodus, Nassar identified the denial of Zionists' responsibility for the 1948 expulsion and flight of Palestinians and the claim that Arabs themselves were to blame (utilizing the anti-Arab racist tropes present in the novel) as constituting a form of historical negationism, that she names "Nakba denialism".
[4] Historian Michael R. Fischbach defines Nakba denial as a "Nakba counternarrative" with particular roles in Israeli public life and state policy—especially as an instrument of resisting calls for reparations—consisting of the following themes:[3] Ilan Gur-Ze'ev and Ilan Pappé in 2003 wrote that both Israelis and Palestinians view themselves "as a sole victim while totally negating the victimization" of the other group.
[17] Nadim N. Rouhana and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury in 2017 wrote that the Nakba "was, until the mid-1990s, silenced in the 'official political sphere' of the Palestinians in Israel ... by the Israeli state and its institutional agents".
Hasian highlights one incident in 2009, reported on by Ian Black, where Israeli minister of education Gideon Sa'ar defended the removal of the word "Nakba" from school textbooks.
[b] In the late 1980s, Nakba denial began to be criticized and Israel's history was rewritten by the New Historians, who changed established beliefs regarding the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus.
[9] Towards the end of the 20th century, the topic of Nakba denial almost went to trial in the context of the discussion of the Tantura massacre and the 1998 thesis by Theodore Katz on it.
[24][25] These modes, per Sa'di, are: "denying or hiding the historically documented violence", trying to "remove the Palestinians from the history" of Israel before/during 1948, and perpetuating the "myth of 'a land without people for a people without land'"; Sa'di highlights From Time Immemorial, the 1984 work of Joan Peters, and The Case for Israel, the 2003 work of Alan Dershowitz for the latter, when Peters claimed that the refugees were immigrant Arab workers, and Dershowitz advancing similar arguments.
Sa'di provides another 2004 quote from Morris on this strategy: "final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.
"[35] In May 2023, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree defining the Nakba as a "crime against humanity",[2] and making its denial a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in jail.
[2] The legislation echoed developments in Israel, where lawmakers in the hardline 37th government had proposed outlawing the waving of Palestinian flags.