Wartime education: war in Israeli history curricula and textbooks

The article examines how wars are portrayed in the curricula and textbooks in Israel’s State Secular and State Religious education systems. It focuses on how curricula and textbooks connect Israel’s past wars to the present, and what civic messages they convey about the place of conflict – particularly with the Palestinians – in contemporary and future Israel. The connection between past and present is proven to serve as a flexible space in which history education negotiates between its discipline-related and educational aims. Furthermore, the way this connection is constructed shapes the foundational elements of the historical narrative it promotes. The comparative analysis reveals that, in connecting past wars to the present, and in negotiating the tension between teaching wars through disciplinary tools and making them relevant to students’ contemporary lives, both the State Secular and State Religious textbooks and curricula establish the Israel-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts as a main axis of the historical narrative and depict these conflicts as constant features in the past and present reality. However, while State Secular materials open space for envisioning a future of potential change towards possible peace and reconciliation, the State Religious materials tend to frame the future as a continuation of enduring conflict.