The Ministerial Committee on the Matter of Permission to Examine Classified Archival Material works within the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office to censor documents at the government’s recommendation. The full list of censored documents have been revealed for the first time. Included in this list are:
- Ministry of Minority Affairs files from 1948‒1949 about the deportation of Arabs
- The Riftin Report of 1948, which details Prime Minister Ben-Gurion’s probe into Haganah soldiers committing murder, torture, theft, and looting during the Nakba/War of Independence
- A 1964 report initiated by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to consider why refugees fled in 1948
- A 1948 Haganah report and photos of the massacre committed in Deir Yassin by Etzel and Lehi pre-state underground militas during the Nakba/War of Independence
- Minutes from government meetings between 1948 and 1949 concerning the deportation of Arabs, the destruction of Arab villages, and Haganah and IDF soldiers looting, robbing, raping, and murdering
- 1948 military documents from the Nakba/War of Independence whose contents are unknown
- Yaakov Shimshon Shapira report from 1948, in which Israel’s first attorney general examined illegal acts of warfare which resulted in soldiers injuring the lives of Arabs in the Galilee and the south
Category: DOCUMENTS
Topic: List of censored documents from the Ministerial Committee on the Matter of Permission to Examine Classified Archival Material of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office
Date of publication: Article October 18, 2021 // primary sources range from 1948‒1964
Photo Caption: Arab refugees steam from Palestine on the Lebanon Road, Nov. 4, 1948
