Israel's 50th anniversary as a state could easily have been a grand jubilee observance of peace with the Palestinians. I say this thinking it could still happen. Certainly it has to count that Israelis curious about their history are now finally getting exposed to a deeper and more inclusive version of it.

Israel's practitioners of a "new history" have been looking beyond the stirring narratives of rescue and national redemption to see how the founding appeared to the Palestinians. In a notable recent series on the state-run Israel TV, the birth of Israel was presented as having not just valiant champions but coldly calculating ones. Israelis were shown as contributors to the "transfer" -- the uprooting and expelling -- of hundreds of thousands of long-settled Palestinians. The resulting buzz has fed into current Israeli concern over the stalemate in peace talks.

It is good news that some number of Israelis -- and not just intellectuals but a broader public -- should now be acknowledging the true manner of Israel's birth as it affected others. An American commentator, Rochelle Furstenberg, observes that the "post-Zionist" historians figure Israel is now strong enough to confront earlier myths. The fact is that pre-state Zionist militia commanders, the young Yitzhak Rabin among them, drove Palestinians from hundreds of their villages, including Deir Yassin, scene of a notorious massacre. What Israelis hail as their finest national hour, Palestinians term "the catastrophe."