ISRAEL'S education ministry has ordered the removal of the word 'nakba' — Arabic for the 'catastrophe' of the 1948 war — from a school textbook for young Arab children.

The decision — which will alter books aimed at eight- and nine-year-old Arab pupils — will be seen as a blunt assertion by Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud-led government of Israel's historical narrative over the Palestinian one.

The term 'nakba' has a similar resonance for Palestinians as the Hebrew word 'shoah' — normally used to describe the Nazi Holocaust — does for Israelis and Jews. Its inclusion in a book for the children of Arabs, who make up about a fifth of the Israeli population, drives at the heart of a polarised debate over what Israelis call their “war of independence” the 1948 conflict which secured the Jewish state after the British left Palestine, and led to the flight of 700,000 Palestinians, most of whom became refugees.

Netanyahu spoke for many Jewish Israelis two years ago when he argued that using the word 'nakba' in Arab schools was tantamount to spreading propaganda against Israel.

Palestinians have always maintained that the 1948 refugees were the victims of Israeli “ethnic cleansing”. But in recent years a new generation of revisionist Israeli historians has rejected the old official narrative that the Palestinians were responsible for their own misfortune.

Netanyahu's Likud takes a different view. “There is no reason to present the creation of the Israeli state as a catastrophe in an official teaching programme,” said the education minister, Gideon Saar. “The objective of the education system is not to deny the legitimacy of our state, nor promote extremism among Arab-Israelis.” There was bitter controversy in 2007 when 'nakba' was introduced into a book for use in Arab schools only, by the then education minister, Yuli Tamir of the centre-left Labour party.

“In no country in the world does an educational curriculum refer to the creation of the country as a 'catastrophe',” Saar told MPs in the Knesset. “There is a difference between referring to specific tragedies that take place in a war as catastrophes, and referring to the creation of the state as a catastrophe.”

Arab MP Hana Sweid accused the government of “nakba denial”. The follow-up committee for Arab education said “Palestinian-Arab society in Israel has every right to preserve its collective memory, including in its school curriculums.”

Jafar Farrah, director of Mossawa (Equality), an Israeli-Arab advocacy group, told Reuters the decision to excise the term 'nakba' only “complicated the conflict”. He called it an attempt to distort the truth and seek confrontation with the country's Arab population.

Yossi Sarid, a dovish former education minister, said the decision showed insecurity. “Zionism has already won in many ways,” he said. “We need not be afraid of a word.”

— The Guardian, London