SDE BOKER, Israel — Israeli and Zionist history is viewed as objectively as possible at Ben-Gurion University’s (BGU) Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism.

There are no rose-coloured glasses to be seen or peered through, says Ofer Shiff, a senior lecturer at the institute.

This level of research study requires an exacting degree of scholarly detachment, said Shiff, who until last year headed BGU’s Israel studies program.

Yet there is no getting around the fact that when the vast majority of the teachers and students of Israel and Zionism are Jewish, there’s a risk that scholarly detachment can only go so far, he said....