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Benni Morris at the London School of Economics

LSE aims at educating students

From 2004 to the present

Morris “claims objectivity, even if a careful reading of almost all of Morris’ writings reveals a very simplistic and one-dimensional view on the Jewish-Arab conflict. Despite all his “discoveries” about moral wrongs perpetrated by the Israelis, on the bottom line, he always tended to adopt the official Israeli interpretation of the events.

Morris devoted a very salient and extensive discussion to the centrality of idea of “transfer” (i.e., ethnic cleansing) in Zionist thought, but concluded that the Palestinians had not been expelled by the Israelis in compliance with a master plan or following a consequential policy. This was not precise.

What the new material shows [– says Morris –] is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape… They are just the tip of the iceberg."

So far it is the “old good” and expected Morris. The restless debunker of Israel’s sins. However, suddenly the interview took a sharp turn from historiography to philosophy: “Under some circumstances expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

Morris has abandoned his historian’s mantle and donned the armor of a Jewish chauvinist who wants the Land of Israel completely cleansed from Arabs. Never has any secular public Jewish figure expressed these feelings so clearly and blatantly as Professor Morris did. 

Morris: : "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history."

Morris also “turns to his own prejudices and stereotypes of the Islamic and Arabic culture that happen to be fashionable and well fit the present moods of the Israeli-Jewish and some parts of Western political culture since the September 11 calamity.” Morris, the historian, “is not just a part of the collective mood and expresses it, he also provide historical and intellectual legitimacy to the most primitive and self-destructive impulse of a very troubled society.”

Fast forward to November 2023

Here is how a historian analyses events:

“When the Israeli government withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 it ended up being administered by Hamas, this extremist, fanatical Islamist organization, which inculcates in its children hatred of Jews and Israel and the idea that everything must be solved by the sword. So the hatred also comes from an education system which brought up everybody believing that Jews must die and Israel must die. And one of the results of this is what happened on Oct. 7.”

More myths

“We’re surrounded by states and groups basically run by the Iranians, who are behind much of this. I’m not saying the Gaza Arabs don’t have their own native antagonism, but they’re also acting as agents, as the Hezbollah are, of Iran, which wants to destroy Israel.”

“Israel, I hope, will destroy Hamas, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the end of the story. There’s 2 million Arabs living in poverty and misery in the Gaza Strip, and eventually the resistance or terrorism will rear up again.”


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