Ephraim Karsh
Efraim Karsh (occasionally also Ephraim ; born September 6, 1953 in Israel ) is founding director of the Department of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College in London , where he retired in 2014. Since 2013 he has been Professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan and researcher at the affiliated Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies . He is also senior researcher (and former director) of the Middle East Forum , a Philadelphia think tank . He is a historian of the Middle East and author of numerous books. He is considered one of the harshest critics of the New Historians , a group of Israeli scholars who question the traditional historiography of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
Career
Karsh was born and raised in Israel. He completed his bachelor's degree in Arabic and Modern History ( Modern and Modern History ) of the Middle East at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received the degrees of MA and Ph.D. in International Relations from Tel Aviv University .
After obtaining his bachelor's degree, he worked as a major scientific analyst in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). After receiving his doctorate, he received academic teaching and research appointments at Columbia - and Harvard , the Sorbonne , the University of Helsinki , at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies ( Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies ) in Washington, DC and Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University .
He lived in England from the late 1980s to 2011 , where he founded the Department of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London . From 2011 to 2012 he was director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia.
Karsh published numerous papers on Soviet foreign policy and European neutrality. He is the founder and editor of Israel Affairs magazine , appears frequently on radio and television shows in the UK and US, and has written articles for leading newspapers such as The New York Times , Los Angeles Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Times (London) and The Daily Telegraph .
Arguments
Islamic history
Efraim Karsh refuses to apply the terms "empire" ( world empire ) and imperialism to the European powers and more recently to the United States and the Muslims, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world, as victims of aggressive European attacks in the To see colonialism. Instead, he attributes the current tensions in the Near and Middle East to centuries-old, indigenous tendencies, behavioral patterns and, above all, to a “millennial imperial tradition” that are rooted in the region itself. External influences are not primarily responsible for the political development of the Middle East or for its precarious situation, but only play a secondary role.
According to his work, he sees no European plan to influence the Middle East, which culminated in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire , and no idea that the European powers destroyed the political unity of the Middle East through artificially created states. In his book Islamic Imperialism. A History (Yale University Press, 2006 - German edition Imperialism in the Name of Allahs , DVA, 2007), Karsh develops this argument further. He argues that the rise of Islam inseparable "empire" (Empire) was connected and, unlike the Christianity of Islam 's imperial ambitions have retained to this day. The history of Islam, according to Karsh, is one of the rise and fall of imperial aggressiveness and never-buried imperial dreams.
If the USA is reviled in the Muslim world today, it is not because of its politics in particular, but because of its apparent world power. The US prevented a return to the "lost glory" of the caliphate and the establishment of a worldwide Muslim community, the umma . In Karsh's view, this vision is not limited to a small fringe extremist group. This shows the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks in the Islamic world. Osama bin Laden represents none other than an incarnation of Saladin , the conqueror of the crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem .
reception
Karsh's writings are polarizing among reviewers. Some of them were received very positively. Daniel Pipes , Amir Taheri and Howard Sachar (formerly George Washington University ), among others , gave positive reviews of his book Palestine Betrayed . Sachar described it as the result of meticulous, even exhaustive science, which even researchers of opposing convictions would have to face with the greatest seriousness and respect. Some scientists, however, described his research as dubious. The historian Richard Bulliet ( Columbia University ) reviewed e.g. B. Empires of the Sand as tendentious and unreliable. Yezid Sayigh, at the time like Karsh at King's College, claimed that Karsh had neither a solid education as a historian nor as a political scientist; Ian Lustick ( University of Pennsylvania ) judged Fabricating Israeli History to be filled with contradictions and distortions. Karsh responded to the criticism made in the Middle East Quarterly. To reinforce Sayigh's allegation above, Karsh referred to his academic background (study of Middle Eastern history and Arabic and a doctorate in international relations) and the large volume of his scientific publications. He also criticized Richard Bulliet's inadequate suitability as a critic of his work Empires of the Sand: As a medievalist, he had no in-depth knowledge of the subject matter dealt with and did not conduct any research of his own in this direction. Instead, he propagates "in his spare time the image of the Middle East and its nations as unfortunate victims of Western imperialism". Empires of the Sand drew the "anger of the established Arabists": They criticized his work in part without having read it themselves. A scientist even asked his colleagues in a newsletter to leave negative comments on the website of a large Internet bookseller in order to deter potential buyers. Karsh lamented the prevailing tendency among these scholars to completely absolve Middle Eastern actors of responsibility for the course of political developments and to ascribe them solely to western actors. This is academically untenable and also morally damnable: The denial of the responsibility of individual actors and societies in the Middle East rather represents a case of paternalism which - following the tradition of Lawrence of Arabia - regards regional actors as inferior creatures who do not belong to the Able to direct their own destiny. It is therefore not surprising that his work is mainly criticized by Western scholars, while intellectuals from the Middle East have received it much more favorably.
New historians
- see main article: New Historians
In the Middle East Quarterly , a scholarly journal of the Middle East Forum , Karsh wrote that the New Historians "systematically distort the archival evidence to create a history of Israel on their own terms." Karsh was director of the Middle East Forum from 2011 to 2012 and continues to be the editor of the Middle East Quarterly .
Works
In German language:
- Imperialism in the name of Allah. From Muhammad to Osama Bin Laden , DVA non-fiction book, Munich 2007
In English:
- Palestine Betrayed (Yale University Press, 2010)
- Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale University Press, 2006)
- Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest (Grove Atlantic, 2004)
- Rethinking the Middle East (Cass, 2003)
- The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Palestine 1948 War (Oxford, Osprey, 2002)
- The Iran-Iraq War (Oxford, Osprey, 2002)
- Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1922 (Harvard University Press, 1999; with Inari Karsh)
- Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Cass, 1997; second edition 1999)
- The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in The New World Order (Princeton University Press, 1993; with Lawrence Freedman)
- Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (The Free Press, 1991; with Inari Rautsi-Karsh)
- Soviet Policy towards Syria Since 1970 (Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 1991)
- Neutrality and Small States (Routledge, 1988)
- The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years (Routledge for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1988)
- The Cautious Bear: Soviet Military Engagement in Middle East Wars in the Post 1967 Era (Westview, 1985)
In French:
- La Guerre D'Oslo (Les Editions de Passy, 2005; with Yoel Fishman)
Web links
- Weltwoche : We let ourselves be intimidated Issue 19/2007 ; an interview with Efraim Karsh
swell
- ^ Professor Efraim Karsh - Research Portal King's College London
- ↑ The curriculum vitae of Efraim Karsh
- ^ Staff directory of the Middle East Forum
- ↑ Press release: Efraim Karsh becomes director of the Middle East Forum
- ^ Review of Palestine Betrayed , summary of positive reviews on the Yale University Press website
- ↑ Richard W Bulliett. The Middle East Journal . Washington: Autumn 2000. Vol. 54, Iss. 4; p. 667-8
- ↑ Staff biography for Yezid Sayigh
- ^ I. Lustick, 1997, Survival, 39 (4), pp.197-198
- ↑ Karsh, Efraim: The Unbearable Lightness of my Critics, In: Middle East Quarterly
- ↑ Karsh, Efraim: The Unbearable Lightness of my Critics, In: Middle East Quarterly
- ↑ Karsh, Efraim: The Unbearable Lightness of my Critics, In: Middle East Quarterly
- ↑ overview of his publications; below: several reviews of the works of the New Historians
- ↑ The curriculum vitae of Efraim Karsh
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Karsh, Ephraim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli historian of the Middle East |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 6, 1953 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Israel |