New Israeli Historians

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As a "new historians" were about 1988-2008 Israeli historian called whose common goal was based on contemporary documents the history of Israel and Zionism a revision to undergo. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and its prehistory as well as the relationship with the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors were particularly affected . Authoritative historians in this direction were Benny Morris , Ilan Pappe , Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev .

Main arguments

The core thesis of these historians was that the establishment of the State of Israel required the expulsion of part of the Arab population, which traditional Israeli historiography had previously interpreted as voluntary migration . In the opinion of the “New Historians”, this resulted in a (main) joint responsibility of the State of Israel for the Middle East conflict and the Palestinian refugee problem . The five main theses of the school from Avi Shlaim's point of view are presented here as examples:

  1. According to traditional Israeli historiography, the British wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. The “New Historians” on the other hand put forward the thesis that the British were anxious to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
  2. Traditional historiography says that all Palestinians left their homes voluntarily during the War of Independence . The “New Historians” on the other hand say that some of the refugees were forcibly evicted and deported by Israeli militias.
  3. The official version is that during the founding phase of the State of Israel, the balance of power spoke in favor of the Arabs. According to Shlaim and the followers of his school, however, Israel was superior to the Arabs in terms of both forces and weapons.
  4. According to traditional historiography, the Arabs pursued a coordinated plan to destroy Israel. The “New Historians”, on the other hand, say that the Arabs never followed a single line.
  5. Zionist historians argue that the intransigence of the Arabs has hitherto prevented peace. Shlaim and his colleagues argue the opposite: Israel is to blame for the stalled peace process .

similarities and differences

After the publication of the first works, which contradict the traditional representation of Israeli history, Benny Morris first coined the term "New Historians" in an article published in 1988. As Morris noted in 2004, the grouping of the individual New Historians into a supposed group was shaped more by their critics. The individual researchers sometimes had very different biographies and lived in different countries. As important factors for the emergence of the critical review of the current narratives, Morris cited the fact that important documents in the state archives only became accessible for research from the mid-1980s and that the researchers belonged to a generation born in Israel and therefore not involved in building the State were involved. Other commentators also cited the changed social climate in the wake of the first Lebanon war , the first Intifada and the Oslo peace process as a factor that promoted the emergence of critical historiography. In fact, according to Morris, there was “never a firmly connected, homogeneous school”, and in some cases they hardly knew each other.

Different political conclusions from the research results as well as opposite reactions to current developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict contributed to a drifting apart of the New Historians after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000. In this context, Morris noted methodological differences in the working methods of the respective historians and criticized Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim in particular . Paperboard's work is politically motivated and unfounded. Shlaim shares his "anti-Israeli analyzes with European neo-fascists and Islamic jihadists". Shlaim accused Morris of “racist views” in 2005 because Morris was now justifying the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948. Since about this time the group of New Historians has been considered broken up, even if the scientists who were formerly assigned to it and representatives of the same tradition who have since joined them (including Shlomo Sand , Idith Zertal ) continue to work with the same research approach .

criticism

The theses of the "New Historians" have mostly been rejected by both Zionist historians and pro-Arab authors who accuse them of trivializing. One of the leading critics was Efraim Karsh , who accused them of falsifying history based on political interests.

It was criticized that the “New Historians” often look to the Israeli side to blame themselves and condemn historical personalities from today's moral point of view without sufficiently addressing the time context. Attempts at reaching an understanding from the Arab side - around 1955 by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser - were merely tactically motivated and should therefore not be taken seriously. It was also assumed that they researched from a left-wing extremist and Marxist point of view.

These historians also met with rejection from politics. The works of the “New Historians” “should not be taught in school,” said the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon .

literature

Central works of the New Historians

  • Tom Segev: The first Israelis. The beginnings of the Jewish state. Siedler Verlag, Berlin 2008 (Hebrew original edition: 1949, ha-yisre'elim ha-rishonim, 1984).
  • Simha Flapan : The Birth of Israel: Myth and Reality. Knesebeck and Schuler, Munich 1988 (English-language original edition: The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. 1987).
  • Benny Morris: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988.
  • Avi Shlaim: Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine . Columbia University Press, New York 1988.
  • Gershon Shafir: Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989.
  • Ilan Pappé : The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951. Taurus, London 1994.
  • Amitzur Ilan: The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War. New York University Press, 1996.
  • Benny Morris: Righteous Victims: A History of the Arab-Zionist Conflict 1881-1999. Knopf, New York 1999.
  • Zeev Sternhell : Aux origines d'Israël. Entre nationalisme et socialisme. Fayard, Paris 1996.
  • Avi Shlaim: The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Norton, New York 1999.
  • Ilan Pappé: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine . Zweiausendeins , Frankfurt 2007, (English-language original edition: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006).
  • Tom Segev: 1967: Israel's Second Birth. Pantheon 2009, (Original edition in English: 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that transformed the Middle East, 2007).
  • Avi Shlaim: The War for Palestine. Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge University Press 2007.

Literature on the New Historians

  • Efraim Karsh : Fabricating Israeli History. The New Historians (Israeli History, Politics, and Society) . Taylor & Francis Ltd 2000.
  • Barbara Schäfer (Ed.): Historians' dispute in Israel. The “new” historians between science and the public. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2000, ISBN 3-593-36443-3 .
  • Anita Shapira : The Debate over the “New Historians” in Israel. In: Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Julius H. Schoeps, Yitzhak Sternberg and Olaf Glöckner (eds.): Handbook of Israel: Major Debates. Walter de Gruyter, Munich 2016, pp. 888–908

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f Meron Rapoport: No peaceful solution, in: Haaretz from August 11, 2005, accessed on August 3, 2014 (English)
  2. a b Jonathan Mahler: Uprooting the Past: Israel's New Historians take a hard look at their nation's past, in: Lingua Franca , August 1997, accessed on August 5, 2014 (English)
  3. a b c d Benny Morris: Politics by Other Means, in: The New Republic of March 17, 2004, accessed on August 5, 2014 (English)
  4. Cornelia Siebeck: Review: D. Seybold: Geschichtskultur und conflict, in: H-Soz-u-Kult from February 2, 2007, accessed on August 7, 2014
  5. a b Benny Morris: Geschistorschreibung und Politik (PDF), p. 30, in: Internationale Politik from May 2008, accessed on August 5, 2014
  6. ^ Dietrich Seybold: History culture and conflict: historical-political controversies in contemporary societies. Peter Lang, Bern 2005, p. 125, fn. 213
  7. Efraim Karsh: Rewriting Israel's History, in: Middle East Quarterly from June 1996, accessed on August 7, 2014 (English)