New Historians

New Historians are a group of Israeli historians who have declared their goal to be reexamining the history of Israel and Zionism. Leading scholars in this school include Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé, and Avi Shlaim. They base their research on Israeli government documents that have become public since the late 1980s.

Although the New Historians's publications include a variety of views, they may be generalized to present the Zionist movement as aimed in such a way, that Jewish statehood could only come combined with the displacement of at least some Palestinian Arabs (as opposed to the creation of Israel neither necessitating nor desiring the displacement of Palestinian Arabs) . Therefore, according to the New Historians, Israel has its own share of responsibility for the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian plight. In particular they claim that at least a part of the Palestinan refugees were driven away from their homes, rather than fled out of their own decision, as had been previously claimed. Some of the methods of their historical work have come under criticism; the movement is highly controversial, both among Israeli and Western scholars.

At least one of the new historians, Benny Morris, has recently revised his views on the history of Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine. (See [4].)

Further Reading

• The Jewish Past Revisted: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians Co-Edited by David N. Myers David B. Ruderman ISBN 0-300-07216-3.
• Fabricating Israeli history: The 'New Historians' , Efraim Karsh, ISBN 0-714-68063-X.

External Links

1. Review of the New Historians (http://www.inform.umd.edu/studentorg/Mitzpeh/may2002/art11)
2. A critical Palestinan perspective (http://www.birzeit.edu/crdps/newhis)
3. On the New Historians (http://www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgi?byear=2001&bmonth=summer&a=01free&format=view)
4. Benny Morris clarified his position (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,653594,00)
5. Debating Israel's Early Years (http://www.meforum.org/article/302) and Benny Morris and the Reign of Error (http://www.meforum.org/article/466), by Efraim Karsh