Morris, Benny

Morris was born in the kibbutz Ain haHoresh in a family of British Jews who immigrated to Israel. His father Jacob Morris was a historian, poet, he was in the diplomatic service ^[1] . According to The New Yorker , “Morris grew up in a left primitive atmosphere” ^[2] . He was a member of the youth Zionist left movement " Hashomer Hashair " ^[3] . Morris spent his childhood in Jerusalem , where after his birth the family moved from a kibbutz, as well as to the United States, where his father served as a diplomat twice for several years. Morris is equally fluent in English and Hebrew.

While in military service, Moriss participated in the Six Day War (served as a paratrooper). In 1969, he was wounded during the Egyptian shelling in the Suez Canal .

Demobilized, he continued his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (specialization - history), and then at Cambridge , where he received a Ph.D. by writing a paper on Anglo-German relations.

After completing his education, Morris worked for 12 years as a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post . In 1982, he wrote reports from the Lebanon War , and also served in this war as a reservist in a mortar unit. He took part in the siege of Beirut .

In 1986, he again served in the territories occupied by Israel, but in 1988, during the First Intifada , he refused to serve in the West Bank , and was sent to a military prison for three weeks.

Working as a journalist for the Jerusalem Post, Morris began to study materials from the Israeli archives. At first he was interested in the history of Palmach , but then he devoted his main attention to the emergence of the problem of Palestinian refugees. Official Israeli historiography of the time explained the exodus of refugees in 1948 mainly as a result of fear of fear or the fact that the Arab population was instructed by their leaders to leave their homes on the eve of the Arab invasion of Palestine in May 1948. Examining the archives, Maurice found evidence that deportations actually took place. There have been cases of murder of civilians. In 1988, based on these studies, he published The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 ( Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem , 1947-49 ).

After Morris left the military prison in 1988, he coined the term “new historians”; in addition to Morris, the group included Ilan Pappe and Avi Schlaim . All three of these historians were brutally criticized by Israelis of right-wing views, they were called anti-Zionists, lovers of Arabs and compared with Holocaust deniers .

In 1990, the Jerusalem Post was bought by Canadian entrepreneur Conrad Black, who, according to Andrew Brown ( The Guardian ), decided to turn the newspaper into a spokesman for the Likud party ^[4] . Therefore, 30 left-leaning journalists, including Morris, were fired. In the 90s, Morris published the books The Righteous Victims ( Righteous Victims ) and Israel's Secret Wars ( Secret Wars of Israel ). He wrote the last book with Ian Black, a correspondent for The Guardian. However, books sold poorly.

In 1996, a newspaper reported that Morris was planning to emigrate to the United States to find work there. The day after this message, Morris was invited by Israeli President Ezer Weizman . According to Morris, Weizmann wanted to understand whether Morris is an anti-Zionist, as his opponents described him, and whether he is a good historian. Weizmann concluded that Morris was “a good Zionist and a good historian” and instructed his assistant to find work for Morris. Morris soon became a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba ^[4] .

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (1988)
The birth of the problem of Palestinian refugees, 1947-1949.

In the book, Morris argues that there are approximately 700,000 Palestinian refugees who fled their homes during the 1947-49 Arab-Israeli war. , escaped mainly due to military attacks by the Israeli army, fearing imminent attacks, or as a result of exile. According to Morris, there was no centralized plan for forcible extradition of the Arab population, but orders for the deportation of the Arab population from a given locality were given by the Israeli command if necessary.

In the late 80s, when Morris wrote the book, this position was new and controversial. According to the official position of Israel at that time, the Arabs left their homes voluntarily or at the direction of their leaders. This official position is confirmed by the numerous press data of that time, the reports of radio channels independent from Israel, for example, the BBC and the Voice of America, which stated that the vast majority of Arabs left their homes by direct appeal coming from the leadership of the Arab countries that started the war again educated Israel . There is no doubt, however, that some of the Arabs fled both from fear of hostilities and from fear of retaliation for anti-Jewish pogroms of the 30s .

Morris in his book talks about incidents of cruelty by Israelis, including rape and torture. The book contains a map of 228 abandoned Palestinian villages and an attempt is made to understand why the inhabitants of these villages left them. According to Morris, residents of 41 villages were expelled by Israeli forces, while others in 90 fled as a result of attacks on other villages by Israeli forces. Residents of 6 villages left them at the direction of the Arab authorities. Morris was unable to find out the reason for the depopulation of the remaining 91 out of 228 villages. The above facts of cruelty and flight from the villages are mainly the stories of the victims. The author does not verify their accuracy.

In the preface to the 2004 edition of the book, Morris writes that as a result of the opening of the Israeli archives, additional cases of brutality and forced deportation of Palestinian Arab populations by Jewish forces became known. It also became known about additional cases of calls by the Arab authorities to Arab residents to leave their settlements (or at least send women and children). According to Morris, his book will not satisfy historians who hold only pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian points of view. Both in the original book and in its reprint, a meticulous analysis of the facts, with the study of the testimonies of both parties and the analysis of modern press events, is often replaced by estimates based on the political views of the author .

Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 (1999)
Righteous Sacrifice History of the conflict between Zionists and Arabs, 1881-2001

The book is dedicated to the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is based mainly on secondary sources and is a synthesis of works on various subjects and periods. According to Morris, writing a book on this vast subject based solely on archival sources is a task not feasible for one person.

B. Morris says he has always been a Zionist:

• “People are mistaken in believing that my historical research on the birth of the Palestinian problem undermines a Zionist enterprise. Nonsense. They did not read my book with the same dryness with which it was written, with the same moral neutrality. And therefore, they came to the conclusion that I condemn the atrocities committed by the Zionists in the 48th. "

Morris identifies himself with these sins, understands them and believes that some of them were unavoidable ^{[3] [5]} .

He believes that without the expulsion of 700 thousand Arabs, it was impossible to establish a Jewish state .

• “It was necessary to clear the rear [...] of the village, from which they shot at our convoys and at our settlements. I feel sympathy for the Palestinians who survived the terrible tragedy. But ... at that moment when the Jewish Yishuv was attacked by the Palestinians and immediately after that by the Arab countries , there was no other choice ” ^[3] .

His work was highly appreciated and cited by Arab sources ^[6] , but it seems that his views were toughened in 2000 , after the Palestinians rejected B. Clinton's proposals at the Camp David summit and began the al-Aqsa intifada :

• “I have always voted for Avoda , Meretz or Sheli. And in 1988 he refused to serve in the territories, for which he ended up in prison. But I always had doubts about the intentions of the Palestinians. Camp David events and everything that happened afterwards turned doubts into certainty. When the Palestinians rejected Barack’s proposals in July and Clinton’s proposals in December 2000, I realized that they did not agree on two states. They want to get everything: Lod , Acre , Jaffa . ” ^[3]

Morris still calls himself left, but believes that his generation will not see peace in Israel ^[5] .

• “What I'm saying is not only a reaction to the 3-year-old terror . The bombings in buses and restaurants really shocked me, but also helped me understand the depth of hatred towards us. Palestinian, Arab and Muslim animosities lead us to the threshold of destruction. I believe that the terrorist attacks are not an isolated act, but express the innermost desire of the Palestinians: so that what happens to the buses happens to all of us. ” ^[3]
• “The barbarians who want to take our lives are people whom the Palestinian society sends to the attacks and, to some extent, the society itself. Now this society is a serial killer. This society is very painful ... mentally. He must be treated like a serial killer. Palestinians must be tried to cure. Maybe, years after the creation of the Palestinian state, they will heal, but before that they need to be kept like a serial killer so that they do not kill us. ” ^[3]

He believes that from the Palestinian point of view, Oslo was a hoax:

• “ Arafat has not become worse. He just tricked us. [...] He wants to return us to Europe, to the sea on which we arrived. [...] I’m sure that Israeli intelligence has data that according to which Arafat speaks seriously about the phased plan for the destruction of Israel ” ^[3] .

Under the "apocalyptic circumstances" that may arise "in the next 5-10 years," he even admits the need for a transfer of Israeli Arabs.

• “If atomic weapons appear around us, or if a general Arab attack from outside begins, with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys, exile will be permissible and even necessary. Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Palestinization turned them into an internal enemy. This is the fifth column. And demographically and in terms of security, they can blow up the country from the inside. And again there will be a threat to the very existence of Israel as in the 48th. In this case, exile will be justified. ” ^[3]

• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 , Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-521-33028-2
• Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services , New York, Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8021-1159-3
• Israel's Border Wars 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War , Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3
• 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. ISBN 0-19-827929-9
• Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999 . - New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
• The Deportations of the Hiram Operation: Correcting a Mistake | Correcting a Mistake? Jews and Arabs in Palestine / Israel, 1936-1956 , Am Oved Publishers, 2000.
• The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews . New York: IB Tauris, 2003. ISBN 978-1-86064-812-0
• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited , Cambridge University Press , 2004.
• Making Israel (ed), University of Michigan Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-472-11541-9
• 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War , Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9
• One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel / Palestine Conflict , Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-12281-7

New historians

• Exposing How Post-Zionists Manipulate History , Avi Becker , Center for Public Affairs, No. 100, 1 August 2010