Israel’s New Mythmakers

This is an article about one group of leftists in Israel known as the “new historians”. They seek to “debunk” the “official” history of Israel, which they see as Zionist propaganda and to revise Israel’s history in a way to incorporate all these fairy tales about Israeli “massacres” and “aggression”. According to Avi Shalim, a new historian himself, these are the positions that summarize this group:

-The official version said that Britain tried to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state; the “new
historians” claimed that it tried to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state
- The official version said that the Palestinians fled their homes of their own free will; the “new
historians” said that the refugees were chased out or expelled
- The official version said that the balance of power was in favor of the Arabs; the “new historians”
said that Israel had the advantage both in manpower and in arms

-The official version said that the Arabs had a coordinated plan to destroy Israel; the “new historians” said  that Israel is primarily to blame for the dead end.

The new historians are a group of left-wing historians that was founded in the 1980’s.  Their “findings” are used by anti-Israel propagandists to demonize Israel and to legitimize the Palestinian side of the story. 

The new historians distort their sources in order to  demonize the Israelis [as you can see from scholars like Ephraim Karsh].

One of the most extreme among the new historians is IIan Pappé. He believes that Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948 [never mind the fact that during the 1948 war, in many cases, the Jews unsuccessfully tried to encourage the Arab refugees to stay] and that Israel just ethnically cleanses Palestinians. He claims that the allegation of Israel ethnically cleansing Palestinians is an indisputable fact and that it is the morality of it that’s debated in Israel. He claims that Israel doesn’t find ethnic cleansing morally repugnant [never mind the fact that plenty of other nations, not Israel, engages in ethnic cleansing] and that Israel finds ethnic cleansing to be an effective policy. In John Pilger’s anti-Israel propaganda film “Palestine is still the issue”, Pappé advocates having sanctions imposed on Israel. Reasonable historians have debunked his wild anti-Israel claims. In the Doha debates, he argued for the right of return, which results in the destruction of Israel and which is why the Palestinian Authority [PA] and Arab states call for it. He even said that Israel should be treated as apartheid South Africa and in his interview on Sky News [see first hyperlink], called Israel’s security fence the “Apartheid wall”. He is an advocate of Israel’s destruction. 

There is also Benny Morris who is one of the less extreme among Israel’s New Historians. Though he admits that Israel didn’t ethnically cleanse the Arabs and that it wasn’t generally Israeli policy to ethnically cleanse Arabs, he still exaggerates Israeli expulsions and massacres and distorts his sources, as guys like Efraim Karsh shows.

The New Historians make all sorts of allegations. Like they point to a meeting between Golda Meir and Jordanian King Abdullah, where they supposedly agree to form an alliance to not allow an the creation of the Arab state in the UN partition plan. However, no such alliance was made. Golda Meir made it clear that the Israelis would honor the partition plan and wouldn’t work to prevent the creation of an Arab state right next door. The new historians are a group of revisionist historians, who exaggerate Israel’s responsibility for the refugee problem and make all sorts of distortions. It portrays itself as a legitimate group that is bringing the “true” history and is cited by anti-Israel propagandists in order to portray Israel as the bad guy.