The myths of Avi Shlaim: Benny Morris demolishes an icon of the anti-Israeli Left
Just a quick entry today to alert readers to a stunning demolition job by Israel’s most prominent historian Benny Morris of the anti-Israeli Oxford “historian” Avi Shlaim. Shlaim has become an iconic figure for anti-Zionists in Britain and elsewhere precisely because he is himself Israeli — though Morris has a few things to say on that too.
At more than 7,000 words it is obviously more of a time consuming read than a newspaper article. But sometimes you need to do a bit more hard work. After you read it you will find it difficult to take Shlaim and his supporters seriously again.
To do so, click here:
http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/derisionist-history
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Avi Shlaim is still being taken seriously??
Just judging by the lamenting in and the bad quality of his latest book (which is quite evident to every thinking person, not just those in favour of Israel), I would have thought that he is rather a ‘non-issue’ by now.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
This should be a great reading. But I am sure it would perhaps be as much or even more important (and urgent) for a reputable academic or scholar to take on Shlomo Sand’s maliicious and devious Jewish people-denying book. I am sure Benny Morris or someone else could well be capable to discredit his thesis as well.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Thanks for this, Robin. This is long overdue.
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Thanks for the link Robin for that was truly a great read.
December 4th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
The article is excellent. One sentence stands out, for me:
“Shlaim often refers to himself as an Israeli, though Wikipedia’s designation of him as a “British historian” is more accurate: born in Baghdad in 1945 and educated as a historian in Britain, Shlaim has lived in the United Kingdom since 1966.”
Very true.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Thanks for highlighting a masterful dissection of Shlaim by Benny Morris. Towards the end Morris admits to being perplexed by Shlaim’s personal lack of empathy with Zionism and asks for an explanation. (All the more of a mystery that the Shlaim family arrived as refugees from Iraq.)
The explanation can be found in this comment once left on Harry’s Place by an old schoolfriend of Shlaim’s:
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2007/10/inside-mind-of-avi-shlaim-update.html
Shlaim’s father never recovered from his uprooting from Iraq, and always held Israel to blame. Shlaim suffers from a mix of acute’dhimmi’ and Stockholm Syndrome. He craves acceptance as an Oxonian gentleman academic – hence his fashionable anti-colonialist, anti-Zionism.