Books on New Israeli History

Dear Hillel,

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You fear that new history may undermine Israel's confidence in the justice of its own cause. Why should it? It may simply lead Israelis to re-examine their "cause." So what? You state that you are not frightened of the truth. Aren't you?

In an article you wrote for Commentary, you warned against "post-Zionists" tendencies you detect in Israel's new textbooks. They are, you claim "damnable," because they are intended for ninth-graders, many of whom have older brothers who are fighting in Lebanon and nearly all of whom will soon be fighting in the army themselves. "To educate them in such a manner," you state, "deprived of the faintest notion what it is all ultimately about, is to let them down cruelly." Furthermore, you accuse "post-Zionist" historians of letting down "an entire society." Strong words, indeed; I feel on my way to the hanging tree already.

One who expects an Israeli textbook for ninth-graders to teach them why they should fight in Lebanon, presumably three years from now at the earliest, is not a better Zionist than one who teaches them why Israel should pull out of there as soon as possible, in accordance with the present policy of the Government of Israel, headed by former Chief of Staff Barak and supported by most Israelis. I am not sure to what extent new history books change a society; I feel that they reflect change. Still, some of Israel's new history might, hopefully, teach at least some of those ninth-graders to think about what Israel's "cause" should be, rather than take it for granted.

Benny Morris has written a thorough account of what he calls the "Zionist-Arab conflict." The more common term is "Jewish-Arab conflict." Today, most people speak about the "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict. Morris is correct. It has not been a conflict between the Jews and the Arabs but only between those relatively few Jews who regarded themselves as Zionists or somehow found themselves involved with the Zionist experience. In contrast to the view of most Palestinian Arabs and some Israelis, it has not merely been a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians either. Shlaim's subtitle is "Israel and the Arab World," which is also correct.

Morris starts his account with the first Zionist settlements in Palestine in 1881; Shlaim starts with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Morris' approach is better, for one cannot understand the conflict, including a number of wars between Israel and its neighbors, without taking up the origins of the Zionist presence in Palestine.

Morris is right in asserting on Page 49 that the major cause of tension and violence throughout the period 1882-1914 was not accidents, misunderstandings, or the attitudes and behaviors of either side, but objective historical conditions and conflicting interests and goals of the two populations. This has been true ever since, to the present day.

The Zionists aimed at the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The Arabs rejected the idea. For most of the hundred years of conflict between them, there seemed to have been no ground for compromise. Hence war was inevitable, the stronger would win, the weaker loose. Quite a simple story, in fact.

Both Morris and Shlaim seem to agree on that, in contrast to Zionist propaganda, which had always maintained that the entire population of Palestine, including the Arabs, would benefit from the Zionist enterprise. Since, however, the armed struggle between the Zionists and the Arabs was inevitable, it is hardly useful to examine in great detail where the Israelis "missed opportunities for peace." They hardly ever did.

I am saying this in acknowledgment of my own mistake. Years ago I also tended to believe that recently declassified Israeli documents show that in the early 1950s Israel deliberately ignored possibilities of reaching agreements with its Arab neighbors. Israel has always blamed the Arabs for refusing to negotiate peace. This, according to Israel, was the main reason for the continued conflict. If the Arabs only agreed to sit down and talk--we would reach a compromise, Israel maintained.

Official Israeli documents now open to research show that in fact there never was a problem of communication between Jerusalem and the Arab capitals. The problem was that at least until 1967 there was no basis for agreement. No peace opportunity was "missed" as result of Israel's refusal to accept an Arab offer to talk. They talked all right, both directly and indirectly, but could reach no agreement. Both Morris and Shlaim, I think, make too much of those possibly "missed opportunities," although as serious historians, both admit that they are quoting speculations, not stating facts.

The situation in the Middle East radically changed in 1967, as result of the Six Day War and the Israeli occupation of vast Arab territory. Avi Shlaim's account of the events leading up to that war, and its results, is superb, and better than Morris'. Israel should never have occupied the West Bank, one learns from Shlaim's account, for once it got in--there was no way out, not for many years, at any rate. This, to be sure, is not an "anti-Israeli" statement at all. In fact, Shlaim writes on Page 241 that the Six Day War was a defensive war. "It was launched by Israel to safeguard its security, not to expand its territory," Shlaim writes, additional war aims emerged only in course of the fighting.

I am not satisfied with Shlaim's documentation here or with his sources in some other parts of his book. Thus, for instance, on Page 121 he states: "Nasser promised to make efforts to prevent border incidents, and records of Egyptian military intelligence show that he did." Where has Shlaim seen these records? Where can I see them? He doesn't say. Benny Morris' book appears to be better equipped with source references.

I am not fully satisfied with Morris' treatment of Palestine's 30 years under the British Mandate. I think this period deserves a more detailed description than provided by Morris, for it was under the British that the basic elements of the conflict took shape. Morris, however, is excellent when discussing the Zionist dreams to "transfer" the Arab population from Palestine--i.e., get rid of it--and when he reconstructs the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, the subject that has rightfully gained him his reputation as one of Israel's most eminent historians. Morris, I find, has not written enough about Israel's atomic option; Shlaim is somewhat more explicit on that point.

Both writers pay much too much attention to diplomatic details of the conflict (Morris's book is largely a military history). Both do not make enough of the psychological and human aspects of the conflict. The Palestinian refugees do not simply constitute "an international problem"; their human tragedy is not merely "color" in a story. It is an essential part of the story itself. So is the saga of Jewish immigration to Palestine and Israel. Neither Morris nor Shlaim fully appreciates the role of the Holocaust in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Both almost totally ignore the internal politics, thereby missing a point once made somewhat sarcastically, but rather observantly, by Henry Kissinger: "Israel does not have a foreign policy, only internal politics." I think this is a good transitional sentence to take us back to what "post-Zionism" really is.

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This week, a discussion of Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall (click here to buy it) and Benny Morris' Righteous Victims (click here to buy it). Hillel Halkin is an American-born author and translator who has been living in Israel since 1970. He is the author of, among other works, Grand Things To Write a Poem On (click here to buy it). Tom Segev is an Israeli journalist and historian. He writes a weekly column for Ha'aretz and is the author of 1949: The First Israelis (click here to buy it).

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