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Analysis

Fathom 11 Out Now: Read Benny Morris Interview

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Benny Morris hasn’t changed. One of the world’s leading chroniclers of the Arab-Israeli conflict tells the truth as he sees it, based on the facts he discerns as a historian. While some have perceived a dramatic shift from the ‘old’ (more optimistic and liberal) Morris of the Oslo period to the ‘new’ (more realistic/pessimistic) Morris of today, this is something of a myth. He hasn’t changed what he says about the reality of 1948, the Palestinian refugees, or anything else. Rather, he has added to his knowledge of the history of Israel’s rebirth as a modern nation-state, a painful analysis of more recent history. When Yasser Arafat walked away from Israeli peace offers in 2000 and 2001, a disillusioned Morris started to examine the possibility that the Palestinians weren’t serious about wanting a two-state deal. He has since come to rate more highly the importance of Islamism and jihadism as forces driving Palestinian rejectionism.

Moreover, as a firebrand who tends to ‘call a spade a spade,’ he is irked by a censorious political correctness that limits what can be talked about honestly — policing thought in line with ‘Western guilt’ over colonialism. He is equally disdainful of the romantic cult of ‘the Other’ in academia that tries to assuage that guilt. He regrets not the substance of some of the things he has said but only the ‘intemperate’ way he expressed himself. We talked about his books and his thoughts about the future of Israel and the region.

Albert Camus’s Mother: Justice or Moralism?                    

Gabriel Noah Brahm: You’ve been both widely celebrated and also condemned by some for your work. Have you paid a price for your outspokenness and originality?

Benny Morris: I’m not sure that’s what the price is paid for. I certainly paid a price for writing things that the Israeli establishment wasn’t happy with in the late 1980s and 1990s. But The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and Israel’s Border Wars also won me a place in an Israeli university—so it cuts both ways. I was unemployed for six years—you pay a heavy economic price for that. But on the other hand, it got me a type of position that I wanted. So I’m not bitter.

To read the article in full go to Fathom journal.