Talk:New Historians

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Although the new Historians's represent a variety of views, in generalization they present Zionism as a less innocent movement,

Er, less innocent than what? Than other historians say? Which other historians? Than another movements? This article assumes a lot of context... djk

Yes, going back to it, that's probably not clear enough. I'll try to change the wording. --Uri

Thanks, much better. djk

---

Why is this article's neutrality disputed? Or is the statement at the top of the article in reference to the above, and can now be deleted? Tokerboy 22:31 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)

Ok, I just need a little clarification. When we say "new historians", who precisely are we talking about? Many times I hear of them mentioned as synonomous with the post-Zionist scholars, anti-Zionist scholars, etc. But Zero0000 points out that three people named, so far, in this article, deny being anti-Zionist. (And I know that Benny Morris isn't anywhere near as pro-Palestinian as he used to be.) Would the following Israelis not be considered New Historians? Dan Bar-On (Dept. of Human Behaviour, Ben Gurion Univ.; Bejamin Beit-Hallahmi, Psychology, Univ. of Haifa; Uri Ben Eilezer, sociologist as Univ. of Haifa; Neve Gordon, political science teacher at Ben Gurion Univ.; Baruch Kimmerling, Sociology at Hebrew University. Would these people be better classified as not New Historians? RK 02:13, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Nobody agrees who the "new historians" are. About the only agreement is that Morris and Shlaim are included (I think they invented the phrase). I would leave out Ilan Pappe myself (too passionate and too little time in the archives) but most people include him. Some people include Tom Segev; I'd say he's marginal. Kimmerling is a sociologist rather than a historian but would still have a case for inclusion. I find it hard to get excited by the question since historians come in a continuum and not in tidy groups. I find it even harder to get excited about labels like "Zionist", "anti-Zionist", "post-Zionist" and "non-Zionist" (did I miss any?) that have all been applied to these people from time to time. Attaching labels is just a way to avoid the real issue, which is whether the history these people write is good or bad.

I deleted "controversial" since every historian of modern hstory is controversial in some circles (which is semantically the same as controversial without qualification). Calling Morris controversial without calling Karsh controversial is a joke. (You might have seen accolades for Karsh from the likes of Pipes but in the academic journals he was rubbished.) Anyway the article spends lots of time on the controversy and should spend more. What needs adding is a brief account of the major debates, citing both sides (unlike now). They are:

1. Morris and Shlaim vs Teveth
2. Morris vs Khalidi and others
3. Everyone vs Karsh

-- zero 14:03, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Flapan 2 Teddy Katz versus Alexandroni Brigade 3 References, etc. 4 Ilan Pappé 5 fleeing of their own choice? 6 Standards 7 Hatchet-job edit 8 Dates

[edit] Flapan

I'd have included Simha Flapan. Any reason he isn't mentioned? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:38, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Teddy Katz versus Alexandroni Brigade

I'm sure this does belong in the article, but it was sufficiently incoherent that I couldn't copy edit into coherence; let's fix it first and get it back in.

• Teddy Katz versus Alexandroni Brigade
  In 1998, Teddy Katz, a Meretz activist and student of Ilan Pappe, presented a research for M.A. diploma which claimed that the Alexandroni Brigade commited a massacre in the Arab village of Tantura. The veterns of the brigade sued Katz for libel and won in court. The court found that Katz fabricated tesitmonies and twisted quotations. Following the trial, the Haifa University disqualified his work. It was later revealed that the PA has founded Katz lawyer in the trial. (see [6])

Issues:

1. "a research for M.A. diploma". "Research" as a noun in this context makes no sense. Is this "a Masters' thesis"? "a research paper in a course at the M.A. level"? or what?
2. I can mostly fix the spelling issues, but one word I can't guess: "has founded Katz lawyer"? One cannot "found" a person. Perhaps "funded"? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:11, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. You are right, of course.

1. Yes, I meant to his Master thesis work.
2. Of cource, I meant "funded". What a shameful typo...

MathKnight 19:52, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This looks resolved. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:23, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

I can't see why this issue is present in this article, as Katz does not qualify as a "New Historian". Nevertheless, I replaced it by a more accurate paragraph. Katz's supervisor was Kais Firro, not Ilan Pappe. The errors in his thesis were partly exposed in court, but the court did not explicitly make a ruling on them. As to Katz's membership of Meretz, that belongs out unless the political party memberships of all the people on this page are similarly given. --Zero 02:34, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References, etc.

I've been trying to clean up references, external links, etc., and get them somewhere close to what is called for by the manual of style. I've made a lot of progress, but there is a lot of missing information:

• The part on "Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim versus Shabtai Teveth" is missing article names, so I have no way to add the appropriate references.
• Similarly "Benny Morris versus Norman Finkelstein and Nur Masalha" mentions "three articles in the Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 21, No. 1, Autumn, 1991, but does not name any of them.
• "Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé versus Efraim Karsh" mentions "a lengthy rebuttal in the Winter 1998 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies", but gives no title.
• "Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé versus Efraim Karsh" mentions "an article of Morris [Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1995, pp. 44-62]", but gives no title.
• The Ha'aretz web site gives no date for the Ratner article. Does anyone have a way to get a date for this?
• The external link labeled "A critical Palestinian perspective" appears to be dead.
• Also, the Angela French article seems trivial to me. Is there any good reason we link to it?

Jmabel | Talk 04:23, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ilan Pappé

Why do the views of Ilan Pappé get a paragraph here? This is not a general article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he is not usually counted as one of the New Historians. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[copied from my user talk page]

In fact I had written to Jmabel before reading this page... sorry for this Christophe Greffe 20:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello Jmabel. I agree with your corrections but have some comments :

Note I had not removed that sentence : 'According to the New Historians, Israel therefore has its own share of responsibility for the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian plight' but pushed it below in the article because I had added Pappé arguments explaining why it was his analysis and added they also push arab countries in the list of responsibles.

This is now two times in the article... I suggest we remove the first one it appears.

More Newehistorians clearly claim that they don't think Jewish leaders planned or organized the exodus of Palestinians. I have clear quote from Pappé stating this. Do you have quotes from others that would not think so ?

Christophe Greffe 20:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[end copied material]

Yes, I think you are correct, sorry. And I probably should have immediately recognized the name Pappé, but didn't. The way this was written did not make it clear that he is counted as one of the New Historians, I will reword to make that clearer. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. As written just above I had written on your talk page before reading this. sorry for this.

I discovered that Pappé is not much read or taken in reference in wiki. In Europe he is more know and quoted. I don't know why...

What about the fact that new historians clearly claim (Morris and Pappé at least) that Jewish leaders didn't plan or organize the exodus (but did nothing to stop it). I think that was not clear at all in the article and is still not. With what you have written it can be thought that they don't have that in mind. I have a reference about this and this is currently written in the article Palestinian exodus

Thank you. :-) Christophe Greffe 20:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

There's a problem in trying to describe the opinions of this group of people at once because their opinions are not all the same. Also, they can change. Pappé for example has become more hardened over time. In his recent "History of Modern Palestine" he repeatedly uses the phrase "ethnic cleansing". On page 131 he writes: "These atrocities were not randomly committed; they were part of a master plan to rid the future Jewish state of as many Palestinians as possible". --Zero 12:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

ok. thanks a lot. I was not aware of that. In that case, the article should be modified very much and not in the sense in which I modified this. Pappé really completely changed his mind. I still have 2 questions for you :

• Is this correct Morris kept his mind so that we could separate in the article Pappé and Morris mind ?
• Do you know how Pappé justifies such a completely change of mind ?

Christophe Greffe 14:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fleeing of their own choice?

"fleeing of their own choice" is an oxymoron. One "flees" out of DANGER not "choice". Sentence needs correction. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.24.152.36 (talk • contribs) 16 August 2006.

It beggars belief that anyone should still be claiming that the Palestinians were anything other than ethnically cleansed. Nobody reading this would abandon their homes in the fashion described, other than in severe fear of their lives - why would the Palestinians have done so? And so what if they had, they'd still have an absolute legal and moral right to return there! PalestineRemembered 21:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standards

This article is sloppy, both grammatically and factually. It appears that much of it has been written by those for whom English is not a first language. It needs to be raised to a higher standard. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.179.246.216 (talk • contribs) 20 August 2006.

[edit] Hatchet-job edit

This anonymous uncommented edit strikes me as little more than a hatchet job. I have restored a paragraph that was removed without comment (the one that begins Benny Morris versus Norman Finkelstein and Nur Masalha). I'm inclined to revert every bit of this, but figured I would allow at least 72 hours for comment before acting unilaterally. - Jmabel | Talk 18:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I have actively solicited comment from several people who have edited this article in the past, and also posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict. - Jmabel | Talk 18:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Clearly you were right to restore that paragraph and undoing even more of that edit would have been appropriate. I'm doing that now. I'm also removing a later addition:

Indeed, Benny Morris himself admitted to not using much of the newly available archival material for the writing of his book - "[W]hen writing The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949 in the mid-1980s, I had no access to the materials in the IDFA [IDF Archive] or the Haganah Archive and precious little to first-hand military materials deposited elsewhere."

This was presented as if Morris admits to having been wrong, but in fact he claims that the newly available material strengthens his case and shows the Zionist side in worse light than he previously thought. --Zero^talk 11:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

This article gives no dates on when the New Historians' publication history began. I think it was some time between 1982 and '85, but I didn't first encounter their work until maybe '88, so I could be wrong. Does someone have something solid on this? - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)