Q&A: Massacre incidents carried out by the IDF, the Irgun, and Lehi against Arabs, and the attitude toward historical research
Massacre incidents carried out by the IDF, the Irgun, and Lehi against Arabs, and the attitude toward historical research
Question
Hello and blessings. I was recently exposed to information following massacre incidents carried out by the IDF, the Irgun, and Lehi against Arabs, and there were more of them than I had thought. There were at least 24 such incidents in the War of Independence (including Deir Yassin, which was carried out by the Irgun and Lehi). After that there were the Qibya massacre and Kafr Qasim, which took place in the 1950s (under Ariel Sharon’s command and were maliciously covered up by Ben-Gurion, who knowingly lied to the public and to the world that the IDF had not done it). Even exemplary figures like Meir Har-Zion, after his sister was murdered by Bedouin, simply went with his friends and murdered 5 random Bedouin in the area as a blood revenge. All this information has really shaken for me the beautiful image that Zionism was somehow entirely pure. One of the greatest and most honest historians dealing with these areas, who exposed many of the massacre incidents carried out in ’48, is Professor Benny Morris, and he specifically defends the Zionist narrative and says that in the context of the War of Independence, what was done may not have been morally proper, but it is not inconceivable. I’d be glad to hear whether you’ve ever dealt with this topic and what your opinion is, and if not, then what your view is on the path to discovering the truth in historical research (because that world is pretty saturated with agendas and biases). Thank you and all the best.
Answer
Hello,
This is one of the well-known facts. A few decades ago, a historical movement arose that was called “the New Historians,” as part of the post-Zionists, and it brought up all these events that had until then been concealed. There were probably exaggerations and things taken out of context there; a court even disqualified a master’s thesis in Haifa about a massacre in Tantura. But it is clear that there were such events.
They have to be understood in their context. A different period. A feeling that among the Arabs there were no “uninvolved” people (because there was no army there, and they harmed our civilians). But it is still clear that there were also deeds that should not be done. The contribution of those historians, despite the agenda (political-contemporary) and the distortions, is that they exposed events that we wanted to hide even from ourselves.
In my view, it is very important to expose such historical truth and discuss it honestly. We are not entirely pure. Not all of these findings are factually correct. They are subject to agenda-saturated interpretations on both sides, and still this is an important discussion and it should be conducted honestly.
Benny Morris himself was one of the generators of this movement, and afterward “repented.”
In my article on myth, I addressed this phenomenon and the significance of the different attitudes toward it.
Discussion on Answer
Where did I write that he distorts things? Read it again.
See my article here, in the quotation from Ephraim Karsh’s book about Benny Morris:
https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=f18e4f052adde49eb&q=https://mikyab.net/%25D7%259B%25D7%25AA%25D7%2591%25D7%2599%25D7%259D/%25D7%259E%25D7%2590%25D7%259E%25D7%25A8%25D7%2599%25D7%259D/%25D7%259E%25D7%2599%25D7%25AA%25D7%2595%25D7%25A1-%25D7%2595%25D7%2590%25D7%259E%25D7%25AA-%25D7%2594%25D7%2599%25D7%25A1%25D7%2598%25D7%2595%25D7%25A8%25D7%2599%25D7%25AA/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiE_ou494eHAxWMk_0HHYP9CJUQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1rXDcYXVmIKQWZ4aMxCjpV&fexp=72519171,72519168
I happened to see some of Benny Morris’s remarks, and he definitely seems like a genuine person who sticks to the data and the details. When you say he distorts things, can you give a more substantive example from his books?