The historian, best known for exposing IDF atrocities from 1948, now says it's the Palestinians who are not interested in a two-state solution.
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Benny Morris at his home in the
Elah Valley. Photo
by Yanai Yechiel
After 30 years, he’s giving up. “This is
the last book I will write about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” declares historian
Benny Morris, sitting on the balcony of his home,
overlooking distant lush hilltops covered with
cypresses and pines. A pioneer in researching the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and one of the most
prominent Israeli historians of his generation, he has
had his fill of the exhausting and bloody cycle that
he has documented for the past three decades. “The
decades of studying the conflict, which led to nine
books, left me with a feeling of deep despair. I’ve
done all I can,” he says. “I’ve written enough about a
conflict that has no solution, mainly due to the
Palestinians’ consistent rejection of a solution of
two states for two peoples.”
This weary feeling about the bitter
encounter between the two sparring peoples is given
profound expression in the new Hebrew edition of his
book, “One State, Two States: Resolving the
Israel/Palestine Conflict” (first published in
English in 2009). In the book, Morris describes − for
what he says is the last time − another chapter in the
history of relations between Israel and the
Palestinians. Given the circumstances, he concludes
his research with an incisive political essay that
could be read as an indictment. “It’s a historical
essay that has a political purpose and a political
explanation,” he admits. “My aim is to open readers’
eyes to the truth. The objective is to expose the
goals of the Palestinian national movement to
extinguish the Jewish national project and to inherit
all of Palestine for the Arabs and Islam.”
To Morris, a professor of history in the
Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, his book is akin to a
dead-end journey. Rather than sketch a way out, he
seeks to entrench himself within a sober-eyed view of
a hopeless reality. “The book deals with the various
objectives and solutions that have been proposed
throughout the history of the conflict,” he explains.
While at the start, the two movements − Zionist and
Palestinian − sought to establish their own state on
the entire territory, a shift occurred at a certain
point. The movements followed different trajectories
in terms of their intentions.
“The Zionist movement started out calling
for the establishment of a Jewish state on all the
territory of the Land of Israel, but from 1937 on, its
leaders gradually abandoned the claim of 'it’s all
mine’ and adhered to the ambition to form a sovereign
Jewish state in part of the territory of the Land of
Israel. Thus it changed its approach and consented to
territorial compromise: that is, to the idea of two
states for two peoples, a decision that derived in
part from the logic of dividing the land between the
two peoples living in it.”
Hands resting on a wooden table, Morris
cites venom-filled quotes from the Palestinian
National Charter, the Fatah constitution and the Hamas
charter. He asserts that, unlike the Zionists, since
its inception the Palestinian national movement has
never retreated from its demand to establish a single
state in the disputed territory.
“The Palestinian national movement has
remained unchanged, throughout the different periods
of the struggle, whether under the leadership of Hajj
Amin al-Husayni or his successor, Yasser Arafat,” says
Morris with near-palpable disgust. “It did not even
change during the years of the Oslo process. In the
end, both sides of the Palestinian movement − the
fundamentalists led by Hamas and the secular bloc led
by Fatah − are interested in Muslim rule over all of
Palestine, with no Jewish state and no partition.”
A couple of charming dogs scamper about in
the shade of the fig and olive trees. After Morris
gets the two to calm down, he goes back to making his
argument: “In the Zionist movement, they understood −
under the impress of Hitler’s deeds and rising
anti-Semitism in Europe − that the Jewish people
needed a refuge and a state. Because of the urgency,
and because they had to save the nation, the Zionists
were prepared to abandon the dream of Greater Israel
and to make do with part of it. The same policy was
supported by the major powers that also strove for
compromise. This impact − the Holocaust, the demand of
the major powers and even a sense of justice − led the
Zionists to conclude that two states for two peoples
should be established here. This conclusion was
manifested, of course, in the acceptance of the UN
Partition Plan in 1947.”
But the Zionist movement didn’t
always support the idea of compromise.
“This was the guiding line of the Zionist
movement in the years 1948-1977, and has been again
since 1992. Aside from a few years of euphoria in
which the right held power and propounded the idea of
Greater Israel, the Israeli position was one of
compromise. The brief euphoria dissipated very
quickly. Since the first intifada in 1988, about
two-thirds of Israelis support territorial compromise.
The Palestinians, no. They have consistently − even if
outwardly they seemed ready for compromise − never
accepted the legitimacy and the claims of the
Zionists. The Palestinian movement doesn’t care about
Jewish history. They deny the connection between the
Jews and the Land of Israel. The Jewish narrative is
completely foreign to them.”
You write in the book that the
Palestinians’ basic claim is that the land belongs
to the original inhabitants who were here before
1882. In other words, before the first aliyah. For
this reason, they view the Jews as thieves with whom
there can be no compromise. But some would say you
are describing a monolithic Palestinian voice, as if
all Palestinians are radical Islamists.
“It’s true there’s a difference between
the extremists, who say directly that they want to
wipe out the State of Israel, and the secular
nationalists, who outwardly say they’re ready for a
compromise accord. But actually, both of them, if you
read their words very carefully, want all of
Palestine. The secular leaders − if you can call them
that − like Yasser Arafat and President Mahmoud Abbas,
are not prepared to accept a formula of two states for
two peoples. So as not to scare the goyim, they
project a vagueness about it, but they think in terms
of expulsion and elimination.”
What do you mean exactly when you say
“in terms of expulsion and elimination”?
“Arafat, since the ‘70s, after Fatah’s
guerrilla warfare failed to yield results, concluded
that the liberation of the homeland would be
accomplished through a ‘policy of stages.’ The idea of
the ‘struggle in stages’ was meant to achieve the
gradual elimination of Israel and a solution of a
single Arab state. In other words, the Palestinian
Liberation Organization leaders continually put on a
conciliatory face in order to please the West, but
actually their goal was to eliminate Israel in stages,
since they couldn’t do it in one blow.
“The same staggered strategy, which sees
the establishment of a state in the occupied
territories as the first stage in the conquest of the
entire land, was, in their view, better than a direct
strategy of endless military confrontation. Abbas says
it day in and day out, and continues to demand the
right of return.”
Isn’t it legitimate for the
Palestinians to demand the right of return for some
of the refugees?
“The realization of the right of return
essentially requires the destruction of the Jewish
state. For the same reason, Abbas currently refuses to
hold negotiations with the Israelis. Because
negotiations could lead to a resolution to the
conflict. He has no desire or intention of reaching a
solution of two states for two peoples.”
The book was first published in
English in 2009. The general spirit of the book, as
you yourself describe it, has been echoed repeatedly
by Israeli politicians and journalists, who fixed
the image of the Palestinian side as “no partner,”
while the Israeli side was making a maximum effort
to reach an accord. In this regard, do your
arguments add anything to the public discourse?
“The book was written several years after
the end of the second intifada [in 2005], under the
impression that it [had] left. The book is relevant to
the extent that the Palestinian discourse and the
Palestinian objectives have not changed, and their
actions, i.e. terror, are continuing by means of the
rockets that are being launched almost daily, and
could also return when circumstances warrant by means
of suicide bombers.
“In this context, it is vital to show the
continuous, historical line of thinking that
characterizes the Palestinians − which, at its base,
does not give Jews any legitimate right to this place.
The first section of the Hamas charter says, ‘In the
name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate ...
Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam
eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.’
It is important that we recognize who we are facing.”
The public debate about the conflict
is mired in prejudices. Don’t you feel you’re adding
fuel to the fire with such a demonic depiction of
the Palestinians? After all, we, too, like the
Palestinians, outwardly talk about compromise, but
meanwhile settle in their territory with the clear
intention of preventing a solution to the conflict.
Some of our people torch mosques, and shoot at
innocents. We’re not exactly saints.
“The demonization is not equal on the two
sides. In the Israeli education system, in general,
there is no demonization of the Arab. He might not be
described positively, but he’s not the Devil. There,
the Jews are completely demonized. The Palestinian
authorities are busy deeply implanting the
demonization. The Palestinian people think we can be
made extinct. We don’t think that about the
Palestinians. What I am doing is describing the
history; I’m not demonizing. The book describes the
Palestinian position. If there’s demonization in it,
it simply derives from the things that they themselves
say and do. I’m only letting them express themselves.
What they say is what has adhered to their image.”
Morris, the preeminent Israeli historian
writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was
born in Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh in 1948 to parents who
were immigrants from England − “passionate Zionists,”
as he describes them. His father was the first
secretary of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in England,
and later served as Israel’s ambassador to New
Zealand.
“They came here just before the founding
of the state,” says their son, at his home in Srigim
Li On, in the Elah Valley. “After a brief time on
Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, my parents were part of a group
that founded Kibbutz Yasur, which was built on the
ruins of the village of Al-Birwa, the birthplace of
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. That’s why I feel a
certain connection with Darwish,” he notes casually
and laughs.
His childhood was spent between Jerusalem
and New York. “A year after I was born, my parents
left the kibbutz and moved to Jerusalem. My father,
who’d been the kibbutz driver, got a job with the
Jewish Agency. Later on he joined the Foreign Ministry
and worked in information [hasbara]. When I was 9, he
was sent as a consul to New York. I remember very
little from my childhood there,” says Morris, without
any noticeable regret. “I remember getting mugged in
the park and having my chessboard stolen. I remember
that at Ramaz, the school I went to, they mixed
together Talmud, Bible, Jewish history and general
studies. It was a private school, one of the best in
New York. Most of the graduates went on to top
universities like Harvard and Columbia.”
But Morris took a different path. Although
he thought about continuing his studies in the United
States, after high school he returned to Israel and
enlisted in the Nahal, serving in the 50th
(Paratroop) Battalion. “The period of my military
service was relatively quiet. They shot at us a little
bit in the Jordan Rift Valley, there were a few
ambushes, but not the experience of real combat. The
only event possibly worth noting was in ‘67, at the
start of the Six-Day War, when I took part in an
operation that’s recorded as a footnote in the history
books. While Golani and the 8th Brigade breached the
Syrian lines in the northern Golan Heights, we new
recruits carried out a diversionary action in the
southern Golan Heights. Our battalion commander was
killed by a Syrian bombardment.”
In the War of Attrition, Morris took a
more significant part in the fighting and was sent to
an outpost on the Suez Canal. There, in 1969, he was
wounded by Egyptian shelling, which led to his early
discharge from military service. After that, he began
studying history and philosophy at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
“I didn’t think about becoming a doctor or
lawyer, or a historian for that matter,” he says,
taking a piece of watermelon from a bowl. “History
simply interested me. After three years I saw that
philosophy didn’t interest me, so I decided to pursue
a doctorate in history. I studied in Jerusalem for
another year and then I continued at Cambridge
University.”
He returned to Israel in 1977. When he was
unable to find a teaching position, he began working
as a translator and for the classified ads section of
the Jerusalem Post. Not long afterward, when he was
28, he moved from the classified section to the news
pages and began a new career, first as an education
reporter and later as the diplomatic correspondent.
But Morris soon found that journalism didn’t satisfy
him. “As a journalist, I felt a need to do something
‘more serious,’” he says. “I thought about writing a
book that would tell the story of the Palmach [the
elite strike force of the Haganah, the prestate
underground Jewish militia]. I contacted the Palmach
Generation Association and they gave me access to
their archive, which was still classified at the time
in the IDF Archive [where there was a copy of
everything]. I got down to work.”
But his Palmach book − which he started
working on at the end of 1982, just as the first
Lebanon war was unfolding − did not reach fruition.
“I’d started working on the Palmach archive, but after
about two months of work, when I was sitting one day
in the library in Efal, this Palmach political
commissar − a man called Sini, Yisrael Galili’s former
aide − came up to me and said: ‘You know what, Benny,
we’ve decided that one of our people will write the
history of the Palmach. You’re fired.’”
But Morris wasn’t ready to give up on his
ambition of publishing a book. “Ironically, while
working in the Palmach archive, I was exposed to
material that dealt with the creation of the
Palestinian refugee problem. For example, I came
across the expulsion order for the residents of Lod
and Ramle, issued by Yitzhak Rabin on behalf of Yigal
Allon. These materials were linked somehow to the war
in Lebanon, when for the first time I saw refugees
from the Al-Rashidiya camp − some of whom I
interviewed. The Lebanese refugees captured my
imagination. I felt that the Palestinian refugee
phenomenon could be a good subject for a book. In
fact, if I hadn’t been prevented from finishing the
book on the Palmach, I probably would have spent years
writing a totally different book.”
In addition to his journalistic work, in
the early 1980s Morris began writing “The Birth of the
Palestinian Refugee Problem.” The book, which caused a
sensation, made mincemeat of the official Israeli
version of events that said Palestinian refugees had
fled their homes of their own accord, and put Morris
at the center of a raucous public debate. Relying on a
range of documents, Morris showed that the
Palestinians who fled their homes between 1947 and
1949 did so largely due to Israeli military attacks,
undermining the official story. He also noted that
there was no deliberate policy of expulsion, but says
now that “the senior Israeli command did carry out
expulsions in certain areas.”
The book contained harsh findings that
stained the image of the 1948 Israeli soldier. Morris
described incidents of rape and slaughter that
occurred in the shadow of the War of Independence,
including an incident in Acre in which four soldiers
raped a woman and then killed her and her father. In
another incident, a female captive in the village of
Abu Shusha, near Gezer, was raped repeatedly. Morris
described, in chilling detail, massacres that included
the arbitrary killing of hundreds of innocents − old
men walking in a field; a woman in an abandoned
village − and orderly executions carried out against a
wall or next to a well. “I felt then, while I was
writing it, that this was a volatile subject,” he
says. “I realized that I was going to publish a
different depiction than the usual depiction, than the
familiar Zionist narrative. I felt that this was
something different that broke with convention. And,
in fact, there was a lot of anger when the book was
published. Some were saying quietly that it was too
early to publish what I wrote, since it would blacken
Israel’s image while it was still in a struggle with
the Arab world. They said the kind of things I
described could give ammunition to our enemies. Today
I see that there is something to that. I understood it
then, too, but at the time when I was writing, Israel
seemed secure. In the 1980s, it appeared as if Israeli
society could weather such historical criticism.”
That pioneering research also defied
the historians who’d chosen to refrain from
describing the harsh facts. From this standpoint,
your writing caused a real earthquake in academia,
because you undermined the familiar basic knowledge.
“It was a paradox. On the one hand, the
academic world quite quickly related very positively
to the book. But there were also people who were
discomfited by it. The research exposed the work of
many scholars as whitewashing and lies. It exposed the
‘old’ Israeli historians, as I referred to them, as
not having done serious history. About the same time
my book appeared, works in the same vein came out,
written by others − including Avi Shlaim, of Reading
and then Oxford University; Tom Segev of Haaretz; and
Simha Flapan, a Mapam activist. None of them emerged
from or worked in the Israeli academic establishment.
But subsequently, it became far more difficult for
Israelis to write ‘scientific’ history − that is,
history not based on archival material and suppressing
unpleasant elements of the historical truth.
Historians felt they had to fall in line with this
‘New Historiography’ in terms of modus operandi, and
it became far harder to evade or distort the past. In
subsequent years, even books published by the Defense
Ministry included descriptions of massacres by Israeli
troops.”
But your work proved to be a
double-edged sword for you. While it made you a
star, all the doors were closed to you.
“I was treated like an enemy of the state.
This image stuck. I was ostracized. I wasn’t invited
to conferences and, of course, I wasn’t offered a
university position. It was a tough time. I couldn’t
support myself and my family. For six years I had no
job, until − with the intervention of President Ezer
Weizman − I was hired at Ben-Gurion University in
1997. I lived off loans from friends. I had no money.
In 1991 I was fired by the Jerusalem Post, which was
taken over by right-wing millionaires (including
Conrad Black), who dismissed all the paper’s
left-leaning veteran staff. I spent the years writing
further histories, published by Oxford University
Press and Am Oved. But I had no job.”
Today you say you were stuck with an
image that was inaccurate. But in fact, during the
first intifada, just months after the publication of
“The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” you
refused to serve in the territories. In those years,
that was a highly controversial act.
“True. I saw the first intifada that
erupted in the winter of 1987 as an effort of a people
to throw off a 20-year military occupation. This
effort, in the main, was not lethal, and the
protesters did not use live-fire weapons. They’d
simply had enough; they wanted to be rid of the yoke
of occupation − that is how I saw it. I did not feel
it right to take part in the suppression of this
nonlethal uprising, and I refused to do reserve duty
in the Nablus Casbah. I felt that the Palestinian
struggle for independence was legitimate and that the
oppression was fundamentally illegitimate. The second
intifada was a totally different story. Against the
backdrop of the waves of terror attacks, the
Palestinian uprising certainly looked like it was
geared to destroying Israel. Therefore, today I am
opposed to refusal to serve in the territories.”
Following the repeated terror attacks and
the failure of the July 2000 Camp David summit,
Morris’ positions in relation to the conflict changed
sharply. In a 2004 interview with Haaretz Magazine, he
claimed that in certain conditions, expulsion was not
a war crime, and that there were circumstances in
history when expulsions were justified − such as when
the alternative was someone killing you.
You said that people were mistaken
when they labeled you a post-Zionist, and you
described Palestinian society as being like a
“serial killer” whose people should be locked up “in
a cage.” You called Arafat a “liar” and the Arabs
“barbarians.”
“I may have gone a little overboard. I
think that I wasn’t careful enough in choosing my
words, although I still stand behind what I said. I
said that the Palestinians should be put in a cage so
they won’t be able to get here to place bombs in buses
and restaurants. The word ‘cage’ did not go over well
and perhaps it was the wrong word to use. Of course, I
meant fenced off. As for the refugee situation, I
still maintain that it was a requirement of the
reality. Since the Palestinians tried and intended to
destroy us, and their villages and towns served as
bases in wartime, the winning side had to take over
villages and expel populations. This situation was
built into the nature of the war, even if people from
the left have a hard time swallowing it. Massacres are
always reprehensible, but the Jews behaved much better
than other nations in similar circumstances.”
You pointed out the dichotomy between
the “new historians” who did not adopt the Zionist
narrative, and the “old historians” who wrote from
an establishment perspective. But your book and the
general approach with which you wrote this essay
definitely express the Israeli consensus, and
perhaps an even more right-wing view than that. Some
will say your historical analysis is more
characteristic of the old historians.
“I don’t see myself as an ‘old historian’
or as someone who is taking back any of his words. All
of my writing, both before and after 2000, is faithful
to the truth that comes out of the historical
documents. I did not change the facts or the way of
looking at the past, although I did learn to
appreciate the depth of the Arabs’ rejection of
Zionism and the idea of territorial compromise. I
definitely accept the Israeli narrative about Camp
David, which says that the Palestinians were made −
both by Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton −
unprecedented offers, and that they turned them down.
In my book I argue that this is essentially their
consistent, perpetual line since the dawn of the
Palestinian national movement. Just as they rejected
the two-state offers in ‘37, ‘47 and ‘77, they
rejected the offer in 2000.”
One of Morris’ most striking conclusions
is that, regarding the past, there was no point at
which the Israelis could have acted differently.
“There are people who believe that we blew an
opportunity here or there,” he says. “There is even a
hint of this, perhaps, in my book ‘Border Wars,’ about
the peace talks between Israel and its neighbors after
‘48. But a more thoughtful look back shows that no
opportunity appears to have been missed. There simply
was no readiness for peace on the other side. They
didn’t want to accept us here. As long as the Jews
wanted a state of their own, under their control, no
acceptable accord could be reached with the Arabs. Not
before ‘48 and certainly not afterward, when the Arab
side was also prompted by vengefulness.”
Revenge is one of the explanations that
Morris places on the table to explain the
intransigence of the Palestinian national movement.
“Aside from revenge, the Palestinians have absolute
faith in the justice of their side, which derives in
part from religious faith. What God commands, and what
his interpreters on Earth say that God commands, is
the definite truth. While the Jews are much more
skeptical about this sort of interpretation, the
Palestinians feel that justice is on their side and
that God doesn’t want the Holy Land to be shared with
another people. Another thing: They absolutely believe
that time is working in their favor. And the
Palestinians feel that they have the backing of 400
million (or so) Arabs and another billion-odd
Muslims around the world. So why compromise?”
In the second chapter of “One State,
Two States...” you discuss the two main accepted
models for a resolution of the conflict: two states
for two peoples, or a single binational state of
some kind in which Jews and Arabs live together. The
problem is that neither of these models is
realistic, in your view. At the end of the book you
propose as a solution a federation between Jordan
and Palestine.
“I say that the compromise proposals that
have been continually put forward since ‘67, that are
based on a Jewish state on about 80 percent of the
territory of Mandatory Palestine and a Palestinian
state on about 20 percent of the territory, are not
realistic. The Palestinian leadership and people will
not be satisfied with 20 percent of the territory of
Palestine. A state composed of Gaza, the West Bank and
East Jerusalem will not satisfy them. They will want
to expand − to Jordan, to Israel, to Sinai, or in all
three directions at once. In order to satisfy the need
for growth and territorial expansion, a merging of the
West Bank, Gaza and Transjordan might satisfy the
Palestinian urge for more territory and constitute a
more reasonable and durable accord.”
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) may
be the most vocal proponent nowadays of such a
confederation.
“But this was essentially the ‘Allon
Plan,’ and the concept of the Labor Party in the ‘70s
and ‘80s. Although never officially adopted by the
party institutions, it was accepted by most of its
leaders. According to this plan, Palestine would be
divided into Israel − more or less along the pre-’67
borders − and an Arab state that could be called a
Palestinian-Jordanian state, that would combine most
of the territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem
with the East Bank i.e., the kingdom of Jordan.
“Ariel Sharon once talked about turning
Jordan into Palestine − in other words, ousting the
kings, putting the Palestinians in charge in their
place and thereby solving the Palestinian demand for a
state. But I am talking about something different: The
bulk of the West Bank united with Transjordan in one
state.”
But from the moment Jordan washed its
hands of the West Bank in the late 1980s, and said
it viewed this as Palestinian territory, the rug was
pulled from under the advocates of the Allon Plan,
and since then the plan has rightly been gathering
dust. Today as well, it is unreasonable to expect to
convince the Jordanians, or the other nations of the
world, to support this move, that would necessarily
lead to a situation in which the royal family was
ousted. If it’s impossible to convince anyone to go
along with this idea, what’s the point of discussing
it?
“Because it is still more logical than an
accord between us and the Palestinians that is based
on a division of Mandatory Palestine. The logic of a
large Palestinian-Jordanian state is more valid than
any partition plan − which I support, by the way.
Justice and logic say that the Palestinians should
have a state alongside Israel, but the portion of the
land that is designated for them in a simple partition
will not satisfy them. And so the territory east of
the Jordan River also has to be inserted into the
equation in order to give the Palestinians a vision of
space. The West Bank, even without the Jewish settlers
who are there now, is a very constricted space. Gaza
is one big slum. Jordan-Palestine could be the basis
for an accord that will last, even if it cannot be
achieved in our time. For now it is impractical and
unrealistic. So the message is certainly pessimistic.”
Do you see any signs of light?
“The only optimistic thing I can say is
that the history of the Zionist movement and of Israel
is so unusual and unpredictable that the end of the
story, or the next part of the story, could yet
surprise us in a good way. Maybe. I yearn for such a
surprise.”
Since you’ve decided to quit
researching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what
do you plan to focus on now?
“I’ve already begun to write a history of
Turkish-Armenian relations from 1876-1924, together
with Prof. Dror Zeevi, an Ottomanist. The Armenian
genocide will, of course, figure large in it. It’s a
whole new story.”
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