1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:05,550 Hello and welcome to Almanack. The Oxford Middle East podcast. My name is built its focus. 2 00:00:05,550 --> 00:00:12,340 And today I'm joined by Obvious Slome. I love the British Academy, an emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. 3 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:20,310 He's one of Israel's new historians. And we'll discuss what that means and how Israel's history has influenced the country's contemporary politics. 4 00:00:20,310 --> 00:00:26,640 I have no other way to proceed. She's stoy juncture. 5 00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:36,660 If you miss that acclaimed tragedy for future generations was not very much room for. 6 00:00:36,660 --> 00:00:44,150 Putting any of the ideas on hold. So conditions are bad and like I said, we don't want to be passive victims of this. 7 00:00:44,150 --> 00:00:50,410 We want to challenge, to intervene, to intrude, to participate and to present our own narrative, to speak for ourselves. 8 00:00:50,410 --> 00:00:54,700 What I would do as prime minister is to do anything responsible within the 9 00:00:54,700 --> 00:01:01,120 rule of law to stop nullify the dangers that emanate from the wider society. 10 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:09,850 We are the key to peace, a peace process, Palestinians. And you must realise that your facts of life. 11 00:01:09,850 --> 00:01:15,250 You are one of the so-called news stories. You're one of four new historians writing revisionist history. 12 00:01:15,250 --> 00:01:20,170 So could you go into what revisionist history is in the Israeli context? 13 00:01:20,170 --> 00:01:25,240 Let us start with the general context of what is revisionist history. 14 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:31,870 Before we turn to the Israeli context, revisionist history, as the name suggests, 15 00:01:31,870 --> 00:01:41,170 is history, which challenges the received wisdom, the conventional wisdom on the subject. 16 00:01:41,170 --> 00:01:46,240 All national movements have rewritten the history. 17 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:54,790 I think that of certain common characteristic to all nationalist versions of history. 18 00:01:54,790 --> 00:02:00,880 They tend to be simplistic, selective and self-serving. 19 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:10,030 And I remind myself of these qualities as the three S's simplistic, selective and self-serving. 20 00:02:10,030 --> 00:02:19,930 Oxford Jewish philosopher Isiah Berlin used to say that the Jews are like any other people, only more so. 21 00:02:19,930 --> 00:02:27,850 And by the same token, Zionist history is like any other nationalist version of history. 22 00:02:27,850 --> 00:02:39,410 Only more so. In short, revisionist history, in the case of Israel challenges the standard Zionist version of the origins, 23 00:02:39,410 --> 00:02:44,830 the development and the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. 24 00:02:44,830 --> 00:02:50,560 And what were then the core difference of spee origins to hit nature and history? 25 00:02:50,560 --> 00:03:05,110 The core difference between old history and new history is that old history reflected and echoed and reinforced the official version about the past. 26 00:03:05,110 --> 00:03:15,190 It was uncritical of the official version. And more than that of old history tended to glorify Israel. 27 00:03:15,190 --> 00:03:27,280 And it painted a picture of the past which in which Israel most portrayed as heroic, just holding the moral high ground. 28 00:03:27,280 --> 00:03:37,390 Where is new history looks at the conflicting versions of the Arab-Israeli conflict and subjects 29 00:03:37,390 --> 00:03:49,330 them to critical analysis in the light of the available evidence and then dismisses any notion, 30 00:03:49,330 --> 00:03:55,820 however deeply cherished, which doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. 31 00:03:55,820 --> 00:04:04,570 And this brings me to the outer core, the second core difference between old history and new history, 32 00:04:04,570 --> 00:04:12,880 and that is that when old history was written, the documents were not available. 33 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:20,980 The primary sources were not available. In addition, a lot of the old history was written by participants, 34 00:04:20,980 --> 00:04:29,800 by Zionist activists who took part in the struggle for independence or their homes for sale to be able to 35 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:36,310 struggle in 1948 or whether they like the struggle of independence also from the beginning of the 20th century, 36 00:04:36,310 --> 00:04:38,740 from the beginning of the 20th century. 37 00:04:38,740 --> 00:04:49,540 The debate is about the whole of Israel's past, and the new historians had the benefit of access to primary sources. 38 00:04:49,540 --> 00:04:55,780 So Israel has adopted and used to apply very liberally. 39 00:04:55,780 --> 00:04:58,300 The British 30 rule, 40 00:04:58,300 --> 00:05:10,510 which governs the review and declassification of official documents after 30 years from the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. 41 00:05:10,510 --> 00:05:22,900 The Israeli state archives began to release the documents when my colleagues and I began our research in the early 1980s. 42 00:05:22,900 --> 00:05:36,300 We had access to the official record, to the documents of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Farm Defence and of the IDF, the Israeli army. 43 00:05:36,300 --> 00:05:41,280 And that's a critical difference. And one Israeli scholar. 44 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:48,690 You shop around. Distinguish not between old history and new history, but prehistory, 45 00:05:48,690 --> 00:05:58,150 which was written without access to the documents and history which was written with access to documents. 46 00:05:58,150 --> 00:06:02,900 And I have to say to Israel's credit. 47 00:06:02,900 --> 00:06:15,270 That it used to open up its records to critical scrutiny and thereby made possible critical studies of Israel's past, 48 00:06:15,270 --> 00:06:20,280 such as the ones that my colleagues and I have written. 49 00:06:20,280 --> 00:06:29,700 The so-called phoney historian says yourself. Ilan Papay and two more whose name I have just now forgotten that what all of you wrote the book each 50 00:06:29,700 --> 00:06:38,220 on challenging one of the truths or one of the accepted truths of the formation of the Israeli state. 51 00:06:38,220 --> 00:06:47,000 So in nineteen eighty eight. The fortieth anniversary of the state of Israel. 52 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:59,690 Four new books were published. The first one was by seeing half lap time, and it was called The Birth of Israel Myth and Reality. 53 00:06:59,690 --> 00:07:04,580 Flaperon was not an academic. He was not a professional historian. 54 00:07:04,580 --> 00:07:09,260 He was the head of the Arab department of my palm. 55 00:07:09,260 --> 00:07:12,500 The left wing party. 56 00:07:12,500 --> 00:07:23,660 He had a political agenda, which he stated at the beginning, which is to undermine the structure of Israeli propaganda about the conflict. 57 00:07:23,660 --> 00:07:35,420 And instead of having chapters, he had missed each chapter try to demolish one of the myths about the birth of Israel. 58 00:07:35,420 --> 00:07:41,390 The second book was by Ilan Papay. 59 00:07:41,390 --> 00:07:49,550 It was called Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1948 to nineteen fifty one. 60 00:07:49,550 --> 00:08:00,690 This book was based on a deep field thesis that Ilan Papay had written that the Middle East centre at St Antony's College. 61 00:08:00,690 --> 00:08:09,510 In nineteen eighty four, I was the external examiner for the physics. 62 00:08:09,510 --> 00:08:17,970 I was a trading university at the time, and all the ideas of the new history are in that thesis. 63 00:08:17,970 --> 00:08:27,180 And in that book in one form or another. So Ilan Papay was the real pioneer of far new history. 64 00:08:27,180 --> 00:08:39,510 And although I'm older than him, he had a profound influence on my trajectory as a historian. 65 00:08:39,510 --> 00:08:51,400 The third new historian was Benny Morris, whose book was called The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. 66 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:56,490 1947 to nineteen forty nine. 67 00:08:56,490 --> 00:09:04,550 This book was based on meticulous research in all the Israeli archives. 68 00:09:04,550 --> 00:09:14,690 And it showed that Israel was largely responsible for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. 69 00:09:14,690 --> 00:09:25,930 In other words, that the Palestinians in 1948 didn't just leave of their own accord or on orders from above from their leaders, 70 00:09:25,930 --> 00:09:34,350 but that they were expelled because the old history before that argued that the Palestinians had left on their own accord, correct? 71 00:09:34,350 --> 00:09:44,480 Yes. And that they they left on orders from the leaders in the expectation of a triumphal return. 72 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:51,770 And this was a very important claim because it had political consequences, 73 00:09:51,770 --> 00:10:01,400 because if Israel was not responsible for making the Palestinian refugees three quarters of a million refugees, 74 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:09,620 then Israel was not responsible for resolving the problem. 75 00:10:09,620 --> 00:10:21,740 The last year historian was I felt and I my book was called Collusion Across the Jordan King Abdullah, 76 00:10:21,740 --> 00:10:26,000 the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine. 77 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:34,010 In this book, I advance the thesis that by 1947, 78 00:10:34,010 --> 00:10:41,870 a tacit agreement had been reached between King Abdullah of Jordan and the Zionist movement 79 00:10:41,870 --> 00:10:50,510 to divide up mandatory Palestine between themselves at the expense of the Palestinians. 80 00:10:50,510 --> 00:10:55,610 And this is what happened in the 48 in the 1948 war. 81 00:10:55,610 --> 00:11:06,590 The losers were the Palestinians. More than half of the Palestinian population became refugees in the name Palestine was wiped off the map. 82 00:11:06,590 --> 00:11:10,460 The winners were the state of Israel, 83 00:11:10,460 --> 00:11:22,250 which extended its borders way beyond the borders suggested by the UN partition resolution and the other we with King Abdullah of Jordan, 84 00:11:22,250 --> 00:11:27,890 who captured the West Bank and later annexed it to his kingdom. 85 00:11:27,890 --> 00:11:33,560 So these are the four new historians. That also brings back to another question. 86 00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:34,670 Another thing I wanted to raise, 87 00:11:34,670 --> 00:11:45,920 because central to the founding myth of Israel is the fact that the Israelis fought off the United Arab armies in 1948 when they an unstated. 88 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:51,170 But as you say, there was already a deal between the Jordanians and the Zionists before that. 89 00:11:51,170 --> 00:11:58,400 So both of these cannot be true. So would you go a bit more into the idea of the unity of the Arab armies and what Israel had to the Zionists, 90 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:03,580 rather, how to fight when they wanted to create take state? 91 00:12:03,580 --> 00:12:16,280 Well, let me go back to your earlier question about was the debate about the whole of science history or only an hour, about 1948. 92 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:28,800 And my answer to that is that the debate between the Israeli stories revolved very much round the nineteen forty eight war. 93 00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:37,530 And there were five bones of contention, five main bones of contention in this debate. 94 00:12:37,530 --> 00:12:46,530 The first one was Britain's aims towards the end of the Palestine mandate. 95 00:12:46,530 --> 00:12:58,650 The old historians say that Britain's aim at the end of the mandate were to prevent the birth of a Jewish state by 96 00:12:58,650 --> 00:13:10,860 arming and inciting and encouraging Britain's Arab clients to invade Palestine and strangle the Jewish state at birth. 97 00:13:10,860 --> 00:13:22,320 The new historians, particularly Ilan Pappe and I, argue that Britain was resigned to the emergence of a Jewish state, 98 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:28,620 but that it was opposed to the birth of a Palestinian state because in British eyes, 99 00:13:28,620 --> 00:13:39,840 a Palestinian state was synonymous with a mufti state and the mufti was a renegade who had thrown his his lot in with Hitler. 100 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:47,910 So Britain's real policy was to encourage its client, King Abdullah, 101 00:13:47,910 --> 00:13:55,020 to invade Palestine upon end of the mandate and to conquer the heartland of 102 00:13:55,020 --> 00:14:02,700 Palestine and succeeded in avoiding appointing the birth of a Palestinian state. 103 00:14:02,700 --> 00:14:12,360 The second issue I've already touched on, what was the cause of the Palestinian exodus in 1948? 104 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:18,240 Did they go? Or where? They pushed the all the soil, say the Palestinians just left. 105 00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:24,270 It had nothing to do with Israel. The new historians say they were pushed. 106 00:14:24,270 --> 00:14:35,930 And the real authority on this is Benny Morris. And his book treated this question as thoroughly and accurately as it's ever likely to be. 107 00:14:35,930 --> 00:14:42,900 And the third bone of contention concerns the military balance in nineteen forty 108 00:14:42,900 --> 00:14:51,690 eight and its crucial element of the collective Israeli memory about 1948, 109 00:14:51,690 --> 00:14:55,010 that we were the few against the many. 110 00:14:55,010 --> 00:15:08,480 That we were a tiny little community surrounded by a huge Arab force and that it was a battle between a Jewish David against an Arab Goliath. 111 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:15,920 But our empirical research has demonstrated that Israel always had. 112 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:22,730 The edge over the Arab and adversaries in the Palestine Theatre. 113 00:15:22,730 --> 00:15:31,680 The fourth bone of contention. Is Arab War AIDS in 1948? 114 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:39,150 And this brings me to your question of what was the situation on the Arab side? 115 00:15:39,150 --> 00:15:53,880 The conventional wisdom in Israel is that the seven Arab armies we invaded Palestine upon expiry of the mandate were united by two aims. 116 00:15:53,880 --> 00:16:01,200 One was genocide. To throw the Jews into the sea. 117 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:08,040 And two was polities side. Political side is the destruction of a polity. 118 00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:12,030 You will find this word in the dictionary, 119 00:16:12,030 --> 00:16:21,000 but it's appropriate to the Israeli perception of our boys that their aim was to strangle the Jewish state at birth. 120 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:35,220 But our research has shown that the Arab coalition facing Israel in 1948 was one of the most disorganised, 121 00:16:35,220 --> 00:16:41,790 bitterly divided and ramshackle coalitions in the history of warfare. 122 00:16:41,790 --> 00:16:47,590 So although there was an Arab League, there was an Arab invasion plan. 123 00:16:47,590 --> 00:16:54,670 Each of the invading armies served a national agenda or a dynastic agenda, 124 00:16:54,670 --> 00:17:01,780 rather than operating within an overall plan of innovation and in particular the 125 00:17:01,780 --> 00:17:10,360 dynastic rivalries between King Farouk of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan. 126 00:17:10,360 --> 00:17:25,040 And it was the inability of the Arabs to coordinate the diplomatic and military strategy, which was a very important factor in the Arab defeat. 127 00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:36,440 My book fits very much into this issue in the debate because the conventional view of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 128 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:47,630 first half of the 20th century is that there was Arabs and Palestinians on one side and the Jews on the other side. 129 00:17:47,630 --> 00:17:52,070 Whereas what I have argued is that below the surface, 130 00:17:52,070 --> 00:18:06,180 the real line up was Hashemite rulers of Jordan and Zionists on one side against Palestinian nationalists and Arabs on the other side. 131 00:18:06,180 --> 00:18:13,070 That Abdullah is whole policy was based on the emergence of a Jewish state. 132 00:18:13,070 --> 00:18:25,700 So he most certainly did not set out to destroy the new Israeli polity. 133 00:18:25,700 --> 00:18:27,110 But on the contrary, 134 00:18:27,110 --> 00:18:37,400 he came to a tacit and agreement agreement with with the Zionist leaders that they will keep out of each other's way as much as possible. 135 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:50,330 The fifth and final bone of contention is why did the conflict persist for decades after the guns fell silent? 136 00:18:50,330 --> 00:18:58,660 The Zionist version can be summed up in two words Arab intransigence. 137 00:18:58,660 --> 00:19:04,750 According to this view, the Zionist leaders strove for peace with the Arabs, 138 00:19:04,750 --> 00:19:12,040 with all their heart and all their minds mind that there was no one to talk to on the Arab side. 139 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:18,040 Whereas I argue that Arab leaders were pragmatic. 140 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:25,510 And after the end of the war, King Abdullah went all out to reach a settlement. 141 00:19:25,510 --> 00:19:31,920 And he didn't succeed. He was eventually assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist. 142 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:44,440 Horsely. Zain, the Syrian leader in 1949, after capturing power in a coup, offered Israel complete peace and normalisation. 143 00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:54,280 The immediate exchange of farm ambassadors and the absorption of a quarter of a million Palestinian refugees in Syria. 144 00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:59,920 But Israel did not take him up on his offer. 145 00:19:59,920 --> 00:20:11,170 What's with Israel to give in return for that? Israel would have had to agree that the border between Israel and Syria would go 146 00:20:11,170 --> 00:20:17,070 down the middle of the Jordan River and down the middle of the Sea of Galilee. 147 00:20:17,070 --> 00:20:24,730 So Zain had his territorial demands and Israel was not prepared to meet them. 148 00:20:24,730 --> 00:20:29,980 Abdullah had historic territorial demands as well from Israel. 149 00:20:29,980 --> 00:20:39,010 He wanted a passage to the Gaza Strip into the Mediterranean Sea, which he didn't have because Jordan was landlocked. 150 00:20:39,010 --> 00:20:43,800 So each Arab leader had his demands. 151 00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:46,900 Ben-Gurion refused to meet these demands. 152 00:20:46,900 --> 00:20:56,860 You can pass a judgement on whether it was a wise decision or not, wise decision by bank or you're not to make any territorial concessions for peace. 153 00:20:56,860 --> 00:21:08,380 But what I think I have proved is that the Jewish Israeli claim that there was no one to talk to is false because the purpose of the old history, 154 00:21:08,380 --> 00:21:16,120 as you as you've made clear, is to develop a kind of national history for for Israel based on certain myths and for seamer flop. 155 00:21:16,120 --> 00:21:23,770 And there was a very clear political motivation behind writing this book about the myths of Israel's birth. 156 00:21:23,770 --> 00:21:26,980 But for the three others of it was it was also a purpose. 157 00:21:26,980 --> 00:21:35,470 Was it mostly driven by curiosity and a new access to the archives, which would be opened in the late 70s? 158 00:21:35,470 --> 00:21:46,750 Suka flap on was a politician with a stated and explicit political agenda, an anti Zionist agenda? 159 00:21:46,750 --> 00:21:50,990 Where is Ilan Papay, Benny Morris and myself? 160 00:21:50,990 --> 00:22:03,950 Our Western educated scholars or all three of us use traditional Western methods of historical scholarship, 161 00:22:03,950 --> 00:22:09,370 of relying very heavily on archival research. 162 00:22:09,370 --> 00:22:17,470 The question of what are the intentions of each historian is much more difficult to answer. 163 00:22:17,470 --> 00:22:29,140 And I can only speak for myself. I would say I did have an agenda in writing collusion across the Jordan, but it wasn't a political agenda. 164 00:22:29,140 --> 00:22:35,500 My critics have not been able to produce any evidence of a political agenda. 165 00:22:35,500 --> 00:22:39,910 I did have an agenda, which is that of a historian. 166 00:22:39,910 --> 00:22:51,310 I wanted to write a good history book and I wanted to write about the Arab-Israeli conflict in that period in as much detail as possible, 167 00:22:51,310 --> 00:22:56,860 as accurately as possible, and to make it as interesting as possible. 168 00:22:56,860 --> 00:23:07,330 So I consciously set out to write not just for other scholars, but to try and to reach a broader public. 169 00:23:07,330 --> 00:23:12,850 You mentioned that you faced some resistance from some courage and also subtitled. 170 00:23:12,850 --> 00:23:18,400 But on the other hand, how were your books, the books, something you as certain as received them in Israel more broadly like? 171 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:24,520 Did it create new political openings for discussion or is the reaction very negative because it basically challenged the 172 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:30,820 very fundamental issues on which people had based much of their life and much of their relationship with the government. 173 00:23:30,820 --> 00:23:39,730 How did people approach the idea or approach to new information which you and the three others had had published? 174 00:23:39,730 --> 00:23:56,530 So all four books appeared in 1948, not nineteen ninety eight in the reaction in Israel was one of shock, horror and utter surprise. 175 00:23:56,530 --> 00:24:05,510 Israelis were completely stunned by the state, richer by these revelations. 176 00:24:05,510 --> 00:24:13,120 And it went completely against the collective memory of far Israelis. 177 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:24,340 So the initial reaction was one of surprise, and that was followed by a very negative reaction to the new history. 178 00:24:24,340 --> 00:24:34,180 The first critique was shut-Eye to read the biography of Ben-Gurion, and he published four full pages, 179 00:24:34,180 --> 00:24:41,230 full articles, one page each in Haaretz under the heading, the new historians. 180 00:24:41,230 --> 00:24:49,210 And it was an attack, a direct attack on all of France. 181 00:24:49,210 --> 00:24:53,200 And he had two main charges in his charges. 182 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:59,040 The two chargesheet against the new historians. The two main items. 183 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:12,990 One was that we had a political axe to grind and for work was suspect and tendentious and serve a political agenda, 184 00:25:12,990 --> 00:25:18,470 a leftwing political agenda, an anti Israeli political agenda. 185 00:25:18,470 --> 00:25:34,220 But he wasn't able to produce evidence for this. And his second charge was that our work was professionally flawed, that we distorted the evidence. 186 00:25:34,220 --> 00:25:40,590 We misused evidence. We deliberately. 187 00:25:40,590 --> 00:25:41,790 We're delivery daily, 188 00:25:41,790 --> 00:25:55,050 pretty selective in picking out just bits out of the historical record that supported our arguments and went on to say that in any case, 189 00:25:55,050 --> 00:26:07,140 one cannot trade with authority on the Arab-Israeli conflict because only Israel releases its records for inspection. 190 00:26:07,140 --> 00:26:15,660 The Arab countries don't release the records and therefore there is in a symmetry in the sources that are available. 191 00:26:15,660 --> 00:26:25,140 And my answer to that is indeed, there is a symmetry, but a historian can only write history on the basis of the sources that are available. 192 00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:30,090 We can't write history on the basis of the sources that are not available. 193 00:26:30,090 --> 00:26:34,590 So we have to make do with what was available. 194 00:26:34,590 --> 00:26:43,400 And as I say to my doctoral students, when they reach a dark corner in their research and get demoralised, 195 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:50,460 I say to them, it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. 196 00:26:50,460 --> 00:27:02,120 Was the new history eventually also, for example, taught in schools, or has it has remained fairly fringe amongst them, Israel or Israeli historians? 197 00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:10,140 History is not written in a vacuum. Historians are part of the society. 198 00:27:10,140 --> 00:27:22,330 And. We were lucky in that we were doing our research in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. 199 00:27:22,330 --> 00:27:32,840 This was the first war in Israel's history which provoked political dissent even while the war was going on. 200 00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:36,700 And it was a very controversial war, a war of deception, 201 00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:45,580 which opened up a debate which opened up a space of looking critically back at Israel's history. 202 00:27:45,580 --> 00:27:53,890 And we were the beneficiaries. We moved into this political space and put forward our findings. 203 00:27:53,890 --> 00:28:04,030 The initial reaction was very, very hostile. But gradually, people began to engage with our findings. 204 00:28:04,030 --> 00:28:12,160 And the fact that they engage with the new history is a sign of maturity of Israeli society that the Israelis were prepared. 205 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:22,930 Some Israelis were prepared to look at their history, warts and all, and not to cling to the heroic regime of Israel's history. 206 00:28:22,930 --> 00:28:31,090 And then there was the Labour Party came back into power under its haack Rabin in 1992. 207 00:28:31,090 --> 00:28:38,830 And in 1993, Israel signed the Oslo Peace Accord. 208 00:28:38,830 --> 00:28:48,400 And the Oslo decade was very supportive of the new history. 209 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:59,050 And the education minister and Rabin ordered rewriting history textbooks for secondary schools. 210 00:28:59,050 --> 00:29:08,680 And they incorporated some of the findings of the new history, particularly the findings of Benny Morris, 211 00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:15,680 that Israel was in part responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem. 212 00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:25,090 This I don't want to exaggerate. It's not that the old history was jettisoned in our version was used to replace it. 213 00:29:25,090 --> 00:29:30,280 It just that there was more openness about the past. 214 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:43,580 And the new textbooks invited the Israeli school kids to think what would have been like for them to have been children during that war. 215 00:29:43,580 --> 00:29:50,410 So it opened up the space for debate. The theme in. 216 00:29:50,410 --> 00:29:58,020 Then the recruit came back to power. So that's another in 1996. 217 00:29:58,020 --> 00:30:01,800 Oh, yeah. Because because I was there was something I wanted to raise as well, 218 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:06,180 because he said Israel had matured and I was wondering, do you still believe that is the case, 219 00:30:06,180 --> 00:30:14,610 that, you know, Netanyahu has been in power for a very long time and has been in charge of a drift to the right politically in the country? 220 00:30:14,610 --> 00:30:18,570 Is it still the case that then there is political acceptance for the new hestia? 221 00:30:18,570 --> 00:30:22,320 Has. Has there been much more resistance from the top? 222 00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:28,110 And related to that, as well as the fact that Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister? 223 00:30:28,110 --> 00:30:32,200 If I recall correctly, who was born in Israel as a state? 224 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:40,500 And do you think that his political opponents might be informed by the fact that he grew up with this very nationalist history? 225 00:30:40,500 --> 00:30:42,300 And do you think those two are related? 226 00:30:42,300 --> 00:30:49,950 And do you also don't think that under his rule that the questions which are allowed to raise about Israeli nationalism, 227 00:30:49,950 --> 00:30:57,960 they are not allowed to be raised anymore? Benjamin Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister to be born in Israel. 228 00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:09,280 But more important than that, he grew up in the hardline revisionist Zionist home. 229 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:19,720 And his whole upbringing was very, very nationalistic, very dogmatic. 230 00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:27,940 And he wrote a book about Israel's place in the world, a very long book. 231 00:31:27,940 --> 00:31:37,640 It gives an undiluted, unreconstructed version of events. 232 00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:50,740 And he there isn't a single ref positive reference to Arab history, Arab culture or Arab society. 233 00:31:50,740 --> 00:31:57,430 So Netanyahu is an ultra nationalist. 234 00:31:57,430 --> 00:32:15,340 An Arab hater. And he was elected first elected in nineteen ninety six after the murder of Itzhak Rabin by an Israeli fanatic. 235 00:32:15,340 --> 00:32:31,330 And he spent his first term in office from 96 to 99 in a very successful attempt to freeze, to subvert and undermine the Oslo Accords. 236 00:32:31,330 --> 00:32:36,130 And in 2000, the second intifada broke out. 237 00:32:36,130 --> 00:32:46,150 And those that return to violence very depolarisation again between Israelis and Palestinians. 238 00:32:46,150 --> 00:32:51,790 And in this new political context, the new history was dismissed. 239 00:32:51,790 --> 00:33:02,490 It was no longer taken seriously. And it was no longer an influence on the educational system. 240 00:33:02,490 --> 00:33:11,720 New record education ministers removed the more liberal textbooks and replaced them with old history. 241 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:25,690 So just as the political climate after the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon was conducive to the growth and success and influence of the new history. 242 00:33:25,690 --> 00:33:39,350 So the second intifada worked to undermine the new history and to undermine the credibility or file the new historians. 243 00:33:39,350 --> 00:33:40,760 And earlier on, 244 00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:52,300 you also mentioned that Israel used the words he used to apply liberally the British rule on their archives and he used the term used to a few times. 245 00:33:52,300 --> 00:33:59,660 It was that on purpose or was that just speaking? Is it the case now that there's less access to the Israeli archives? 246 00:33:59,660 --> 00:34:08,180 Absolutely, because Netanyahu doesn't only have his version of history, which is a very nationalistic, 247 00:34:08,180 --> 00:34:17,630 but he doesn't have an open mind and he wouldn't listen to any other points of view if he had just had a closed mind. 248 00:34:17,630 --> 00:34:27,410 That wouldn't matter. What matters is that he's the prime minister and has been prime minister for the last more than a decade. 249 00:34:27,410 --> 00:34:34,100 The state archive falls under the prime minister's office. 250 00:34:34,100 --> 00:34:42,170 So the state archivist is accountable. Reports to him in Israel under Labour. 251 00:34:42,170 --> 00:34:49,400 Israel had a Liberal policy on information. The 30 year old used to be applied very liberally. 252 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:59,800 But it seems to be under Netanyahu. Netanyahu actually closed the reading room in the state archives. 253 00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:06,460 So whereas my colleagues and I used to go to the reading room in the state archives, 254 00:35:06,460 --> 00:35:11,860 read the catalogues and all the files that used to be brought to us physically. 255 00:35:11,860 --> 00:35:19,930 And we would read the files. Now, Netanyahu gave the order to close the reading room in the state archives. 256 00:35:19,930 --> 00:35:22,510 Now there are no longer catalogues. 257 00:35:22,510 --> 00:35:34,270 So you don't know where to look for things that you can order place orders on the Internet by email for certain files. 258 00:35:34,270 --> 00:35:38,110 So you have to know the catalogue numbers for the funnel. 259 00:35:38,110 --> 00:35:45,310 And then you may or may not get them. But this is not the same as free access, but it's even worse than that. 260 00:35:45,310 --> 00:35:52,650 It's not just the access to the archives has been drastically reduced. 261 00:35:52,650 --> 00:36:05,130 An official from the defence ministry goes round all the archives and tries to locate documents that are not to Israel's liking, 262 00:36:05,130 --> 00:36:07,380 not to the government's liking, 263 00:36:07,380 --> 00:36:16,920 to take them out altogether so as to permanently destroy the mines or to hide a minute you a deeper cellar that I don't know, 264 00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:22,270 but to actually remove them from the files. 265 00:36:22,270 --> 00:36:29,560 So the Benny Morris, you couldn't argue with him because he would quote a specific document. 266 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:35,120 Now, if the document isn't there physically, then you can't really rely on it. 267 00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:40,300 So Netanyahu isn't just a nationalist, but he's a. 268 00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:44,740 Scholarship anti liberal historians. 269 00:36:44,740 --> 00:36:52,030 The notion of new history as a group no longer exists in Israel. 270 00:36:52,030 --> 00:36:56,830 No one talks about the new historians or about new history. 271 00:36:56,830 --> 00:37:06,190 But others still sort of descendants of that train of thought are still people who don't necessarily have an antigovernment perspective on history, 272 00:37:06,190 --> 00:37:13,520 but rather like government critical perspective on history. Is that still possible to do the research in this context as it completely? 273 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:21,170 Has it become impossible? It is possible to do research and a lot of young Israeli stories, very, very good. 274 00:37:21,170 --> 00:37:27,190 Israeli historians and many of them now are Backwell as well. 275 00:37:27,190 --> 00:37:38,350 They are doing a great deal of original research on the history of the British mandate and on the history of the state of Israel. 276 00:37:38,350 --> 00:37:46,630 That brings me to another question which I had, which you alluded to earlier, because we had the Oslo peace sorry, the Oslo Accords in 1993. 277 00:37:46,630 --> 00:37:51,910 But then when Netanyahu camp's apparent 1996, he did his best to undermine them as much as he could. 278 00:37:51,910 --> 00:38:01,000 But in 1994, Yasser Arafat's Yitzhak Rabin. And one more again, whose name I have forgotten they research. 279 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:08,200 Yes, they they received the Nobel Peace prise. Do you think it was justified for them to receive the Nobel Peace prise? 280 00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:14,410 Because I think, you know, looking at it in a very teleological way now, the Oslo Accords have failed. 281 00:38:14,410 --> 00:38:23,740 Considering the current situation in Palestine. But at the time, was it a significant enough breakthrough which then was undermined? 282 00:38:23,740 --> 00:38:30,520 I believe that the granting the Nobel Peace prise to Rabin, 283 00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:41,350 Paris and Arafat on the strength of the Oslo Peace Accords was justified at the time because for all its shortcomings, 284 00:38:41,350 --> 00:38:50,320 the Oslo Accord was a historic breakthrough in the history of the conflict because 285 00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:57,010 it was the first agreement ever between the two principal parties to the conflict. 286 00:38:57,010 --> 00:39:11,160 Israel and the Palestinians, the deep flaws in Oslo laws, the accord, was that it put to one side all the most fundamental issues in this conflict. 287 00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:20,740 It put them to one side the status of Jerusalem, the right of return of the 1948 Palestinian refugees, 288 00:39:20,740 --> 00:39:34,870 the status of the Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land and the borders of the future Palestinian entity. 289 00:39:34,870 --> 00:39:46,240 All these issues were not addressed. They were left for negotiation towards the end of the five year transition period. 290 00:39:46,240 --> 00:39:54,740 But before the end of the transition period, the whole of the Oslo peace process collapsed. 291 00:39:54,740 --> 00:40:04,350 And in the end, Israel did not use the Oslo Accord in order to end the occupation, 292 00:40:04,350 --> 00:40:16,150 but to repackage the occupation and the Israeli version of why the Oslo peace process collapsed. 293 00:40:16,150 --> 00:40:22,010 Is that it was the Palestinian return to violence. 294 00:40:22,010 --> 00:40:36,130 My. And Ilan Puppis view is that Israel was responsible for the collapse of the Oslo peace process because under the Rickwood and under Netanyahu, 295 00:40:36,130 --> 00:40:40,450 Israel reneged on its part of the bargain. 296 00:40:40,450 --> 00:40:50,860 And if you press me to explain the reason for the breakdown of the Oslo peace process, in one word, I can do it. 297 00:40:50,860 --> 00:41:00,160 And the word is settlements. Israeli settlements on the West Bank because Israeli settlements on the West Bank, 298 00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:07,270 which keep expanding even as we speak, are not about making peace with the Palestinians. 299 00:41:07,270 --> 00:41:12,100 It's about stealing more and more land from the Palestinians. 300 00:41:12,100 --> 00:41:16,990 Land grabbing and peace making. Don't go together. 301 00:41:16,990 --> 00:41:24,040 It's one, either one or the other. And by its behaviour under the Likud, under the Israeli right, 302 00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:33,520 Israel has shown very clearly that it is more interested in land grabbing than it is in making peace with the Palestinians. 303 00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:38,860 Then I have one final question, which will premise bring us back to where we began, because I know you have to leave soon. 304 00:41:38,860 --> 00:41:46,060 Do you think that the nationalist history which Israel has created for itself played a role in the ending of the peace accords 305 00:41:46,060 --> 00:41:53,660 because they had created a history of themselves being fair actors and Arabs and the Palestinians being intransigent actors, 306 00:41:53,660 --> 00:41:58,510 did that then allow them to act in, you know, what's outside? 307 00:41:58,510 --> 00:42:02,800 It seems like a very unjustifiable and very in a way which seemed to break the promises, 308 00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:12,910 but they could justify to themselves because of the discourse they had created of their relationship between themselves and the Palestinians. 309 00:42:12,910 --> 00:42:16,330 To understand the question. Yes, I think I do. 310 00:42:16,330 --> 00:42:27,730 And I think that you have a point that official history is not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. 311 00:42:27,730 --> 00:42:35,710 It's politically motivated. Again, as I said at the beginning, Israel is not unique in this respect. 312 00:42:35,710 --> 00:42:41,570 All states be build a mythology around them, all states. 313 00:42:41,570 --> 00:42:49,710 I have a version of the past which is self-serving and usually sanctimonious as well. 314 00:42:49,710 --> 00:42:58,440 Indeed, nationalist versions of history have two distinct political objectives. 315 00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:05,910 One objective is to unite the whole of society behind the regime, 316 00:43:05,910 --> 00:43:12,060 behind the government, by projecting a notion of them and asked that they threaten us. 317 00:43:12,060 --> 00:43:21,240 They are the enemy. And the other purpose of nationalist versions of history, and particularly Zionist history, 318 00:43:21,240 --> 00:43:27,580 is to project a positive image of the country to the outside world. 319 00:43:27,580 --> 00:43:41,990 And so Zionist official history. Has had this polarising effect in the Middle East of dividing the region into them and arms, 320 00:43:41,990 --> 00:43:47,470 the Rabin years were just the exception rather than the rule. 321 00:43:47,470 --> 00:43:58,810 It was the only period Rabin was the only prime minister in Israel's history, went forward towards the Palestinians on the political front. 322 00:43:58,810 --> 00:44:04,120 But he didn't go very far and he didn't achieve enough. 323 00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:09,550 And we don't know what would have happened if Rabin had not been assassinated. 324 00:44:09,550 --> 00:44:18,310 But it was the only period in Israel's history which was an attempt to get away from the burden of history, 325 00:44:18,310 --> 00:44:23,770 not to continue to be in thrall to the past, but to try something new. 326 00:44:23,770 --> 00:44:33,040 An experiment in Peller Justinian self-government leading to reconciliation after the assassination of Rabin. 327 00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:39,400 There was a return to fundamentalist Israeli positions of us. 328 00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:44,200 And then we are in the right there in the wrong. And the only end. 329 00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:47,890 There is no Palestinian partner for peace, 330 00:44:47,890 --> 00:44:58,270 and the only way forward is for Israel to acquire more and more military power and to oppress the Palestinians. 331 00:44:58,270 --> 00:45:07,730 So my conclusion is that Israel, under the present leadership, nationalist leadership, is going nowhere. 332 00:45:07,730 --> 00:45:11,680 Thank you. Listening to this episode of yours. 333 00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:20,830 Join us for the next episode where we will discuss the history, the culture of sexual questions raised by vegetables, dancing stuff. 334 00:45:20,830 --> 00:45:25,050 Element that as a student for an initiative ultimately centred inversed in Oxford. 335 00:45:25,050 --> 00:45:31,840 The opinions expressed in the podcast are not in any way represent the official opinions of limbo boasted of the Middle East. 336 00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:49,279 Just editors and those folks. So Felix Walker, Michael Memory Hauser, Max Randall, Frederico Coleman, Emman Farrah Johnson.