STEVE PLAUT ON PROFESSOR BENNY MORRIS…PERSPECTIVE ON A “CONVERTED” ISRAEL BASHER
In the old novel Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, there is a bizarre
character in the story, a man who had been a Nazi war criminal, but
after the War trained as a medical doctor and came to the Caribbean in
order to save sick impoverished island people. He saves about a dozen
people a week and he figure it will only take about 600 years to save
more people than he had killed as a war criminal during the War.
I gotta tell you that I am reminded of that story whenever I
contemplate Benny Morris. Don’t take this the wrong way – Morris was
never any murderer or war criminal and I do not mean to imply that he
was evil as a Nazi.
Morris was one of the original and in some ways the most destructive
of the “New Historians” Israel produced. He was essentially a
pseudo-historian, inventing history “narratives” to reflect Arab
propaganda and demonization of Israel. And he was good at it. He
collaborated with filth like Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim. Because he
was so viciously anti-Israel and because so much of his academic
career consisted of churning out anti-Israel propaganda, Morris had
trouble finding an academic position in Israel. He was eventually
hired by Ben Gurion University, and rumor has it that the president of
the university at the time, leftist Avishai Braverman, personally
intervened so that Morris could get hired. Morris turned out
Bash-Israel and Bash-Zionism books that were not very different from
what Ilan Pappe produced, a lot about the 1948-9 Israeli war for
independence. He also worked back then a lot for the Jerusalem Post
during its phases under leftist control. (The Post shifts back and
forth, from side to side, especially when its ownership is sold. It
now seems to be moving leftward rapidly.)
All this made Morris the darling of the campus Lefts in Europe and the
US. They loved citing Morris to prove how evil Israel is and was. 12
years ago or so Morris would have been one of the most obvious targets
for righteous Zionist rage and for being exposed, attacked and
denounced as a pseudo-scholar, something like a Neve Gordon or Ilan
Pappe.
But then something happened. Morris suddenly appeared to have second
thoughts. He repudiated his earlier anti-Israel radicalism and
started espousing pro-Israel and pro-Zionist opinion, especially about
the 1948-9 war of independence. Not everyone is completely convinced
that Morris has wised up, and Efraim Karsh is the leading proponent of
the idea that Morris has not and is simply engaged in pragmatic
maneuvering. (See
http://www.meforum.org/466/benny-morris-and-the-reign-of-error ,
http://www.meforum.org/711/benny-morriss-reign-of-error-revisited as
well as several Karsh articles in the NYTimes and Commentary
Magazine).
I was skeptical of Morris’ “conversion” at first, but over time it
seems to me to be genuine. I think his very first public break with
the Bash-Israel Left took place in Berkeley, when I happened to be in
town. Invited to speak in a church, the place was packed with the
usual Berkeley jihadists and Hitlerjugend expecting a blistering
demonization of Israel. Instead Morris spent the entire talk
explaining that the Middle East conflict is the fault of the Arabs,
including any “refugee” problem. You can imagine the hysterical
reactions in the local Berkeley drug-infested media.
Later Morris would gave interviews and make statements that not only
were outright Zionist, but he went so far as to argue that any
expulsions by Israel of any Arabs that took place in 1948 were
entirely justified!
As a result, for 8 or 10 years now, Morris is the Israeli historian
that the moonbats and the anti-Semites most love to hate. They have
special hatred for him because, after all, he used to be one of them
and “betrayed” them.
Morris is frequently singled out for the venom of the barbarians,
including in Israel. When invited a few months back to speak at
Cambridge, the local anti-Semites made a fuss and insisted that Morris
be dis-invited because he is a “racist.” After all, anyone thinking
Israel has the right to defend itself is a “racist” in such circles.
His talk was cancelled. This is academic freedom in Britain!
This past week, Morris was invited to speak at the London School of
Economics, which – despite its name – is also crawling with leftist
vermin. On the way to the talk he was almost lynched by a mob of
leftists and jihadists. He was personally targeted in incitement to
violence by the heads of the local BDS Hitlerjugend, where BDS is the
“Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement.
Morris managed to escape and under heavy security presence he did give
a talk to 300-400 students at LSE.
That full story was in Friday’s Makor Rishon.
What does the one-time Post-Zionist and one-time “New Historian”
Morris make of almost being lynched for being a Zionist?
I do not know, but I think it raises the odds of his rededicating
himself to expunging his old propaganda and doing real research that
promotes the truth, or what some pseudo-academics prefer to call the
“Zionist narrative.”
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