Friday, October 03, 2008

Karsh on Morris

Efraim Karsh of the University of London reviews the latest offering of Israeli "New Historian" Benny Morris here. It's not really complimentary.

The ever-helpful Paul Bogdanor adds the following:

"Morris' new book is almost as misleading as its predecessors... e.g. he blames Israel for most of the atrocities in 1948. This is based on his estimate that enemy atrocities killed c300. Actually Israel lost 1,162 civilian dead (Arye Naor, "Israel's 1948 War of Independence as a Total War," Journal of Contemporary History, 43:2, 2008, p254). Nearly all died in indiscriminate enemy attacks. In July 1948 alone, terror bombing raids against Tel Aviv killed 142 Israelis, mostly civilians."

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