So without further ado, let's get to the good stuff. S.A.M. has been quoting research conducted by dissident Israeli academics Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris to claim that there is evidence from the Israeli side of intentional large-scale massacres and pre-meditated intentions to cleanse the lands within the 1948 borders of all arab inhabitants. Rather than asking for the full context of their research and the full context of the resources on which this research is based, neither of which have been provided, I shall instead give quotes from both academics criticizing and debunking each others' work.
These particular quotes come from a website called camera.org, which I freely admit takes a strongly pro-Israel stance. However, their stated mission is to monitor and correct perceived fallacies in Middle East reporting, and they provide independent resources to verify their claims. Rather than copy and paste everything verbatim to flood this forum and make it an unreadable eye-straining mess like S.A.M. does, I'll simply provide a link:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=122&x_article=1299
and also (linked from the above article)
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_print=1&x_context=8&x_nameinnews=122&x_article=994
A brief example of Benny Morris criticizing Ilan Pappe's work; the source for this one is cited as the New Republic, March 22, 2004:
according to Pappe, the Stern Gang and the Palmach existed 'before the revolt' of 1936 (they were established in 1940-1941); that the Palmach 'between 1946 and 1948' fought against the British (in 1947-1948 it did not); that Ben-Gurion in 1929 was chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive (he was chairman from 1935 to 1948); that the Arab Higher Committee was established 'by 1934' (it was set up in 1936); that the Arab Legion did not withdraw from Palestine, along with the British, in May, 1948 (most of its units did); that the United Nations' partition proposal of November 29, 1947 had 'an equal number of supporters and detractors' (the vote was thirty-three for, thirteen against, and ten abstentions); that the 'Jewish forces [were] better equipped' than the invading Arab armies in May, 1948 (they were not, by any stretch of the imagination); that the first truce was 'signed' on June 10, 1948 (it was never 'signed,' and it began on June 11); that in August, 1948 'the successful Israeli campaigns continued, leading to their complete control of Palestine, apart from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip' (the Second Truce prevailed during August and September, and warfare was resumed only in mid-October); that the Grand Mufti fled Palestine in 1938 (he left in October, 1937); that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was 'built . . . in 1920' (it was founded in 1925 and constructed during the following decades); that Tel Aviv was 'founded . . . on a Saturday morning in July 1907' (it was 1909); that the late nineteenth-century Zionist pioneers known as the Biluim established 'the first Zionist settlements in Palestine' (they did not), and that they 'were led' by Moshe Lilienblum and Leon Pinsker (they were not). . ." [the list goes on]
Another quote from Morris:
Pappe is a proud postmodernist. He believes that there is no such thing as historical truth, only a collection of narratives as numerous as the participants in any given event or process; and each narrative, each perspective, is as valid and legitimate, as true, as the next...
There are many other criticisms of Ilan Pappe just from that one article alone (on camera.org), and he seems to have quite the reputation for factual distortions and falsehoods. This is something a proper researcher would have considered and looked into very carefully before levelling authoritative charges accusing an entire race of people of committing intentional genocide.
More factual distortions listed by camera.org that, if true, would make Pappe a seriously questionable source on history:
Yasir Arafat's birthplace is Cairo and not Jerusalem. The U.N. Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) presented its report on August 31, 1947, not on November 29. Deir Yasin is a village near Jerusalem, and not in Haifa. Lawrence of Arabia had nothing to do with the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence that led to the "Great Arab Revolt" of World War I. Further, this correspondence was initiated by the Hashemites not by the British. Pappé even misspells the official English transliteration of President Weizmann's first name (Chaim, not Haim).
More serious is the book's consistent resort to factual misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood. Readers are told of events that never happened, such as the nonexistent May 1948 Tantura "massacre" or the expulsion of Arabs within twelve days of the partition resolution. They learn of political decisions that were never made, such as the Anglo-French 1912 plan for the occupation of Palestine or the contriving of "a master plan to rid the future Jewish state of as many Palestinians as possible." And they are misinformed about military and political developments, such as the rationale for the Balfour declaration . . .
This is just a small fraction of the arguments against Pappe's work coming from just one website, never mind all the mainstream academics who have directly challenged this work.
And here's Pappe criticizing Morris' work in the Jerusalem Post:
"Pappe, a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa, shared countless lecture hall stages with Morris after their first books appeared, and the men became friends. Now they no longer speak, their relationship poisoned by a series of angry public exchanges rooted in their vastly different interpretations of Israel's history. 'Morris bothers me for what he represents, not as a person,' Pappe says during a visit to his cluttered university office. 'The extremes he is willing to go to justify Zionism and the prejudice he shows against the Palestinians is shared by so many Jews.' "
Now you can argue that Pappe disagrees with Morris only insofar as Morris doesn't blame everything on the zionists, but what kind of objectivity is that supposed to represent?
I can cite countless videos and articles by arab writers talking about how the Palestinians have plenty of reasons to lay most of the blame for their Nakba on the arab nations who pretended (and still pretend) to represent them. I can find you plenty of arab writers and academics who give themselves wholeheartedly to supporting the Israeli cause, at least insofar as the 1948 borders are concerned. Do I bother to do this? No, because what concerns me most are objective sources that can conclusively prove one claim or another. Otherwise, in the absence of hard physical and corroborative evidence for so many of the claims and counterclaims, arguing about events that happened generations ago, we have no option but to move on and work from the facts we have today. The UN recognition of Israel within its 1948 borders seems to me a very reasonable place to start, and a majority of Israelis and Palestinians have said as much in the past.
