Joel Beinin: Avi Shlaim interview: dissenting perspective

16 January 2009

Avi Shlaim is a leading member of the Israeli “new historians” school. His interview with Amy Goodman is very clear about the current situation in Gaza and on most matters relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967. But his comments on Israel’s defensive stance towards its Arab neighbors from 1949 to 1967 are sharply contradicted by his own writing and evidence in his excellent book, The Iron Wall (and also in Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars).

[Read more]