"The Arabs are after our blood"

Avi Shlaim, another of Israel's "new historians" -- and a post-Zionist who has publicly disagreed with Morris on several occasions -- puts it in starker terms: "He is typical of the left in concluding that there is no Palestinian peace partner -- but not in his call for transfer and racist views."

When I speak by telephone to Morris himself, he doesn't take back any of his earlier statements, although the language he uses is not as provocative as in the Haaretz interview. No talk of putting the Palestinians into "a cage," for instance. He speaks briskly, but his tone generally remains even, his English accent (his parents emigrated from Britain) crisp and genteel.

But the contradictions in such an inherently contradictory man are immediately evident. In one sentence he calls for Israel's unilateral dismantling of all the settlements, and an Israeli military withdrawal to the 1967 "Green Line." In another, he suggests that Palestinians in 1948 should have left their homes voluntarily and moved to Jordan to found a state there. One is struck by his many broad generalizations about Arabs and Muslims, citing readings and surveys without ever mentioning in-depth conversations with real people, human beings, friends. Whether this is the result of shell shock or some other factor, Morris' ideal world is clearly one of total separation from Arabs, and he insists that they have always wanted the exact same thing.

Most notable are Morris' own feelings about how his views mesh with those of mainstream Israeli society, and the proof he offers that he should not be marginalized: "Most people who've called me and written me on e-mail have been favorable to extremely favorable, including left-wingers. They've gone out of their way to say, 'You've said things we would never say, but we actually agree with most of everything.'"

After your first book was written in 1988, there was quite an uproar, especially among the Israeli establishment.

They didn't like what I wrote. They thought it was anti-Zionist. They prevented me from getting a job in a university for many years. They were very angry, partly because if what I wrote was true, what they'd been writing over the years was untrue. But eventually the Israeli establishment accepted me in some way. I have a job in a university; my books are taught in all the universities and accepted more or less as dogma.

Over this period of 20 years, this period I've been injected into the Israeli establishment, the establishment has generally been drifting leftwards -- it's becoming more postmodern, post-Zionist. So I still am not accepted by a large number of scholars in the establishment today as well. Especially in my university, Ben-Gurion, there's a whole host of postmodern scholars who dislike my writings, who have always disliked my writings, even before the year 2000. Even before my supposed switch. Even though I was writing about the nasty things that Jews had done to Arabs, they said that I wasn't writing it in a condemnatory enough tone.

Does the conservative establishment treat you differently now?

Yes. They have at last come to realize that I am the Zionist I always said I was. That I believe in the existence of the Jewish state and its perpetuation.

How did that ostracism affect you over the years?

Oh, it's made me a very bitter person. [Laughs.] I'm joking. In terms of my writings and in terms of my personality, I don't think it's had any great effect on me, no.

Did your approach to writing this newer version of the book change with your change in political views?

I'm not sure that my political views have changed. I think I'm still on the left in that I don't want a "Greater Israel" -- I want two states. I think the right solution here is two states for two people, along more or less the 1967 borders: We shouldn't have the settlements there, we should uproot them; we shouldn't have the army there; we should not be in occupation. They should have their capital in East Jerusalem; the city should be divided, and so on.

The problem is not in my beliefs, but that [the Palestinians] do not want that -- that is the problem. They do want the West Bank, but only as a stage in their liberation of all Palestine. That's the problem.

But I don't think it has affected my historical writing. You'll find some differences in the conclusion, which I think tries to put what happened in '48 into a wider context of the whole conflict, which I didn't really do in the original edition. But I don't really think that you'll find much changed in the substance of the book -- except, as I say, more [Israeli] expulsions, more atrocities, and also more Arab orders for people to leave.

I agree that even in reading your first book you always presented yourself as a Zionist. But your recent statements have shocked many people on the left in Israel.

[Laughs.] Well, I probably like to be provocative; I suppose that's why I started writing about such a subject to begin with. But as you say, I was always a Zionist. I think I say things a little more bluntly and certainly in a less politically correct manner than is acceptable in Israeli middle-class Ashkenazi academic circles. One doesn't talk about the potential disloyalty of Israel's Arabs. One doesn't say that perhaps it would have been better had all of them crossed the Jordan, and then we could have had two states, and then perhaps there would have been more peace instead of less peace, and less suffering rather than more suffering in '48. A lot of people on the left believe these things but don't say them -- you're not supposed to say them. That's what's so shocking -- not my opinions, but actually saying these things, which a lot of people do think.

What kinds of responses have you received, from friends, from family?

This intifada has opened people's eyes to the depths of Arab hatred for Israel, and probably the inevitability of their desire for Israel's ultimate destruction and replacement by a Muslim Arab state. I think people understand they were offered a two-state solution, a historic compromise. They rejected it. They went to the sword, which also includes awful terrorist elements, which really represents what they want.

A minority [of Israelis] disagrees [with me], and a small minority is extremely angry, especially Israeli Arabs, who think that the things I said might be considered racist. But I think the majority is with me.

Some have said that that kind of talk, whether it's what people are thinking or not, will ultimately just provoke Arabs. It can be used as proof that Israel is a country that doesn't really want to accept Arabs.

You may be right. People also spoke the same way about my book about the refugees. They said, "Well, it may be true that what happened, happened -- there were massacres and expulsions -- but you really shouldn't say it, because it's going to provoke Arabs and be uncomfortable for us in diplomatic forums and so on." There are always arguments against people telling the truth, or saying things the way they actually see them. The same applies to this. I think it's better that people face what I consider to be realities.

And the reality of Arab hatred and intransigence, and the ultimate desire to destroy us, is something Israelis must understand. It may change in a generation, but it's not going to change tomorrow, and this is the way the Arabs think today under Arafat. I think Israelis must know this, must get used to this. And this may mean, down the road, new difficulties, new wars, and even perhaps an expulsion. People should face reality, or what I think is reality -- and this is a problem for a lot of people.

Next Page: On the "right of return" insisted on by many Palestinians: "Jews understand that this would be suicide"

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