For information specific to membership in the Arab League see Member states of the Arab League.

Country	Area (Rank)	Area (km2)[Note 1]	Area (sq mi)	Area (% of Total)	Area (Notes)	Pop	Pop (World rank)	Density (rank)	Density (/km2)	Density (/mi2)
Algeria	1	2,381,741	919,595	18.1%	Largest country in Africa and in the Arab world.	37,100,000	34	17	16	41
Bahrain	22	758	293	0.005%		1,234,596	155	1	1,646	4,263
Comoros	21	2,235	863	0.01%		691,000	163	4	309	800
Djibouti	16	23,200	9,000	0.1%		864,000	159	15	37	96
Egypt	6	1,002,000	387,000	7.6%	Excluding the Hala'ib Triangle (20,580 km2/7,950 sq mi).	81,650,212[1]	16	9	90	233
Iraq	10	435,244	168,049	3.3%		30,747,000	40	12	70	181
Jordan	14	89,342	34,495	0.7%		6,316,000	106	11	71	184
Kuwait	17	17,818	6,880	0.1%		3,566,000	134	5	200	518
Lebanon	19	10,452	4,036	0.08%		4,224,000	125	3	404	1,046
Libya	4	1,759,540	679,360	11.4%		6,420,000	103	21	3.6	9.3
Mauritania	5	1,025,520	395,960	7.8%		3,291,000	138	22	3.2	8.3
Morocco	9	446,550	172,410	3.4%	Does not include Western Sahara (266,000 km2/103,000 sq mi).	36,064,173	35	10	75	194
Oman	11	309,500	119,500	2.4%		2,845,000	139	20	9.2	24
Palestine	20	6,020	2,320	0.05%		4,136,540 (Disputed)	126	2	687	1,779
Qatar	18	11,586	4,473	0.08%		1,699,435	149	6	154	399
Saudi Arabia	2	2,149,690	830,000	16.4%	Largest country in the Middle East.	28,146,658	45	19	131	339
Somalia	7	637,657	246,201	4.9%		9,133,000	85	18	14	36
Sudan	3	1,861,484	718,723	14.2%	Formerly the largest country in Africa.	30,894,000	39	16	16	41
Syria	12	185,180	71,500	1.4%	Including the part of the Golan Heights (1,200 km2/460 sq mi) currently administered by Israel.	21,906,000	55	7	118	306
Tunisia	13	163,610	63,170	1.2%		10,673,800	77	13	65	168
United Arab Emirates	15	83,600	32,300	0.6%		8,264,070	93	8	99	256
Yemen	8	527,968	203,850	4.0%		23,580,000	49	14	45	117
TOTAL  Arab League	#	#	#	#	#	349,870,608

Notes[link]

References[link]

Danny Ayalon דני אילון
Date of birth	(1955-12-17) 17 December 1955 (age 56)
Place of birth	Tel Aviv, Israel
Knessets	18
Party	Yisrael Beiteinu
Ministerial posts (current in bold)	Deputy Foreign Minister

Daniel "Danny" Ayalon (Hebrew: דניאל "דני" אילון‎, born 17 December 1955) is an Israeli diplomat and politician who currently serves as Deputy Foreign Minister and as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu. Formerly he served as Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2002 until 2006. He frequently writes in Israeli and international newspapers, notably in the Jerusalem Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Early life and education[link]

Danny Ayalon was born in Tel Aviv in 1955 to Lily Ellon, a Polish Jew who immigrated to Israel in 1937 and Rafael Ayalon, an Algerian Jew. Ayalon was raised and educated in Tel Aviv and was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces where he rose to the rank of Captain in the Armored Corps. He received a BA in economics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from Bowling Green University in Ohio.^[1]

Prior to his career in public service, Ayalon was a partner at Gravitas Ltd., an international consulting group, past president of private investment firm Hod Ayalon Ltd, and a finance manager for Koor Industries.^[2]

Ayalon is married. He and his wife, Anne, have two children.^[1]

Foreign Service Career[link]

Ayalon was a member of the Israeli delegations to Sharm el-Sheikh (1997), Wye Plantation (1998) and Camp David (2000) summits. From 1993–1997, he served as the Director of the Bureau of Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. in New York. He was Israel’s Ambassador to Panama from 1991–1992.^[3]

Israel's Ambassador to the United States[link]

Ayalon was appointed Israel’s Ambassador to the United States in 2002 by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Before his appointment, Ayalon had served as a Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and to Ehud Barak as well as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.^[4]

Throughout his time in Washington, Ayalon cultivated a strong relationship with President George W. Bush and played a leading role in the Road Map for Peace negotiations between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon .^[5] He also secured the agreement for $9 billion in U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel beginning in 2003 which Israel needed in order to raise funds abroad at low interest rates. In early 2012, as Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Ayalon, met with his U.S. counterparts to secure another three-year, $3.8 billion extension of loan guarantees.^[6]

Co-chairman of Nefesh B’Nefesh[link]

Upon retiring from the foreign service in 2006, Ayalon became the co-chairman of Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that encourages Aliyah by Jewish people to Israel from North America and other English-speaking areas.^[7] Forming alliances with government bodies in Israel and Jewish organizations from around the world, he played a critical role in Israel’s decision to fund private Aliyah beginning in September 2007. On 31 December 2008, Ayalon left Nefesh B’Nefesh “to pursue an independent political career opportunity”.^[8]

Deputy Foreign Minister[link]

Election and Appointment[link]

In August 2008, Ayalon joined Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu as chairman of World Yisrael Beiteinu,^[8] opening branches of the party around the globe. Ayalon explained that Israel Beiteinu was a natural fit for him as he entered politics because he saw many problems, especially with Israeli foreign policy. Ayalon is working to reform the Israeli parliamentary style democracy into a more representative democratic government. Such change will allow Israel to have a greater unity of government and to take more uniformed political positions.^[4]

Ayalon was placed seventh on the party's list for the 2009 elections to the Knesset,^[9] and was elected in February 2009 after the party won 15 seats.^[10] In April 2009, Ayalon was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu’s newly elected government.^[11] According to the Jerusalem Post, “Ayalon's role is to serve as Lieberman's de-facto foreign minister, explaining and justifying his Lieberman's diplomatic plans to the world in a way that only a respected, seasoned diplomat can”.^[4]

Government and Electoral Reform[link]

According to Ayalon, a major focus of Israeli diplomatic work involves branding: “We must brand Israel as a democratic Western society, productive and technologically advanced, one that contributes to the world and helps solve the major challenges facing humankind. Israeli democracy in general, and its political system in particular, are the best tools with which to showcase our brand”. However, Ayalon, who admires the American system, in conjunction with Lieberman, calls for political and electoral reform in Israel to create greater accountability and consistency within the government, stating: “In autocratic regimes you have maximum governability, because the leadership can make decisions without an opposition, and there are no checks or balances. Here, we are perhaps too far toward the other extreme; we have almost complete representation with little governability”.^[12] In his opinion, “a homogenous government, comprised of like-minded ministers speaking with one voice and representing a singular policy framework is required to contribute to clear public diplomacy, the sort of diplomacy that Israel sorely needs now to combat the cohesive narrative and branding effort put forth by the Palestinians”.^[13]

Foreign Policy[link]

Ayalon aims to develop and expand Israel’s diplomatic ties worldwide and to form new coalitions through economic and political cooperation and greater foreign aid.^[14] In 2011, he embarked on a Latin American tour with an official visit to Mexico and a visit to El Salvador where he attended the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), addressing the ramifications of the Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood and the mounting Iranian threat.^[15] Earlier, Ayalon had worked with several nations in order to combat the Goldstone Report and its effects.^[16]

Israel-U.S. Strategic Dialogue

Ayalon maintains a strong relationship with the United States. He serves as Israel’s representative in the semi-annual Israel-U.S. Strategic Dialogue.^[17]

Israeli-Arab relations

In an appeal to the Arab world, Ayalon wrote a piece for the pan-Arab newspaper, Asharq Alawsat in 2009, explaining Israel’s past and ongoing partnerships within the Arab world such as Israel’s training of Jordanians in advanced agricultural techniques, calling them positive bridges on the road to peace and coexistence.^[18]

At the sixth annual international WATEC-Israel exhibition in November 2011, Ayalon offered the Arab world to share Israel’s advanced water technologies. “Israel will benefit from a peace agreement, but you will also gain a genuine partner for development and the assured welfare of future generations in the region,” Ayalon said at the opening session.^[19]

Israeli settlements

Ayalon slammed the claims that settlements were the cause of violence, citing the pre-state 1929 Arab killing of Jews in Hebron.^[20] He has criticized world leaders who accuse Israel of destroying the peace process by building in East Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Gilo.^[21]

In 2005, as Israel’s representative to the United States, Ayalon suported Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, in which all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were evacuated.^[22] However, as a Member of the Knesset, Ayalon explained that he feels the disengagement was a mistake and, “in hindsight we shouldn't have done it because it was excruciatingly painful“.^[23]

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

According to Ayalon, “the real obstacle to peace is Palestinian rejection of Israel and the self-determination of the Jewish people”. He has condemned Palestinian claims which “deny the Jewish people’s connection with its homeland”, and the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information’s false claims that the Jews have no past connections to the Western Wall of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem and to the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch.^[24]

Ayalon called the Gaza flotilla raid of May 2010, in which nine activists were killed and many injured a “provocation”, stating: “On the deck we found weapons which were used against the forces. The organizers’ intent was violent and the results were unfortunate. Israel regrets the loss of life. We called the organizers once again the [sic] stop the provocations”.^[25] He has criticized claims that the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as a result of Israel’s blockade citing that, “Gaza receives equivalent of 40% of goods imported by Israel. It's absurd for Israel to take care of Gazans while Hamas fires rockets.”^[26]

Iran

At the Munich Security Conference in February 2011, Ayalon, emphasizing Germany’s crucial part in crushing the Iranian threat, stated: “The Iranian regime today is just as dangerous to the world as Hitler was in the 1930s. We don't have the luxury of waiting for the results of the sanctions on Iran; we must immediately put heavy pressure on Iran until it cracks. Germany, as the strongest country in the European Union, must provide an answer to the needs of the European states that get oil from Iran, so that they will no longer be dependent on Iranian oil.”^[27] He also made an appeal to Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to cancel her plans to visit Iran, stating that the visit would legitimize a regime that “maliciously violates human rights, executes its citizens and openly calls for genocide”.^[28]

Refugees

Ayalon has appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to end what he called the “morally and politically unacceptable” solution created for the Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), accusing it to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by not finding permanent solutions for refugees. “While the UNHCR has found durable solutions for tens of millions of refugees, the agency created specifically for the Palestinian context, UNRWA, has found durable solutions for no one”, he stated at a conference in Geneva. He also called for redress for the aproximatly 850,000 Jews from Arab counties, who fled their homes after Israel was established. He said that while the refugee issue was a “core element” in solving the conflict, both Palestinian and Jewish refugees have to be taken into account.^[29]

Turkish Relations

Ayalon became internationally known in early 2010, after he summoned the Turkish ambassador to Israel, Ahmet Oğuz Çelikkol, to complain about a Turkish television series, Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu, which showed anti-Semitic motifs, including Mossad agents snatching a Muslim baby to convert to Judaism and shooting old men.^[30] At the meeting, Ayalon did not display the Turkish flag, and pointed out to the waiting media that the Turkish Ambassador sat on a lower sofa. Ayalon later apologized to Çelikkol for any personal slight or insult, but not for the substance of the rebuke.^[31]

Holy See Negotiations

In December 2009, Ayalon led high-level diplomatic discussions with the Holy See concerning Church properties and taxes,^[32] leading to an agreement in early 2012 between Israel and the Vatican in which the latter agreed to waive its demand to receive sovereignty over The Cenacle, the location of the Last Supper, on Jerusalem's Mount Zion. Israel, in return, agreed to consider giving the Church access to the site and is considering a leasing option. As part of the agreement, the Vatican will for the first time pay a reduced property tax for its large amount of assets in Israel.^[33]

International aid[link]

Ayalon supports expanding Israel’s global initiatives through MASHAV, Israel's National Agency for International Development. Following the 2010 Earthquake, MASHAV deployed emergency medical services and polices forces to Haiti.^[34] Israel was also the first country to set up a field hospital in Japan after the 2011 earthquake.^[35] Through MASHAV Israel has partnered with the United States in Ethiopia, with Germany in Ethiopia and Ghana, with Italy in Senegal, and with Japan and Denmark in the Middle East.^[36]

In January 2011, Ayalon and German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dirk Niebel met and signed a joint Declaration of Intent aimed to increase bilateral cooperation in effort to assist developing nations, agreeing to work towards the rehabilitation of the contaminated Lake Victoria in Kenya, the main source of water for several states and one of the sources of the Nile River.^[37] In February of the same year Ayalon and Niebel met again to examine aid to the new Republic of South Sudan.^[27]

Also in February 2011, Ayalon signed a joint declaration of cooperation on water supply and sustainable energy technology management with Polish Minister of the Environment Bernard Blaszczyk. Israel and Poland will cooperate to promote investment, the exchanging of technologies, and the sharing of information.^[38]

Videos[link]

In a video titled “The Truth About the West Bank” released by the Israeli foreign ministry in June 2011, Ayalon presents a historical narrative meant to help wage the public diplomacy battle about Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. In the video made in cooperation with StandWithUs, which is very similar to one released earlier by the Yesha council, the organization of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Ayalon asks viewers to stop referring to Judea and Samaria as “occupied territories”. “It is time for Israel to return to a ‘rights-based diplomacy’ and talk about the facts, rights, history and international law which are little known but give a dramatically different viewpoint to what is currently accepted,” he said after the video’s release.^[39] After the video was posted online, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority’s top negotiator, denounced the video as a “falsified account of history and international law”, but refused to participate in a public debate on the issues raised in the video proposed by Ayalon.^[40]

Two more videos staring Ayalon were released: “The Truth About the Peace Process” in September 2011, and “The Truth About the Refugees” in December 2011.^[41]

Social Media[link]

In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ayalon has worked to expand Israel’s social media diplomacy by helping the ministry maintain over 100 Facebook pages, including “Israel speaks Arabic”, a page written in Arabic.^[42] After the initiatives launch, Ayalon explained that “it is vital that Israel's voice is heard in every corner of the world and even more so amongst its immediate neighbors”.^[43] Ayalon has over 36,000 Facebook followers.^[44] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency ranked him as the most influential Israeli Politician on Twitter and one of the 100 most influential Jews in 2010.^[45] Ayalon has more than 18,100 Twitter followers.^[46] He also has nearly 1,000,000 totally upload views on YouTube.^[47] He has been recognized as one of the world’s leading politicians to utilize social media by web based policy center Dimpool and by Foreign Policy, surpassing President Barack Obama.^[48][49]

Community Service and Involvement[link]

Ayalon has served as a member of the Executive Board at the University Center in Ariel, as Vice Chair of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce, and as a Board Member of the America-Israel Friendship League.^[50] He is a suporter of Aish HaTorah yeshiva and says he tries to make time each week to learn with Rabbi Ephraim Shore of the yeshiva.^[51]

In partnership with “Latet,” Ayalon asked the workers at the Foreign Ministry as well as Green-Israel and Alma-Gilro to donate food to make over 100 Purim baskets for Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem.^[52] In 2011, together with “United with Israel,” Ayalon helped launch another Purim basket campaign to give soldiers a special thank you during the holiday.^[53] For Passover that same year, Ayalon and workers at the Ministry initiated the project, “Lending a (Diplomatic) Hand to the Community”, where they hand-picked over 2,000 Kg of beetroot that was donated to over 700 needy Israeli families.^[54]

Ayalon has been a co-host on the English speaking Rusty Mike Radio station based in Jerusalem where he expressed his affection for the English speaking community and played some of his favorite music including the Beatles.^[55]

Awards and Recognition[link]

In 2005, Ayalon received the Brandeis Award of the Jewish Community of Baltimore. He was the recipient of Aish Hatorah’s Builder of Jerusalem Award in 2008.^[56]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daniel Ayalon

• Ayalon's Official English Website
• Ayalon's Official Hebrew Website
• Ayalon's Official English Knesset Website
• Ayalon's Official Hebrew Knesset Website
• Ayalon's Official Facebook Page
• Ayalon's Official Youtube Channel
• Yisrael Beiteinu's Official English Website
• Yisrael Beiteinu's Official Hebrew Website
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official English Website
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official Hebrew Website
• All Ministers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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Benny Morris
Born	(1948-12-08)8 December 1948 Ein HaHoresh, Israel
Residence	Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of Cambridge
Occupation	Historian
Known for	One of Israel's "New Historians"

Benny Morris (Hebrew: בני מוריס‎‎; born 8 December 1948^[1] in Ein HaHoresh, Israel) is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel. He is a key member of the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians".

Morris's work on the Arab-Israeli conflict and especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has won praise and criticism from both sides of the political divide. He is accused by some academics in Israel of only using Israeli and never Arab sources, creating an "unbalanced picture".^[2] Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened."^[3]

Biography[link]

Morris was born in Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, the son of Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom.^[4] His father, Ya'akov Morris, was an Israeli diplomat, historian, and poet.^[5] According to The New Yorker, Benny Morris "grew up in the heart of a left-wing pioneering atmosphere".^[6]

His parents left their kibbutz and moved to Jerusalem when Morris was a year old, so that Morris could spend more time with them: kibbutz life had entailed a degree of separation.^[7] In the wake of his father's diplomatic duties, the family spent four years in New York when Morris was nine, and another two years there when he was 15.

Morris served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces during the Six-Day War. He was wounded in 1969 by an Egyptian shell at the Suez Canal, and was released from the army four months later. He completed his undergraduate studies in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a doctorate in Anglo-German relations from the University of Cambridge.^[7]

Journalistic career and military refusal[link]

After graduation from the University of Cambridge he returned to Jerusalem and worked as a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post for 12 years.^[7] In 1982, he covered the Lebanon War, and also served as a reservist, taking part in the siege of Beirut in a mortar unit.^[6] In 1986, he did reserve duty in the West Bank. In 1988, when he was called up for reserve duty during the First Intifada, he refused to serve and spent three weeks in jail.^[7]

It was while working at The Jerusalem Post in the 1980s that Morris began reading through Israeli government archives, at first looking at the history of the Palmach, then turning his attention to the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem. Mainstream Israeli historiography at the time explained the 1948 Palestinian exodus from their towns and villages as having been driven by fear, or by instructions from Arab leaders. Morris found evidence that, in fact, there had been expulsions, which he made public in 1988 in The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949.^[7]

Morris coined the term "New Historians" to describe himself, and historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe. All three were attacked by the Israeli right, accused of being antisemites and Arab lovers, and compared to Holocaust deniers.^[7]

When Conrad Black bought the Post in 1990, Morris was one of the Israeli left-wing journalists. He continued to write as a freelance, producing Israel's Secret Wars, co-written with Ian Black of The Guardian, and Righteous Victims, a history of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In 1996, he told a journalist that he was thinking of moving to America to find work; when this appeared in an article, he was invited to talk to Israel's president, Ezer Weizman, who reportedly interrogated Morris for an hour about 1948, to find out whether he was a good historian and a good Zionist. Satisfied that he was both, Weizmann found him a job as a history professor at the University of the Negev in Beersheba.^[7]

Political views[link]

Critics on the Israeli right have alleged that Morris's first book betrayed Arab sympathies and have criticized his work as biased for that reason. Morris responds that they failed to read his book with moral detachment. They assumed that, when he described Israeli actions as cruel or as atrocities, he was condemning them. In fact, he writes, he not only fails to condemn, but in many cases supports Israeli actions during 1948. That support does not stop him from wanting to describe them.^[4]

His work has been cited and criticized by Arab writers for failing to use the evidence he found of forced evictions of Palestinians in 1948 from their homes and land.^[8] His views seemed to harden in 2000 after the Palestinian rejection of President Clinton's peace accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada:

My turning point began after 2000. I wasn't a great optimist even before that. True, I always voted Labor or Meretz or Sheli and in 1988 I refused to serve in the territories and was jailed for it, but I always doubted the intentions of the Palestinians. The events of Camp David and what followed in their wake turned the doubt into certainty. When the Palestinians rejected the proposal of [prime minister Ehud] Barak in July 2000 and the Clinton proposal in December 2000, I understood that they are unwilling to accept the two-state solution. They want it all. Lod and Acre and Jaffa.^[4]

Morris still describes himself as left-wing because of his support for the two state solution, but he has said that his generation will not see peace in Israel.^[4] He has said, "I don't see the suicide bombings as isolated acts. They express the deep will of the Palestinian people. That is what the majority of the Palestinians want."^[4] According to The Economist: "Mr Morris also said, in an interview that stunned his supporters, that Israel was justified in uprooting the Palestinian 'fifth column' once the Arabs had attacked the infant state, and that the number executed or massacred—some 800, on his reckoning—was 'peanuts' compared with, say, the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s."^[9] On the subject of Israel's Arab citizens, Morris has argued:

The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel again finds itself in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to act as it did then. If we are attacked by Egypt (after an Islamist revolution in Cairo) and by Syria, and chemical and biological missiles slam into our cities, and at the same time Israeli Palestinians attack us from behind, I can see an expulsion situation. It could happen. If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified...^[4]

Morris has called the Israel–Palestinian conflict a facet of a global clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalism and the Western World, saying, "There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien.^[4] He also says "Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions."^[4]

When a Haaretz interviewer called the 1948 Palestinian exodus "ethnic cleansing", Morris responded, "[t]here are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."^[4]

Morris endorses the creation of a Palestinian state, as reducing the urge for violence against Israelis. But he thinks Israel needs take measures to protect her citizens in the meantime:

"We have to try to heal the Palestinians. Maybe over the years the establishment of a Palestinian state will help in the healing process. But in the meantime, until the medicine is found, they have to be contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us.

"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." This was said in the context of Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers during the Second Intifada.

In the end, he says, the Jews, in their restored existence as a national state, are the greater victims, past and potential:

"...that's so for the Jewish people, not the Palestinians. A people that suffered for 2,000 years, that went through the Holocaust, arrives at its patrimony but is thrust into a renewed round of bloodshed, that is perhaps the road to annihilation. In terms of cosmic justice, that's terrible. It's far more shocking than what happened in 1948 to a small part of the Arab nation that was then in Palestine."

"...We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late."

Morris wrote in the Irish Times, "There was no Zionist 'plan' or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of 'ethnic cleansing'" and "the demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies—much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two."^[10] Morris has criticized David Ben-Gurion for not carrying out such a plan, saying "In the end, he faltered... If he had carried out a full expulsion—rather than a partial one—he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."^[4]

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times in July 2008, Morris wrote, "Iran's leaders would do well to rethink their gamble and suspend their nuclear program. Bar this, the best they could hope for is that Israel's conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland."^[11] In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard Morris argues for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran as the only alternative left to stop the Iranian nuclear program.^[12]

Selected book summaries[link]

1948 Palestinian exodus Main articles 1948 Palestinian exodus 1947–48 civil war 1948 Arab-Israeli War 1948 Palestine War Causes of the exodus Nakba Day Palestine refugee camps Palestinian refugee Palestinian right of return Present absentee Transfer Committee Resolution 194 Background Mandatory Palestine Israel's declaration of independence Israeli-Palestinian conflict history New Historians Palestine · Plan Dalet 1947 partition plan · UNRWA Key incidents Battle of Haifa Deir Yassin massacre Exodus from Lydda Notable writers Aref al-Aref · Yoav Gelber Efraim Karsh · Walid Khalidi Nur Masalha · Benny Morris Ilan Pappe · Tom Segev Avraham Sela · Avi Shlaim Related categories/lists List of depopulated villages Related templates Palestinians This box: view talk edit

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947—1949 (1988)

In his first The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947—1949 (1988), Morris argues that the 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in 1947 left mostly due to Israeli military attacks; fear of impending attacks; and expulsions. He argues that there was no centralized expulsion policy as such, but expulsions were ordered by the Israeli high command as needed. This was a controversial position when Morris first wrote of it; the official position in Israel was that the Palestinians had left voluntarily, or under pressure from Palestinian or other Arab leaders. At the same time, Morris documents atrocities by the Israelis, including cases of rape and torture. The book shows a map of 228 empty Palestinian villages, and attempts to explain why the villagers left. In 41 villages, he writes, the inhabitants were expelled by the IDF; in another 90, residents fled because of attacks on other villages; and in six, they left under instructions from local Palestinian authorities. He was unable to find out why another 46 villages were abandoned.

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2004)

In his updated The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2004), Morris answers critics of the first version and adds material from the opening of new Israeli government archives. He writes that the contents of the new documents substantially increase both Israeli and Palestinian responsibility for the refugee problem, revealing more expulsions and atrocities on the Israeli side, and more orders from Arab officials to the Palestinians to leave their villages, or at least to send their women and children away. Morris writes that his conclusions are unlikely to please either Israeli or Palestinian propagandists, or "black-or-white historians".^[13]

1948 and After (1994)

1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians is a collection of essays dedicated to the Palestinian exodus of 1948 and subsequent events. It analyses Mapai and Mapam policy during the exodus, the IDF report of July 1948 on its causes, Yosef Weitz's involvement in the events, and some cases of expulsions that occurred in the fifties. Although Morris dismisses the claim that the Palestinians were systematically expelled due to orders from Israeli officials, he nevertheless cites an IDF Intelligence Report that concludes that 70% of the exodus was caused by Israeli forces and 'Jewish dissidents^[14]

The IDF report lists: 'the factors that precipitated the exodus in order of importance—

1. direct, hostile Jewish [Haganah/IDF] operations against Arab settlements.
2. the effect of our [Haganah/IDF] hostile operations on nearby Arab settlements
3. Operations of the Jewish dissidents [the Irgun Z'va'i Leumi and Lohamei Herut Yisrael]'^[15]

Collectively these 3 factors were considered to be responsible for causing 70% of the exodus, according to the IDF report. Furthermore, Morris states 'the report makes no mention of any blanket order issued over Arab radio stations or through other means, to the Palestinians to evacuate their homes and villages'^[16] despite as Morris states the IDF 'monitoring Arab radio transmissions'. Confirming as has been argued elsewhere, notably by Avi Shlaim in 'the debate about 1948' that the myth of the invading 'Arab armies' calling Palestinians to flee is totally unsustainable and without substance.

Righteous Victims (1999)

Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 is based largely on secondary works and gives a synthesis of existing research on the various subjects and periods covered. Morris writes "a history of this subject, based mainly on primary sources is, I suspect, beyond the abilities of a single scholar. There are simply too many archives, files, and documents. Nonetheless, parts of the present book-the coverage of the 1948 war and the decade after it, and of certain episodes that occurred during the 1930s and the 1982–85 Lebanon War—are based in large measure on primary sources." ^[17]

Making Israel (2008)

Edited by Morris, this collection of articles was written by "traditionalists and revisionists who openly and directly lay out their key insights about Israel's origins".^[18] The articles can be downloaded from the website of the University of Michigan Press.^[19]

1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War (2008)

Morris gives a detailed account of the 1948 Palestine war. Yoav Gelber writes, "1948 is a praiseworthy achievement of research and analysis, the work of a historian unwilling to rest on his already considerable laurels." Gelber disagrees with some of Morris's analysis, in particular with the idea that the 1948 war was more a "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam than a nationalist struggle. He also argues that Morris overestimates Israel's military strength, and disagrees with Morris about the aims of King Abdullah of Jordan.^[20]

One State, Two States (2009)

Morris contends that there is no two-state solution to the Middle East crisis, and that the One-state solution is not viable because of Arab unwillingness to accept a Jewish national presence in the Middle East. He suggests the possibility of something like a Three-state solution in the form of a Palestinian confederation with Jordan.^[21]

Praise and criticism[link]

Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, and himself a New Historian, writes that Morris investigated the 1948 exodus of the Palestinians "as carefully, dispassionately, and objectively as it is ever likely to be", and that The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem is an "outstandingly original, scholarly, and important contribution" to the study of the issue.^[2]

Many of Morris's critics cling to the tenets of "Old History", the idea of an Israel born untarnished, a David fighting the Arab Goliath, Shlaim writes. He argues that these ideas are simply false, created not by historians but by the participants in the 1948 war, who wrote about the events they had taken part in without the benefit of access to Israeli government archives, which were first opened up in the early 1980s. Another group of Morris's critics, primarily Orientalists such as Avraham Sela, but also historians on the left such as Ilan Pappe, argue that he has relied too heavily on Israeli sources and hardly at all on the Arabs. Norman Finkelstein, Nur Masalha and others argue that Morris has been too soft on the Israelis, often ignoring the force of his own evidence.^[22] Efraim Karsh alleges that Morris has distorted source material, an allegation not accepted by other historians.^[23][24]

Efraim Karsh

Efraim Karsh, professor of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, writes that Morris engages in what Karsh calls "five types of distortion". According to Karsh, Morris "misrepresents documents, resorts to partial quotes, withholds evidence, makes false assertions, and rewrites original documents... [he] tells of statements never made, decisions never taken, events that never happened ... at times [he] does not even take the trouble to provide evidence..... He expects his readers to take on trust his assertions that fundamental contradictions exist between published accounts and the underlying documents.....he systematically falsifies evidence. Indeed, there is scarcely a document that he does not twist. This casts serious doubt on the validity of his entire work."^[25]

Yezid Sayigh, professor of Middle East Studies in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, writes of Karsh's criticism, "[t]his is not the first time that Efraim Karsh has written a highly self-important rebuttal of revisionist history. He is simply not what he makes himself out to be, a trained historian (nor political/social scientist)." (Karsh responds that he has an undergraduate degree in modern Middle Eastern history, and Arabic language and literature, and a doctorate in political science and international relations.) Sayigh urges academics to compose "robust responses [to Karsh] that make sure that any self-respecting scholar will be too embarrassed to even try to incorporate the Karsh books in his/her teaching or research because they can't pretend they didn't know how flimsy their foundations are".^[23] Ian Lustick, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, writes of Karsh's attacks on the New Historians that, "however likely readers are to be impressed by the intensity of Karsh's pristine faith in Zionism, they are sure to be stunned by the malevolence of his writing and confused by the erratic, sloppy nature of his analysis. Errors, inconsistencies and over-interpretations there may be in some of the new Israeli histories, but nothing in them can match the howlers, contradictions and distortions contained in [Karsh's Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians]."^[24]

Morris responds that Karsh's article is a "mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material (his piece contains more than fifty footnotes but is based almost entirely on references to and quotations from secondary works, many of them of dubious value) and the history of the Zionist–Arab conflict. It does not deserve serious attention or reply."^[26] Anita Shapira, Dean of Tel Aviv University, argues "thirty of [Karsh's] references actually refer to writings by Shlaim and Morris, and fifteen others cite primary sources, and the rest refer to studies by major historians...." ^[27]

Morris elsewhere argues that Karsh "belabor[s] minor points while completely ignoring, and hiding from his readers, the main pieces of evidence" and argued, "... Karsh, while claiming to have 'demolished' the whole oeuvre, in fact deal[t] with only four pages of Birth. These pages tried to show that the Zionist leadership during 1937–38 supported a 'transfer solution' to the prospective Jewish state's 'Arab problem.'"^[28]

Finkelstein and Masalha

From the other side Morris has been criticised by Norman Finkelstein^[29][30] and Nur Masalha.^[31] They argue that Morris's conclusions have a pro-Israeli bias, in that:

• Morris did not fully acknowledge that his work rests largely on selectively released Israeli documentation, while the most sensitive documents remain closed to researchers.
• Morris treated the evidence in the Israeli documents in an uncritical way, and did not take into account that they are, at times, apologetics.
• Morris minimized the number of expulsions: Finkelstein asserts that in the table in which Morris summarizes causes of abandonment, village by village, many cases of "military assault on settlement (M)" should have been "expulsions (E)".
• Morris's conclusions were skewed with respect to the evidence he himself presents, and when the conclusions are harsh for the Israelis he tended to give them a less incriminating spin.

Both Finkelstein and Masalha prefer the conclusion that there was a transfer policy.

In a reply to Finkelstein and Masalha,^[32] Morris answers he "saw enough material, military and civilian, to obtain an accurate picture of what happened", that Finkelstein and Masalha draw their conclusions with a pro-Palestinian bias, and that with regard to the distinction between military assault and expulsion they should accept that he uses a "more narrow and severe" definition of expulsions. Morris holds to his conclusion that there was no transfer policy.

Ilan Pappé

Benny Morris wrote a fiercely critical review of Ilan Pappé's book A History of Modern Palestine^[33] for The New Republic.^[34] Morris called Pappé's book "truly appalling". He says it subjugates history to political ideology, and "contains errors of a quantity and a quality that are not found in serious historiography". In his reply, Pappé accused Morris of using mainly Israeli sources, and disregarding Arab sources, which he cannot read. Pappé says Morris has held "racist views about the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular" since the late 1980s. He also attributed Morris's perceived rightward drift since the late 1980s to political opportunism.^[35][36]

Michael Palumbo

Michael Palumbo, author of The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland,^[37] reviewing the first edition of Morris's book on Palestinian refugees, criticizes Morris's decision, which Palumbo thinks characteristic of Israeli revisionist historians generally, to rely mainly on official, 'carefully screened' Israeli sources, especially for radio transcripts of Arab broadcasts, while disregarding unofficial Israeli sources such as BBC and CIA transcripts, many of which point to a policy of expulsion.^[38] He says Morris failed to supplement his work in Israeli archives, many still classified, by U.N., American, and British archival sources that Palumbo considers objective on such issues as IDF atrocities,^[39] as well as oral testimonies of Palestinians and Israelis, which can be reliable if their substance can be independently verified.^[40] Palumbo says:

Morris' regard for documentation is indeed commendable, were it not for his tendency to choose sources which support his views, while avoiding those document collections which contain information inconsistent with his principal arguments. His decision not to use the testimony of Israeli veterans is unfortunate, since some of them have spoken candidly about Israeli atrocities and expulsion of civilians at Deir Yassin, Lydda–Ramle and Jaffa.^[41]

Published works[link]

• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949, Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-521-33028-2
• Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services, New York, Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8021-1159-3
• Israel's Border Wars 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3
• 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. ISBN 0-19-827929-9
• Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2001 [Original in 1999]. ISBN 978-0-679-74475-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZawVAQAACAAJ. 
• Correcting a Mistake? Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936–1956, Am Oved Publishers, 2000.
• The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003. ISBN 978-1-86064-812-0
• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Making Israel (ed), University of Michigan Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-472-11541-9
• 1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9
• One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-12281-7

See also[link]

• History of Israel
• 1948 Palestinian exodus—Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus
• Exodus from Lydda and Ramla

References[link]

External links[link]

• Claremont Review of Books on Benny Morris and 1948
• Morris, Benny. Camp David and After: An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak), continued, The New York Review of Books August 9, 2001;
• Benny Morris essay regarding a nuclear Iran, The Jerusalem Post, January 18 2007
• Israel Revisited Benny Morris, Veteran 'New Historian' of the Modern Jewish State's Founding, Finds Himself Ideologically Back Where It All Began, by Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service, March 11, 2007
• 'New Historian' Shifts from Old View of Israel Israeli "new historian" Benny Morris was online Monday, March 12, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss his books and changing views that have driven him away from the critical perspective of Israeli history that he helped create.
• Benny Morris meets his readers at the International Book Fair of Turin (Italian)
• Review of Benny Morris' book "1948: The First Arab-Israeli War" in Jewish Literary Review
• 1 hour interview of Benny Morris about the 1948 war (2008)
• Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 21(1), p. 98–114 :Morris Response to Finklestein and Masalah
• History in the (almost) making, Ynetnews, November 2007
• ISRAEL AT 60: From Dove to Hawk Newsweek May 8, 2008
• Benny Morris debates with Norman Finkelstein On RT CrossTalk May 21, 2010

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Rima Khalaf, (born in 1953), a national of Jordan, was appointed as Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia ESCWA by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ms. Rima Khalaf Hunaidi held several high-ranking ministerial positions in Jordan, including:

• Minister of Industry and Trade (1993–1995).

• Minister of Planning (1995–1998).
• Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning (1999–2000).

In her capacity as Deputy Prime Minister and head of the ministerial economic team, Ms. Khalaf promoted economic reform in Jordan while working on promoting social development through building human capital, alleviating poverty and strengthening social safety nets.^{[citation needed]}

Ms. Khalaf held the position of Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 2000 to 2006. She led important regional initiatives on education, knowledge acquisition and economic growth in the Arab States. She was the founder of the pioneering Arab Human Development Report. The first Report in the series, entitled “Creating Opportunities for Future Generations,” received the 2003 Prince Claus Award. The third Report, entitled “Towards Freedom in the Arab World,” received the King Hussein Leadership Prize in 2005.

Ms. Khalaf is a regular contributor to regional and international policy forums concerned with the state of development in the Arab world. She participated in a number of international commissions chief among them are the High Level Commission on the Modernization of the World Bank Group Governance (2008–2009), and the International Advisory Group for Managing Global Insecurity (2007–2008). Ms. Khalaf also served as the Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Democracy Fund (2006–2007). She was a visiting scholar at Harvard University during the spring semester of 2009-2010.

Ms. Khalaf received the League of Arab States award for “the Most Distinguished Arab Woman in the Field of International Organizations” in 2005 and an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the American University of Cairo in 2009, in recognition of her “important regional initiatives in education, women’s rights, civic engagement and economic growth”. In December 2009, the Financial Times listed Ms. Khalaf among the top fifty people who shaped the decade.

A citizen of Jordan, Ms. Khalaf holds a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut and a Master’s in Economics and a Ph.D in System Science from Portland State University in the United States of America. She is married and has two children.

External links[link]

• UN Biography Rima Khalaf

Mordechai Kedar (Hebrew: מרדכי קידר‎; Arabic: مردخاي كيدار‎) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. He holds the Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.

Kedar is an academic expert on the Israeli Arab population. He served for twenty-five years in IDF Military Intelligence, where he specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.^[1] The Los Angeles Times' Edmund Sanders described him as "one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel"^[2].

Kedar drew attention with a June 2008 Al-Jazeera interview in which he challenged the moderator's assertion that "You cannot erase Jerusalem from the Qur'an", pointing out that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an.^[3]

Publications[link]

Books[link]

• Asad in Search of Legitimacy – Message and Rhetoric in the Syrian Press under Hafiz and Bashar. Sussex Academic Press. 2006. ISBN 978-1-84519-185-6. 

Articles[link]

• "The Psychological Asymmetry of Islamist Warfare". Middle East Quarterly. Spring 2008. http://www.meforum.org/1867/the-psychological-asymmetry-of-islamist-warfare. 

Op-eds[link]

• "Understanding the Iranians". The Jerusalem Post. December 14, 2005. http://www.biu.ac.il/Besa/understanding_iranians.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-08. 
• "The Myth of al-Aqsa". Ynetnews. September 15, 2008. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3596681,00.html. Retrieved 2011-04-08. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Conversation with Dr. Keidar: Israel, The Arab Spring and the 8th States Solution (Arabic)