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Efraim Karsh is Professor and Head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, London. He is regarded as the foremost critic of the New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the conventional history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Background

Born and raised in Israel, Karsh graduated in Arabic and Modern Middle East History from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and obtained an MA and Ph.D in International Relations from Tel Aviv University.

Before embarking on an academic career, he was a research analyst for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of Major.

Academic career

He has held various academic posts at Harvard and Columbia universities, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics, Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

He has published extensively on Middle Eastern affairs, Soviet foreign policy, and European neutrality, and is a founding editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs. He is a regular media commentator, has appeared on all the main radio and television networks in the United Kingdom and the United States, and has contributed articles to leading newspapers, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times,The Wall Street Journal, The Times (London) and The Daily Telegraph.

Conflicts

New Historians

Starting with an article in the magazine Middle East Quarterly , Karsh alleged that the new historians "systematically distort the archival evidence to invent an Israeli history in an image of their own making". Karsh also provided a list of examples where, he claimed, the new historians "truncated, twisted, and distorted" primary documents. Avi Shlaim's reply defended his analysis of the Zionist-Hashemite negotiations prior to 1948, which Karsh had particularly attacked. Benny Morris declined immediate reply , accusing Karsh of a "mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies", but published a lengthy rebuttal in the Winter 1998 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Morris replied to many of Karsh's detailed accusations, but also returned Karsh's personal invective, going so far as to compare Karsh's work to that of Holocaust-deniers. Karsh also published an attack on an article of Morris , charging him with "deep-rooted and pervasive distortions".

Juan Cole

Karsh has also criticized American historian Juan Cole in American The New Republic magazine for Cole's claim that Neoconservatives in the Bush administration used "sneaky methods of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of intelligence" to promote war with Iraq. Karsh wrote that "Cole may express offense at the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but obsession with the supposed international influence of "world Zionism" resonates powerfully in his own writings."

Books

• Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale University Press, 2006);
• La Guerre D'Oslo (Les Editions de Passy, 2005; with Yoel Fishman);
• Arafat’s War (Grove, 2003);
• Rethinking the Middle East (Cass, 2003);
• The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Palestine 1948 War (Oxford, Osprey, 2002);
• The Iran-Iraq War (Oxford, Osprey, 2002);
• Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1922 (Harvard University Press, 1999; with *Inari Karsh);
• Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Cass, 1997; second edition 1999);
• The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in The New World Order (Princeton University Press, 1993; with *Lawrence Freedman);
• Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (The Free Press, 1991; with Inari Rautsi-Karsh);
• Soviet Policy towards Syria Since 1970 (Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 1991);
• Neutrality and Small States (Routledge, 1988);
• The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years (Routledge for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1988);
• The Cautious Bear: Soviet Military Engagement in Middle East Wars in the Post 1967 Era (Westview, 1985).

Further reading

• Homepage at King's College London
• "Arafat Lives", Commentary, January 2005, pp. 33-40. Reprinted in Ha-Umma (Hebrew)
• "Israel's Arabs v. Israel", Commentary, December 2003, pp. 21-27]
• What Occupation?
• Benny Morris and the Reign of Error
• Benny Morris' Reign of Error, Revisited, a review essay on Morris' revised edition of his book on the Palestinian refugee exodus.
• Dear Diary: Juan Cole's Bad Blog
• Review of International Law and Politics RILP

References

1. Karsh, 1996
2. Shlaim, 1996
3. Morris, 1996
4. Karsh, 1999
5. Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1995, pp. 44-62
6. Political Obituary for Neocons, Juan Cole, Informed Comment, June 10 2004
7. Juan Cole's Bad blog, by Efraim Karsh in the The New Republic

• Israeli historians
• Jewish historians
• Academics of King's College London
• Middle Eastern historians