I havent read the whole thing, just bits and pieces. its too long and boring and too crappily done for me to read cover to cover. it smacks of personal bitterness and a guy who is out to prove something. like most people out to prove something, shlaim has a tendency to latch onto shaky evidence and present it as conclusive, and then tout his conclusions as gospel truth.
i think your critique is right on the money, more than you know. shlaim frequently contradicts himself a number of times within the book, and has done it a number of times simply within the article you linked to. such internal contradictions do not seem to deter the man on his quest.
Most importantly he also has a predisposed bias, an assumption that I feel most readers will not share. It is by and large the main talking points of shalom achshav...that we should be negotiating at all times no matter what. clearly the man has never read anything about conflict resolution and negotiation. his assertions that israel has had plenty of opportunities to negotiate and has rejected all such opportunities is based on this assumption. having read a significant bit every example I found that he cited was not in fact a serious offer. I happen to agree with Bar-On, who's dialogue with shlaim is included in the section entitled "every meeting is important". he says:
Bar-On: "I totally disagree here with Avi. Abdullah could not have passed a peace treaty in his government. The matter of Zaim was not serious. Ben-Gurion was mistaken in not meeting with him, only because that would have prevented Avi from writing his article. Nasser was more serious, but they were not talking about peace there. Israel did not want to get peace under the minimal conditions that the Arabs were willing to discuss: the UN Partition Plan borders and the return of the refugees. Had we agreed to that, there would be no State of Israel today."
I'm particularly fond of the line in which he says "Ben-Gurion was mistaken in not meeting with him, only because that would have prevented Avi [Shlaim] from writing his article."
that, my friend, is why I love Israelis. Because every conversation is like something out of a sitcom.
I think another crucial thing to note in the article is that if you read the whole thing it ends up being pretty damning towards Shlaim, and he provides quite enough rope for his own hanging. If you notice in the section about his native Iraq he is given to the most outrageous, ludicrous, and unfounded conspiracy theories regarding the israeli government. he refers to ben-gurion as "a wicked man". he clearly has issues. this is not a man to be taken seriously as a historian, nor does he seem to have a terribly high standard of proof. the last paragraph of the article is most telling as to his frame of reference: But what does Shlaim know? Shlaim told me when we were still in the cafe that since he was a child, Israel has looked to him like an "Ashkenazi trick" of which he doesn't feel a part. "I'm not certain even now that I know how that trick works." what a coincidence: ben gurion and nearly all of those he cites as villains in his little melodrama happen to be ashkenazi!
there is nothing to worry about from this fellow. anyone who uses this as a source on israeli history should be pointed at and laughed at derisively.
i think your critique is right on the money, more than you know. shlaim frequently contradicts himself a number of times within the book, and has done it a number of times simply within the article you linked to. such internal contradictions do not seem to deter the man on his quest.
Most importantly he also has a predisposed bias, an assumption that I feel most readers will not share. It is by and large the main talking points of shalom achshav...that we should be negotiating at all times no matter what. clearly the man has never read anything about conflict resolution and negotiation. his assertions that israel has had plenty of opportunities to negotiate and has rejected all such opportunities is based on this assumption. having read a significant bit every example I found that he cited was not in fact a serious offer. I happen to agree with Bar-On, who's dialogue with shlaim is included in the section entitled "every meeting is important". he says:
Bar-On: "I totally disagree here with Avi. Abdullah could not have passed a peace treaty in his government. The matter of Zaim was not serious. Ben-Gurion was mistaken in not meeting with him, only because that would have prevented Avi from writing his article. Nasser was more serious, but they were not talking about peace there. Israel did not want to get peace under the minimal conditions that the Arabs were willing to discuss: the UN Partition Plan borders and the return of the refugees. Had we agreed to that, there would be no State of Israel today."
I'm particularly fond of the line in which he says "Ben-Gurion was mistaken in not meeting with him, only because that would have prevented Avi [Shlaim] from writing his article."
that, my friend, is why I love Israelis. Because every conversation is like something out of a sitcom.
I think another crucial thing to note in the article is that if you read the whole thing it ends up being pretty damning towards Shlaim, and he provides quite enough rope for his own hanging. If you notice in the section about his native Iraq he is given to the most outrageous, ludicrous, and unfounded conspiracy theories regarding the israeli government. he refers to ben-gurion as "a wicked man". he clearly has issues. this is not a man to be taken seriously as a historian, nor does he seem to have a terribly high standard of proof. the last paragraph of the article is most telling as to his frame of reference: But what does Shlaim know? Shlaim told me when we were still in the cafe that since he was a child, Israel has looked to him like an "Ashkenazi trick" of which he doesn't feel a part. "I'm not certain even now that I know how that trick works." what a coincidence: ben gurion and nearly all of those he cites as villains in his little melodrama happen to be ashkenazi!
there is nothing to worry about from this fellow. anyone who uses this as a source on israeli history should be pointed at and laughed at derisively.
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