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{{Short description|Israeli–British historian (born 1953)}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
'''Efraim Karsh''' is Professor and Head of Mediterranean Studies at ]. A leading historian of the Middle East, he is regarded as the most vocal critic of the ], a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the conventional history of the ].
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'''Efraim Karsh''' ({{langx|he|אפרים קארש}}; born 6 September 1953)<ref>{{cite web|title=Karsh, Efraim|url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84053985.html|publisher=]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308225936/https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84053985.html|archive-date=8 March 2021|url-status=live}}</ref> is an Israeli and British historian who is the founding director and ] of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies<ref></ref> at ]. Since 2013, he has served as professor of political studies at ] (where he also directs<ref name="besacenter.org">{{Cite web | url=http://besacenter.org/author/ekarsh/ | title=Posts by Prof. Efraim Karsh on Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies}}</ref> the ]).<ref name="besacenter.org"/> He is also a principal research fellow and former director of the ],<ref></ref> a ]-based think tank. He is a vocal critic of the ], a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the traditional Israeli narrative of the ].


==Early life and education==
==Background==
Born and raised in ], Karsh graduated in Arabic and Modern Middle East History from the ] in ], and obtained an MA and Ph.D in International Relations from ]. Born and raised in Israel to Jewish immigrants to the ], Karsh graduated in Arabic and Modern Middle East History from the ] in ], and obtained an ] and ] in International Relations from ]. After acquiring his first academic degree in modern Middle Eastern history, he was a research analyst for the ] (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}


==Academic and media career==
Before embarking on an academic career, he was a research analyst for the ] (IDF), where he attained the rank of Major.
Karsh has held various academic posts at ] and ] universities, the ], the ], ], the ] in London, the ] in ], and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at ]. In 1989 he joined ], where he established the Middle East and Mediterranean Studies Program, directing it for 16 years. 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'', and editor of the '']''. He is a regular media commentator, has appeared on all the main radio and television networks in the ] and the ], 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''.<ref></ref>


==Academic career== ==Views==
In his 2010 book ''Palestine Betrayed'', followed by a 2011 editorial in '']'', Karsh articulated his belief that the ] was "exclusively of their own making". Karsh writes that many Palestinians fled their homes as the result of pressure from local Arab leaders "and/or the ] that had entered Palestine prior to the end of the Mandate (]), whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state." He stated that there is an "overwhelming and incontrovertible body of evidence" to support his position including "intelligence briefs, captured Arab documents, press reports, personal testimonies and memoirs..."<ref name="haaretz.com">, ]</ref> Karsh states that "the deliberate depopulation of Arab villages and their transformation into military strongholds" began in December 1947.<ref name="haaretz.com"/>
He has held various academic posts at ] and ] universities, the ], the ], ], the ] in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.


Karsh rejects the Palestinian demands for a ], citing a need for Israel to maintain its Jewish character. "However, even if the more restrictive Israeli figures were to be accepted, it is certainly true, just as Amos Oz darkly predicts, that the influx of these refugees into the Jewish State would irrevocably ]. At the moment, Jews constitute about 79 percent of Israel's six-million-plus population, a figure that would rapidly dwindle to under 60 percent. Given the Palestinians' far higher birth rate, the implementation of a 'right of return', even by the most conservative estimates, would be tantamount to Israel's transformation into an 'ordinary' Arab state."<ref name ="Karsh2003">{{cite book | title = Rethinking the Middle East (Israeli History, Politics and Society)
He has published extensively on Middle Eastern affairs, Soviet foreign policy, and European neutrality, and is a founding editor of the scholarly journal '']''. He is a regular media commentator, has appeared on all the main radio and television networks in the ] and the ], 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''.
| author= Efraim Karsh | publisher = Frank Cass Publishers| year = 2003 | page = 166 }}</ref>


==Selected book summaries==
===Conflicts===
=== ''Empires of the Sand'' ===


{{anchor|Inari Karsh}}Karsh's ''Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1922'' was published in 1999, co-written by his wife ].
====Islamic History====


] called it a "tour de force that offers a profoundly new understanding of a key issue in modern Middle Eastern history:" and said that " Drawing on a wide range of original sources, and writing in a clearly organized fashion and in fast-paced prose, the Karshes make a very compelling case for their revisionist position, establishing it point by point and in elegant detail".<ref>, Commentary</ref>{{Unreliable source?|certain=y|date=November 2018}}
Rejecting the received wisdom in the field of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, which views "empire" and "imperialism" as categories that apply exclusively to the European powers and, more recently, to the United States, and which regards Muslims, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, as the long-suffering victims of the West's aggressive encroachments, Karsh argues that the Middle East's experience is the culmination of long existing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior, first and foremost ''the region’s millenarian imperial tradition''. External influences, however potent, have played only a secondary role, constituting neither the primary force behind the Middle East’s political development nor the main cause of its volatility.


Anthony B. Toth wrote in a review: "This is a polemical book whose authors have extended the intemperate and unbalanced rhetoric customarily employed by dogmatic partisans of the Arab Israeli conflict to the normally sedate and measured arena of nineteenth - and early twentieth-century Ottoman history. The book relies mainly on Western published sources and official documents of the ]. But their use of even these sources is limited, since they actually ignore most of nineteenth-century history. Instead, the authors emphasize those episodes they feel support their interpretations".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Toth |first1=Anthony B.|title=Recent Books |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |date=January 2002 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=85–98 |doi=10.1525/jps.2002.31.2.85}}</ref>
Karsh first developed this argument in ''Empires of the Sand: the Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923'' (Harvard University Press, 1999)- a comprehensive reinterpretation of the origins of the modern Middle East that denies primacy to Western imperialism and attributes more responsibility to regional powers. Refuting the belief in a longstanding European design on the Middle East culminating in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the notion that the European powers broke the Middle East's political unity by carving artificial states out of the defunct entity.


], professor of history at the Middle East Institute of ] wrote that ''Empires of the Sand'' is "a tendentious and unreliable piece of scholarship that should have been vetted more thoroughly by the publisher" and asserts that the authors failed to "contribute a dimension of sense and scholarship that raises the debate to a higher level."<ref name=Bulliett>Richard W Bulliett. ''The ]''. Washington: Autumn 2000. Vol. 54, Iss. 4; p. 667–8</ref> Karsh in response wondered "''what credential did Bulliet possess, that a leading journal in the field should ask him to review our book? He is a medievalist who has done no research or writing on the subject. But in his spare time, he propagates the view of the Middle East and its nations as hapless victims of Western imperialism. In Middle Eastern studies that in itself is a sufficient credential to pronounce on anything. In his review, Bulliet rushes to absolve the Ottomans of responsibility for crimes they committed in their effort to keep their own empire intact. The evidence be damned - for it would not so well have served Bulliet's interest.''".<ref>"The Unbearable Lightness of My Critics", Efraim Karsh, ''Middle East Quarterly'', Summer 2002, Volume 9: Number 3.</ref>{{bsn|date=June 2022}}
In ''Islamic Imperialism: A History'' (Yale University Press, 2006) Karsh takes this argument much further. He dually claims that the birth of Islam was inextricably linked with empire, and that, unlike Christianity, Islam has retained its imperial ambitions to the present day. From the Prophet Muhammad to the ], the story of Islam, according to Karsh, has been the story of the rise and fall of imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and ] of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. The last great Muslim empire may have been destroyed and the ] left vacant, but the dream of regional and world domination has remained very much alive. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining the "lost glory" of the caliphate and establsihing the worldwide community of believers (or ''umma'').


Charles D. Smith, professor emeritus of Middle East history, states that the book is "essentially a work of propaganda, but still of use to students who wished to see how scholars could misrepresent sources".<ref name="SmithPalestineBetrayed">Smith, Charles D."Palestine Betrayed (review)." The Middle East Journal, vol. 65 no. 1, 2011, pp. 155-158. Project MUSE</ref> In his 2010 review of the book, Smith says that "In order to sustain their arguments, the Karshes, as judged by their citations, ignore nearly all scholarship of the past thirty years or more on British policy generally or as it pertained to the Middle East during World War I.".<ref>Smith, C. D. “Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 32, 2000, pp. 559–565.</ref>
In Karsh's view, this vision is not confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This was starkly evidenced by, Karsh purports, an overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of ], defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam’s war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.


Karsh states that his book "has incurred the ire of the Arabist establishment" and that "scathing indictments have been made, on the basis of hearsay, without writers taking the trouble to read the book. A leading academic has even urged fellow academics to place negative reviews on the website of a major Internet bookstore, so as to warn potential readers of our book."<ref name=Karsh2002/> Karsh further said "conventional view – absolving Middle Easterners and blaming the West – is academically unsound and morally reprehensible. It is academically unsound because the facts tell an altogether different story of modern Middle Eastern history, one that has consistently been suppressed because of its incongruity with the politically correct dogmas of the Arabist establishment. And it is morally reprehensible because denying the responsibility of individuals and societies for their actions is patronizing and in the worst tradition of the 'white man's burden' approach, which has dismissed regional players as half-witted creatures, too dim to be accountable for their own fate... Little wonder therefore that ''Empires of the Sand'' was more favorably received by Middle Eastern intellectuals, fed up with being talked down to and open to real revisionism of their region's history after suffering decades of condescension from their paternalistic champions in the West."<ref name=Karsh2002/>
====New Historians====
{{main|New Historians}}
Starting with an article in the magazine '']'' <ref></ref>, 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. ]'s reply <ref></ref> defended his analysis of the Zionist-Hashemite negotiations prior to 1948, which Karsh had particularly attacked. ] declined immediate reply <ref></ref>, accusing Karsh of a "mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies", but published a lengthy rebuttal in the Winter 1998 issue of the '']''. Morris replied to many of Karsh's detailed accusations, but also returned Karsh's personal invective. Karsh also published an attack <ref></ref> on an article of Morris <ref>''Journal of Palestine Studies'', Spring 1995, pp. 44-62</ref>, charging him with "deep-rooted and pervasive distortions".


=== ''Islamic Imperialism'' ===
====Juan Cole====
In 2006 Karsh published ''Islamic Imperialism: A History'', stating that Islam started out as a ] that lasted over a thousand years, and persisted in the ] right up through ], and is still alive today with the jihad against Israel, the ], ], ], etc.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}
{{main|Views and controversies concerning Juan Cole}}


{{Criticism of Islam sidebar}}
Karsh has also criticized American historian ] in American '']'' magazine for espousing many common ] misconceptions that prejudice and compromise his writing. He argues that, having done little independent research on the twentieth-century Middle East, Cole's analysis of this era is derivative, echoing the conventional wisdom among Arabists and Orientalists regarding Islamic and Arab history, the creation of the modern Middle East in the wake of World War I, and its relations with the outside world. Further, Karsh accuses Cole of harboring conspiratorial anti-Semitic beliefs.


In a review, professor of history ] stated:<ref>{{cite journal|author=Bulliet, Richard W.|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies| volume=40|number=3|year=2008|pages= 485–486|jstor=40205968|title=Review: Islamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh|doi=10.1017/S0020743808081038|s2cid=162527157 }}</ref>
More specifically, Karsh takes issue with Cole's alleged whitewashing of the long trail of Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism, as well as his depiction of U.S. foreign policy as controlled by a ruthless Zionist cabal implanted at the highest echelons of the Bush administration and employing "sneaky methods of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of intelligence" <ref>, Juan Cole, Informed Comment, June 10 2004</ref> to promote their goals. "Cole may express offense at '']''," Karsh wrote, "but their obsession with the supposed international influence of 'world Zionism' resonates powerfully in his own writings." <ref name="Karsh">, by Efraim Karsh in the ]</ref>


{{quote|Pursuing the myriad problems called up by the evidence Karsh presents to support his case would be pointless. The book is selling ideology, not historical acumen. As a history of Islam, ''Islamic Imperialism'' is a travesty, but as ideological preaching, it should please the choir to which it is directed.}}
==Books==

*''Islamic Imperialism: A History'' (Yale University Press, 2006);
In a review, professor of history Robert Tignor stated:<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tignor|first=Robert L.|date=2007-02-07|title=Islamic Imperialism: A History. By Efraim Karsh (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006) 276 pp. $45.00|journal=The Journal of Interdisciplinary History|volume=37|issue=4|pages=668–670|doi=10.1162/jinh.2007.37.4.668|s2cid=142830179|issn=0022-1953}}</ref><blockquote>The book is timely as well as polemical. Its polemics and its obvious intention to arouse strong responses should not deter readers, since it is a work deserving to be read for its penetrating analyses of the long history of Islam as an expanding and proselytizing faith.</blockquote>Writing in ''International Review of Modern Sociology'', California State University professor Henry E. Chambers concluded his review with the words: "This politically driven history will lead readers astray and offers a flawed version of the Middle East."<ref>{{cite journal|author=Chambers, Henry E.|journal=Review of Modern Sociology|title=Review: Islamic Imperialism by Efraim Karsh|volume=34|number=2|year=2008|pages=315–317|jstor=41421690}}</ref>
*''La Guerre D'Oslo'' (Les Editions de Passy, 2005; with Yoel Fishman);

*''Arafat’s War'' (Grove, 2003);
In the review, professor of history Marian Gross writes:<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gross|first=Mary T.|date=2007-04-01|title=Islamic Imperialism: a History: Efraim Karsh|journal=Digest of Middle East Studies|language=en|volume=16|issue=1|pages=165–167|doi=10.1111/j.1949-3606.2007.tb00085.x|issn=1949-3606}}</ref><blockquote>The ingenuity of Karsh’s monograph is that it portrays Islamic imperialism in the same light as all other imperialism—accentuating the utter normalcy of Muslim rulers’ imperialist ventures, goals, and means. By seeking the roots of the current situations in the Middle East within the framework of Middle Eastern history, Karsh provides an invaluable assessment.</blockquote>Reviewing the German translation of the book in ''Die Welt Des Islams'', Erlangen University professor of history Thomas Philipp wrote:<ref>{{cite journal|author=Philipp, Thomas|journal=Die Welt des Islams|series=New Series|title=Review: Imperialismus im Namen Allahs: von Muhammad bis Osama bin Laden by Efraim Karsh|volume= 49|number=1|year=2009|pages=134–136|doi=10.1163/157006008X424995|jstor=27798287|quote=''Imperialismus im Namen Allahs'' ist das Buch eines kenntnisreichen Historikers, der dem modischen Trend der pauschalisierenden Verunglimpfung des Islams und der Araber folgt und dessen politische Interessen seine Terminologie und Geschichtsanalyse deutlich dominieren.}}</ref>
*''Rethinking the Middle East'' (Cass, 2003);

*''The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Palestine 1948 War'' (Oxford, Osprey, 2002);
{{quote|''Imperialismus im Namen Allahs'' is the book of a knowledgeable historian who follows the fashionable trend of wholesale denigration of Islam and the Arabs, and whose political interests clearly dominate his terminology and historical analysis.}}
*''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);
] writes in his review, that the core argument of the book is "controversial, and many readers will find it unconvincing". He finds Karsh's "discussion of premodern Islam misconstrues its history in some important ways". As for the use of "Islamic Imperialism", Berkey says that "At best, there is a tendency here to fall back on broad and unsupportable generalizations about Islam and Muslims that recent historians have rightly shunned".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berkey |first1=Jonathan |title=Islamic Imperialism: A History ? By Efraim Karsh |journal=The Historian |date=September 2007 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=513–515 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.2007.00189_2.x|s2cid=145654779 }}</ref>
*''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);
Reviewing the book, history professor William E. Watson from ] writes that "book destined to become a seminal study on the history of radical Islam"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Watson|first=William E.|date=2006-07-01|title=Islamic Imperialism: A History|journal=History: Reviews of New Books|volume=34|issue=4|pages=135|doi=10.1080/03612759.2006.10526973|s2cid=141512875|issn=0361-2759}}</ref>
*''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);
===''Palestine Betrayed''===
*''Neutrality and Small States'' (Routledge, 1988);
Karsh's 2010 book ''Palestine Betrayed'' is about the breakdown of relations between the Jewish and Arab communities between 1920 and 1948.
*''The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years'' (Routledge for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1988);

According to Karsh:
:"Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. partition resolution... There was nothing inevitable about the Palestinian–Jewish confrontation, let alone the Arab–Israeli conflict."<ref>Efraim Karsh, ''Palestine Betrayed'', (Yale University Press, 2010), xx.</ref>

In a review published by ], Charles D. Smith was highly critical of ''Palestine Betrayed''. Smith says that throughout the book, Karsh presents the Zionists as "sincere and open with Palestinians, as are the British", whereas "Palestinians and other Arabs, especially their leaders" are presented as "corrupt and untrustworthy". Karsh, according to Smith, deliberately distorts the main thrust of the ] and is "incapable of accepting the idea of Palestinian national aspirations".<ref name="SmithPalestineBetrayed" />

Israeli historian ] describes Karsh's portrayal of the British government as betraying the Jews in Palestine and ultimately reneging on their commitment to support Jewish statehood as "one-sided and without nuance".<ref>Morris, Benny. “Revisionism on the West Bank.” The National Interest, no. 108, 2010, pp. 73–81. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42896324.</ref>

] wrote a highly critical review of the work in ], describing "evasions of basic facts", and stating that "a book that discusses the 1948 Arab refugees yet fails to mention, for example, the psychological warfare waged by the Jewish forces, the transfer idea in Zionist thought, or the aerial bombardment of Palestinian towns—all topics on which abundance of information can be found in the very archives that were examined for this study—cannot be considered an authoritative book on 1948."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Hillel |date=2011 |title=Review of Palestine Betrayed |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23307856 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=116 |issue=2 |pages=545–546 |issn=0002-8762}}</ref>

] of the ], wrote favourably of the book in a review published by ], saying: "With his customary in-depth archival research — in this case, relying on masses of recently declassified documents from the period of British rule and of the first Arab–Israeli war, 1917–49 — clear presentation, and meticulous historical sensibility, Karsh argues the opposite case: that Palestinians decided their own destiny and bear near-total responsibility for becoming refugees."<ref>, National Review 17 May 2010</ref>

==Reception==
] described Karsh as "the preeminent scholar-spokesman of the ] (politically-rightist) Movement in Zionism."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=9780300127270|title=Palestine Betrayed Reviews|last=Sachar|first=Howard|publisher=Yale University Press|access-date=6 June 2011|archive-date=22 January 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120122012224/http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=9780300127270|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Prominent New Historian ] called Karsh's ''Fabricating Israeli History'' "a mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material... and the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict," titling his article "Undeserving of a Reply".<ref></ref>{{bsn|date=June 2022}} Morris adds that Karsh belabors minor points while ignoring the main pieces of evidence.<ref>Benny Morris, "Refabricating 1948", review of ''Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians."'' by Efraim Karsh, '']'', Vol. 27, No. 2. (Winter, 1998), pp. 81–95.</ref>

Political scientist ] commented that Karsh's writing in ''Fabricating Israeli History'' was malevolent, and his analysis erratic and sloppy.<ref>I. Lustick, 1997, 'Israeli History: Who is Fabricating What?', Survival, 39(3), p.156–166</ref><ref>I. Lustick, 1997, Survival, 39(4), p.197–198</ref>

], professor of Middle East studies, wrote that Karsh "is simply not what he makes himself out to be, a trained historian (nor political/social scientist)."<ref name=Karsh2002>, Karsh, Efraim. '']'', Summer 2002.</ref>{{bsn|date=June 2022}} Karsh accused Sayigh of a "misleading misrepresentation of my scholarly background" and retorted that Sayigh's remarks were "not a scholarly debate on facts and theses but a character assassination couched in high pseudo-academic rhetoric".<ref name=Karsh2002/>

In a review of ''Rethinking the Middle East'', El-Sayed el-Aswad writes "It seems, in many cases, that whatever does not match the author's views is charged with fraud and deception".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=el-Aswad |first1=el-Sayed |title=Rethinking the Middle East; Efraim Karsh |journal=Digest of Middle East Studies |date=April 2004 |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=82–85 |doi=10.1111/j.1949-3606.2004.tb00996.x}}</ref>

==Published works==

===Books===
*''Palestine Betrayed'' (Yale University Press, 2010).
*''Islamic Imperialism: A History'' (Yale University Press, 2006).
*''La Guerre D'Oslo'' (Les Editions de Passy, 2005; with Joel S. Fishman).
*''Arafat’s War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest'' (Grove, 2003).
*''Rethinking the Middle East'' (Cass, 2003).
*''The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Palestine War 1948'' (Oxford, Osprey, 2002) - republished under the new title ''The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The 1948 War'' (Rosen Publishing Group, 2008).
*''The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988'' (Oxford, Osprey, 2002).
*''Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1922'' (Harvard University Press, 1999; with Inari Rautsi-Karsh)
*''Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians"'' (Cass, 1997; 2nd ed. 2000)
*''Israel at the Crossroads,'' with ], ( I.B. Tauris, 1994)
*''The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in The New World Order'' (Princeton University Press, 1993; with ]);
*''Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography'' (The Free Press, 1991; with Inari Rautsi-Karsh).
*'''' (Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 1991). {{ISBN|978-0-333-52297-4}}
*'''' (Routledge, 1988). {{ISBN|978-0-415-61199-2}}
*''The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years'' (Routledge for the ], 1988).
*''The Cautious Bear: Soviet Military Engagement in Middle East Wars in the Post 1967 Era'' (Westview, 1985). *''The Cautious Bear: Soviet Military Engagement in Middle East Wars in the Post 1967 Era'' (Westview, 1985).


==Further reading== ===Articles===
* , Commentary, January 2005, pp.&nbsp;33–40. Reprinted in Ha-Umma (Hebrew)
*
* , Commentary, January 2005, pp. 33-40. Reprinted in Ha-Umma (Hebrew) * , Commentary, December 2003, pp.&nbsp;21–27]
*
* , Commentary, December 2003, pp. 21-27]
*
*
* , a review essay on Morris' revised edition of his book on the Palestinian refugee exodus.
* *
*
*
*
*
*, a review by Karsh of ]'s '']''.
* (Oct 2024)

===Interview===
*, Efraim Karsh debates 1948 with Ilan Pappe on Sky News


==References== == References ==
{{reflist|30em}}
<references/>


{{New Historians}}
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{{Authority control}}


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Latest revision as of 07:45, 18 November 2024

Israeli–British historian (born 1953)

Efraim Karsh
אפרים קארש‎
Born (1953-09-06) 6 September 1953 (age 71)
Academic background
Education
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian
InstitutionsKing's College London

Efraim Karsh (Hebrew: אפרים קארש; born 6 September 1953) is an Israeli and British historian who is the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Since 2013, he has served as professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University (where he also directs the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies). He is also a principal research fellow and former director of the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank. He is a vocal critic of the New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the traditional Israeli narrative of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Early life and education

Born and raised in Israel to Jewish immigrants to the Palestine Mandate, Karsh graduated in Arabic and Modern Middle East History from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and obtained an MA and PhD in International Relations from Tel Aviv University. After acquiring his first academic degree in modern Middle Eastern history, he was a research analyst for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.

Academic and media career

Karsh 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. In 1989 he joined King's College London, where he established the Middle East and Mediterranean Studies Program, directing it for 16 years. 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, and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. 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.

Views

In his 2010 book Palestine Betrayed, followed by a 2011 editorial in Haaretz, Karsh articulated his belief that the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight was "exclusively of their own making". Karsh writes that many Palestinians fled their homes as the result of pressure from local Arab leaders "and/or the Arab Liberation Army that had entered Palestine prior to the end of the Mandate (Mandatory Palestine), whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state." He stated that there is an "overwhelming and incontrovertible body of evidence" to support his position including "intelligence briefs, captured Arab documents, press reports, personal testimonies and memoirs..." Karsh states that "the deliberate depopulation of Arab villages and their transformation into military strongholds" began in December 1947.

Karsh rejects the Palestinian demands for a right of the return, citing a need for Israel to maintain its Jewish character. "However, even if the more restrictive Israeli figures were to be accepted, it is certainly true, just as Amos Oz darkly predicts, that the influx of these refugees into the Jewish State would irrevocably transform its demographic composition. At the moment, Jews constitute about 79 percent of Israel's six-million-plus population, a figure that would rapidly dwindle to under 60 percent. Given the Palestinians' far higher birth rate, the implementation of a 'right of return', even by the most conservative estimates, would be tantamount to Israel's transformation into an 'ordinary' Arab state."

Selected book summaries

Empires of the Sand

Karsh's Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1922 was published in 1999, co-written by his wife Inari Rautsi-Karsh.

Daniel Pipes called it a "tour de force that offers a profoundly new understanding of a key issue in modern Middle Eastern history:" and said that " Drawing on a wide range of original sources, and writing in a clearly organized fashion and in fast-paced prose, the Karshes make a very compelling case for their revisionist position, establishing it point by point and in elegant detail".

Anthony B. Toth wrote in a review: "This is a polemical book whose authors have extended the intemperate and unbalanced rhetoric customarily employed by dogmatic partisans of the Arab Israeli conflict to the normally sedate and measured arena of nineteenth - and early twentieth-century Ottoman history. The book relies mainly on Western published sources and official documents of the British government. But their use of even these sources is limited, since they actually ignore most of nineteenth-century history. Instead, the authors emphasize those episodes they feel support their interpretations".

Richard Bulliet, professor of history at the Middle East Institute of Columbia University wrote that Empires of the Sand is "a tendentious and unreliable piece of scholarship that should have been vetted more thoroughly by the publisher" and asserts that the authors failed to "contribute a dimension of sense and scholarship that raises the debate to a higher level." Karsh in response wondered "what credential did Bulliet possess, that a leading journal in the field should ask him to review our book? He is a medievalist who has done no research or writing on the subject. But in his spare time, he propagates the view of the Middle East and its nations as hapless victims of Western imperialism. In Middle Eastern studies that in itself is a sufficient credential to pronounce on anything. In his review, Bulliet rushes to absolve the Ottomans of responsibility for crimes they committed in their effort to keep their own empire intact. The evidence be damned - for it would not so well have served Bulliet's interest.".

Charles D. Smith, professor emeritus of Middle East history, states that the book is "essentially a work of propaganda, but still of use to students who wished to see how scholars could misrepresent sources". In his 2010 review of the book, Smith says that "In order to sustain their arguments, the Karshes, as judged by their citations, ignore nearly all scholarship of the past thirty years or more on British policy generally or as it pertained to the Middle East during World War I.".

Karsh states that his book "has incurred the ire of the Arabist establishment" and that "scathing indictments have been made, on the basis of hearsay, without writers taking the trouble to read the book. A leading academic has even urged fellow academics to place negative reviews on the website of a major Internet bookstore, so as to warn potential readers of our book." Karsh further said "conventional view – absolving Middle Easterners and blaming the West – is academically unsound and morally reprehensible. It is academically unsound because the facts tell an altogether different story of modern Middle Eastern history, one that has consistently been suppressed because of its incongruity with the politically correct dogmas of the Arabist establishment. And it is morally reprehensible because denying the responsibility of individuals and societies for their actions is patronizing and in the worst tradition of the 'white man's burden' approach, which has dismissed regional players as half-witted creatures, too dim to be accountable for their own fate... Little wonder therefore that Empires of the Sand was more favorably received by Middle Eastern intellectuals, fed up with being talked down to and open to real revisionism of their region's history after suffering decades of condescension from their paternalistic champions in the West."

Islamic Imperialism

In 2006 Karsh published Islamic Imperialism: A History, stating that Islam started out as a Great Jihad that lasted over a thousand years, and persisted in the Ottoman Empire right up through World War I, and is still alive today with the jihad against Israel, the 9/11 Attack, al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc.

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In a review, professor of history Richard Bulliet stated:

Pursuing the myriad problems called up by the evidence Karsh presents to support his case would be pointless. The book is selling ideology, not historical acumen. As a history of Islam, Islamic Imperialism is a travesty, but as ideological preaching, it should please the choir to which it is directed.

In a review, professor of history Robert Tignor stated:

The book is timely as well as polemical. Its polemics and its obvious intention to arouse strong responses should not deter readers, since it is a work deserving to be read for its penetrating analyses of the long history of Islam as an expanding and proselytizing faith.

Writing in International Review of Modern Sociology, California State University professor Henry E. Chambers concluded his review with the words: "This politically driven history will lead readers astray and offers a flawed version of the Middle East." In the review, professor of history Marian Gross writes:

The ingenuity of Karsh’s monograph is that it portrays Islamic imperialism in the same light as all other imperialism—accentuating the utter normalcy of Muslim rulers’ imperialist ventures, goals, and means. By seeking the roots of the current situations in the Middle East within the framework of Middle Eastern history, Karsh provides an invaluable assessment.

Reviewing the German translation of the book in Die Welt Des Islams, Erlangen University professor of history Thomas Philipp wrote:

Imperialismus im Namen Allahs is the book of a knowledgeable historian who follows the fashionable trend of wholesale denigration of Islam and the Arabs, and whose political interests clearly dominate his terminology and historical analysis.

Jonathan Berkey writes in his review, that the core argument of the book is "controversial, and many readers will find it unconvincing". He finds Karsh's "discussion of premodern Islam misconstrues its history in some important ways". As for the use of "Islamic Imperialism", Berkey says that "At best, there is a tendency here to fall back on broad and unsupportable generalizations about Islam and Muslims that recent historians have rightly shunned".

Reviewing the book, history professor William E. Watson from Immaculata University writes that "book destined to become a seminal study on the history of radical Islam"

Palestine Betrayed

Karsh's 2010 book Palestine Betrayed is about the breakdown of relations between the Jewish and Arab communities between 1920 and 1948.

According to Karsh:

"Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. partition resolution... There was nothing inevitable about the Palestinian–Jewish confrontation, let alone the Arab–Israeli conflict."

In a review published by The Middle East Journal, Charles D. Smith was highly critical of Palestine Betrayed. Smith says that throughout the book, Karsh presents the Zionists as "sincere and open with Palestinians, as are the British", whereas "Palestinians and other Arabs, especially their leaders" are presented as "corrupt and untrustworthy". Karsh, according to Smith, deliberately distorts the main thrust of the Peel Commission Report and is "incapable of accepting the idea of Palestinian national aspirations".

Israeli historian Benny Morris describes Karsh's portrayal of the British government as betraying the Jews in Palestine and ultimately reneging on their commitment to support Jewish statehood as "one-sided and without nuance".

Hillel Cohen wrote a highly critical review of the work in The American Historical Review, describing "evasions of basic facts", and stating that "a book that discusses the 1948 Arab refugees yet fails to mention, for example, the psychological warfare waged by the Jewish forces, the transfer idea in Zionist thought, or the aerial bombardment of Palestinian towns—all topics on which abundance of information can be found in the very archives that were examined for this study—cannot be considered an authoritative book on 1948."

Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, wrote favourably of the book in a review published by The National Review, saying: "With his customary in-depth archival research — in this case, relying on masses of recently declassified documents from the period of British rule and of the first Arab–Israeli war, 1917–49 — clear presentation, and meticulous historical sensibility, Karsh argues the opposite case: that Palestinians decided their own destiny and bear near-total responsibility for becoming refugees."

Reception

Howard Sachar described Karsh as "the preeminent scholar-spokesman of the Revisionist (politically-rightist) Movement in Zionism."

Prominent New Historian Benny Morris called Karsh's Fabricating Israeli History "a mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material... and the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict," titling his article "Undeserving of a Reply". Morris adds that Karsh belabors minor points while ignoring the main pieces of evidence.

Political scientist Ian Lustick commented that Karsh's writing in Fabricating Israeli History was malevolent, and his analysis erratic and sloppy.

Yezid Sayigh, professor of Middle East studies, wrote that Karsh "is simply not what he makes himself out to be, a trained historian (nor political/social scientist)." Karsh accused Sayigh of a "misleading misrepresentation of my scholarly background" and retorted that Sayigh's remarks were "not a scholarly debate on facts and theses but a character assassination couched in high pseudo-academic rhetoric".

In a review of Rethinking the Middle East, El-Sayed el-Aswad writes "It seems, in many cases, that whatever does not match the author's views is charged with fraud and deception".

Published works

Books

  • Palestine Betrayed (Yale University Press, 2010). read online
  • Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale University Press, 2006). read online
  • La Guerre D'Oslo (Les Editions de Passy, 2005; with Joel S. Fishman). read online
  • Arafat’s War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest (Grove, 2003). read online
  • Rethinking the Middle East (Cass, 2003). read online
  • The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Palestine War 1948 (Oxford, Osprey, 2002) - republished under the new title The Arab-Israeli Conflict. The 1948 War (Rosen Publishing Group, 2008). read online
  • The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 (Oxford, Osprey, 2002). read online
  • Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1922 (Harvard University Press, 1999; with Inari Rautsi-Karsh) read online
  • Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Cass, 1997; 2nd ed. 2000) read online
  • Israel at the Crossroads, with Gregory Mahler, ( I.B. Tauris, 1994)
  • 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). read online
  • Soviet Policy towards Syria Since 1970 (Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 1991). ISBN 978-0-333-52297-4
  • Neutrality and Small States (Routledge, 1988). ISBN 978-0-415-61199-2
  • 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).

Articles

Interview

  • Sky News, Efraim Karsh debates 1948 with Ilan Pappe on Sky News

References

  1. "Karsh, Efraim". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021.
  2. Professor Efraim Karsh, King's College London Research Portal
  3. ^ "Posts by Prof. Efraim Karsh on Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies".
  4. Middle East Forum List of Staff
  5. Curriculum Vitae of Efraim Karsh
  6. ^ Reclaiming a Historical Truth, Haaretz
  7. Efraim Karsh (2003). Rethinking the Middle East (Israeli History, Politics and Society). Frank Cass Publishers. p. 166.
  8. Daniel Pipes' review of 'Empires of the Sand', Commentary
  9. Toth, Anthony B. (January 2002). "Recent Books". Journal of Palestine Studies. 31 (2): 85–98. doi:10.1525/jps.2002.31.2.85.
  10. Richard W Bulliett. The Middle East Journal. Washington: Autumn 2000. Vol. 54, Iss. 4; p. 667–8
  11. "The Unbearable Lightness of My Critics", Efraim Karsh, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2002, Volume 9: Number 3.
  12. ^ Smith, Charles D."Palestine Betrayed (review)." The Middle East Journal, vol. 65 no. 1, 2011, pp. 155-158. Project MUSE
  13. Smith, C. D. “Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 32, 2000, pp. 559–565.
  14. ^ "The Unbearable Lightness of My Critics", Karsh, Efraim. Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2002.
  15. Bulliet, Richard W. (2008). "Review: Islamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 40 (3): 485–486. doi:10.1017/S0020743808081038. JSTOR 40205968. S2CID 162527157.
  16. Tignor, Robert L. (7 February 2007). "Islamic Imperialism: A History. By Efraim Karsh (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006) 276 pp. $45.00". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 37 (4): 668–670. doi:10.1162/jinh.2007.37.4.668. ISSN 0022-1953. S2CID 142830179.
  17. Chambers, Henry E. (2008). "Review: Islamic Imperialism by Efraim Karsh". Review of Modern Sociology. 34 (2): 315–317. JSTOR 41421690.
  18. Gross, Mary T. (1 April 2007). "Islamic Imperialism: a History: Efraim Karsh". Digest of Middle East Studies. 16 (1): 165–167. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.2007.tb00085.x. ISSN 1949-3606.
  19. Philipp, Thomas (2009). "Review: Imperialismus im Namen Allahs: von Muhammad bis Osama bin Laden by Efraim Karsh". Die Welt des Islams. New Series. 49 (1): 134–136. doi:10.1163/157006008X424995. JSTOR 27798287. Imperialismus im Namen Allahs ist das Buch eines kenntnisreichen Historikers, der dem modischen Trend der pauschalisierenden Verunglimpfung des Islams und der Araber folgt und dessen politische Interessen seine Terminologie und Geschichtsanalyse deutlich dominieren.
  20. Berkey, Jonathan (September 2007). "Islamic Imperialism: A History ? By Efraim Karsh". The Historian. 69 (3): 513–515. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2007.00189_2.x. S2CID 145654779.
  21. Watson, William E. (1 July 2006). "Islamic Imperialism: A History". History: Reviews of New Books. 34 (4): 135. doi:10.1080/03612759.2006.10526973. ISSN 0361-2759. S2CID 141512875.
  22. Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, (Yale University Press, 2010), xx.
  23. Morris, Benny. “Revisionism on the West Bank.” The National Interest, no. 108, 2010, pp. 73–81. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42896324.
  24. Cohen, Hillel (2011). "Review of Palestine Betrayed". The American Historical Review. 116 (2): 545–546. ISSN 0002-8762.
  25. Daniel Palestine Betrayed, Reviewed by Daniel Pipes, National Review 17 May 2010
  26. Sachar, Howard. "Palestine Betrayed Reviews". Yale University Press. Archived from the original on 22 January 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2011.
  27. Morris, 1996, "Undeserving of a Reply", The Middle East Quarterly
  28. Benny Morris, "Refabricating 1948", review of Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians." by Efraim Karsh, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2. (Winter, 1998), pp. 81–95.
  29. I. Lustick, 1997, 'Israeli History: Who is Fabricating What?', Survival, 39(3), p.156–166
  30. I. Lustick, 1997, Survival, 39(4), p.197–198
  31. el-Aswad, el-Sayed (April 2004). "Rethinking the Middle East; Efraim Karsh". Digest of Middle East Studies. 13 (1): 82–85. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.2004.tb00996.x.
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