Avi Shlaim

Avi Shlaim (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent. He is one of Israel's "New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel.
Biography
Shlaim was born to wealthy Jewish parents in Baghdad in the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq. The family lived in a mansion with ten servants. His father was an importer of building materials with ties to the Iraqi leadership, including the prime minister, Nuri al-Said.
In the 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Iraq deteriorated, with the rise of nationalisms in Arab countries, and the concomitant growth of Jewish nationalism in the form of Zionism. Persecution of Jews was exacerbated after the defeat of the Arab armies in 1948, and Israel's independence. In 1951, during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, Shlaim's family, along with most of Iraq's Jews, registered to emigrate to Israel and forfeit their Iraqi citizenship. A subsequent law ruled that all those who left forfeited all rights, including property rights. The Shlaim family lost all their property. His father crossed the border illegally on a mule, while Shlaim, his mother and sisters flew to Cyprus and from there were airlifted to Israel. The family reunited in Israel.
Shlaim grew up in Ramat Gan. He left Israel for England at the age of 16 to study at a Jewish school. He returned to Israel in 1964 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, then moved back to England in 1966 to read history at Jesus College, Cambridge. He obtained his BA degree in 1969.<ref name="Oxf">Profile: Avi Shlaim University of Oxford</ref> He obtained an MSc (Econ.) in International Relations in 1970 from the London School of Economics and a PhD from the University of Reading. He was a lecturer and reader in politics in the University of Reading from 1970 to 1987.
He married the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, who was the British prime minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration. He has lived in the United Kingdom since 1966, and holds dual British and Israeli nationality.
Academic career
Shlaim taught international relations at Reading University, specialising in European issues. His academic interest in the history of Israel began in 1982, when Israeli government archives about the 1948 Arab–Israeli War were opened, an interest that deepened when he became a fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1987. He was Alastair Buchan Reader in international relations at Oxford from 1987 to 1996 and director of graduate studies in that subject in 1993–1995 and 1998–2001. He held a British Academy research readership in 1995–97 and a research professorship in 2003–2006.
Shlaim served as an outside examiner on the doctoral thesis of Ilan Pappé. Shlaim's approach to the study of history is informed by his belief that "the historian's most fundamental task is not to chronicle but to evaluate... to subject the claims of all the protagonists to rigorous scrutiny and reject all those claims, however deeply cherished, that do not stand up."
Views and opinions
Shlaim is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper, and signed an open letter to that paper in January 2009 condemning Israel's role in the Gaza War.
Writing in the Spectator, Shlaim called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "proponent of the doctrine of permanent conflict," describing his policies as an attempt to preclude a peaceful resolution to the conflict with Palestinians. Furthermore, he described Israeli foreign policy as one that supported stability of Arab regimes over nascent democratic movements during the Arab Spring.
Shlaim is a member of the UK Labour Party. In August 2015, he was a signatory to a letter criticising The Jewish Chronicles reporting of Jeremy Corbyn's association with alleged antisemites.
In Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, Shlaim unveils "undeniable proof of Zionist involvement in the terrorist attacks" which prompted a mass exodus of Jews from Iraq between 1950 and 1951. The historian believed that most of the bombings against Jews in Iraq were the work of Mossad. He believed this actions to quicken the transfer of 110,000 Jews in Iraq to the then-newly created state of Israel.
Criticism
The Israeli historians Joseph Heller and Yehoshua Porath have claimed that Shlaim "misleads his readers with arguments that Israel had missed the opportunity for peace while the Arabs are strictly peace seekers".
According to Yoav Gelber, Shlaim's claim that there was a deliberate and pre-meditated anti-Palestinian "collusion" between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, is unequivocally refuted by the documentary evidence on the development of contacts between Israel and Jordan before, during and after the war. Marc Lynch however wrote that "the voluminous evidence in [Gelber's] book does not allow so conclusive a verdict".
Israeli historian Benny Morris, while praising Shlaim's historical works such as Collusion across the Jordan and The Iron Wall, has criticized Shlaim's contemporary commentary. In a negative review of Israel and Palestine, he described it as having an anti-Israel and pro-Arab bias, asserting that Shlaim distorted records to give a one-sided portrayal of history. Morris also wrote a negative review of Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew.
Awards and recognition
In 2006, Shlaim was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.
On 27 September 2017, Shlaim was awarded the British Academy Medal "for lifetime achievement".
Bibliography
(Winner of the 1988 Political Studies Association's W. J. M. Mackenzie Book Prize.)
See also
"The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man"
References
External links
Oxford home page
Interview . The Nation, 28 June 2004.
2009 Interview on Israeli-Palestinian conflict inc. video, audio and text transcript.
Video of discussion between Avi Shlaim and Shlomo Sand. Chaired by Jacqueline Rose at the Frontline Club, London, 12 November 2009
Shlaim, Avi."The Balfour Declaration And its Consequences" in Louis, Wm. Roger, ed., Yet More Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain'', London, I.B. Tauris, 2005, pp. 251–270.
1945 births
Academics from Baghdad
Academics of the University of Reading
Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge
Alumni of the University of Reading
British historians
British international relations scholars
British people of Iraqi-Jewish descent
Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford
Fellows of the British Academy
Historians of the Middle East
Iraqi emigrants to Israel
Iraqi Jews
Israeli Arab Jews
Israeli historians
Jewish anti-Zionism in the United Kingdom
Jewish historians
Jewish writers
Labour Party (UK) people
Living people
New Historians
Recipients of the British Academy Medal
Writers from Baghdad