By DAN PERRY Associated Press Writer
TEL
AVIV, Israel (AP) -- For the Jewish refugees and pioneers who
builtIsrael on the ashes of the Holocaust, theirs was a straightforward
tale of justice, heroism and redemption.But a half-century later, a maturing nation is reassessing its violentbirth, with historians angrily debating a long-suppressed question with broad implications: Was Israel born in sin?
For Ilan Pappe, among the most outspoken of Israel's ``new historians,''the answer is a resounding yes.
``Jews came and took, by means of uprooting and expulsion, a land thatwas Arab,'' the Haifa University scholar said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``We wanted to bea colonialist occupier, and yet to come across as moral at the same time!''
The ``new historians'' claim that in many cases their predecessors dishonestlyperpetuated national myths, especially surrounding the 1948-49 war that established Israel and createdthe Palestinian refugee problem.
Among the claims made by the revisionists:
--The Jews' victory over several invading Arab armies in the 1948-49war was not the miracle they like to believe. The stronger side won.
--The Arabs who fled Israel (estimates range up to 700,000) were notjust responding to Arab leaders' calls to clear out of the way so Arab armies could massacre the Jews. Many,if not most, were driven out.
--After the war, the Arabs were not the rejectionist side. Israel'sleaders hid from their people a series of peace overtures because they were unwilling to compromise.
In Israel, history and the present day mix constantly. Some fear therevisionists' dismantling of Israel's heroic self-image could weaken its resolve as it prepares to negotiate finalborders with the Palestinians -- and it has sparked an angry backlash.
For instance, Ephraim Karsh, who teaches war studies at London's KingsCollege, denounced the revisionism as distortion peddled by cynics.
``The motives of Israel's founders were pure,'' he insisted. ``They wanteda Jewish state for the Jewish people.''
The expulsions issue was long muddled by confusion surrounding the war,a vague assumption that Arab versions of events were false -- as, indeed, they often were over the years-- and regulations sealing documents relating to state security for 30 years.
The first salvo from the ``new historians'' came in the late 1980s, whenBenny Morris, now a professor at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, detailed the expulsions of the Arabsin a series of articles and a book, ``The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.''
``They (the Arabs) left for a variety of reasons, the most prominentof which was Israeli attacks and fear of Israeli attacks -- imminent, not imagined attacks,'' Morris said in aninterview.
Morris could not say exactly how many were directly driven out. In Lodand Ramle, about 60,000 were actually forced out by Israeli troops, while in Haifa, Jaffa and Safed,Arabs fled on or near the dates of Jewish attacks, he said.
And while Zionist leaders may not have planned the expulsions, Morrissaid, they toyed with the idea while struggling with a basic quandary: ``They had to establish a Jewishstate in a country where there was a majority of Arabs. Any way you divided the country there would bea large ... potential fifth column.''
After a British commission recommended a partition of Palestine and populationexchanges in 1937, David Ben-Gurion and others who led Israel before statehood made numerousstatements in support of transferring the Arab population out of Israel, Morris said. ``There isnever one quote that they oppose transfer.''
Pappe has tried to prove that Israel's War of Independence was not whatit seemed for Israelis reared on the idea that a small, ragtag army of Jewish refugees miraculously prevailedover powerful Arab invaders.
The Arab armies -- primarily from Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Transjordan,now Jordan -- totaled just over 20,000 men, he said. The core of the Arab nations' fighting forces remainedbehind, in part to ensure the internal stability of their own fledgling regimes.
The nascent Israel Defense Force -- mostly based on the pre-state Haganamilitia -- soon outnumbered the Arabs and the Jewish soldiers were far more motivated. The Arabs alsowere crippled by dependence on British military supplies, which were withheld, Pappe said.
Crucially, Israel had a quiet agreement with Transjordan that its ArabLegion, the strongest of the invading armies, would take over only the West Bank, which the U.N. partitionplan had intended as the center of a Palestinian Arab state, Pappe said.
Even so, the Arab Legion handily won a few battles, including the captureof East Jerusalem and the Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements near Bethlehem.
There are also new claims that in the months after the war, Arab leaderssent peace feelers that Ben-Gurion rejected and kept from the Israeli public because he would notpart with his gains in the war compared to the skimpier U.N. partition plan. The Arabs never publicizedthe offers, fearing their own public opinion, Pappe said.
Morris said these events were glossed over by Zionist historians, who``propagated a wholly rosy view of Israeli thinking and actions and a wholly negative view of Arab thinkingand actions.''
The conclusion is that ``Israelis are normal,'' Morris said. ``They lookafter their own interests, they're not very generous and like most people they distort the truth and after revolutionstend to write official histories.''
While some of the facts are in dispute, the essence of the historians'debate appears to be mostly about emphasis and interpretation.
``Old historian'' Anita Shapira of Tel Aviv University, for example,said it was unfair to focus solely on the number of soldiers in the field and ignore the Arab armies' ``potentialto overwhelm Israel numerically.''
Asked about expulsions of Arabs, she said, ``There was no plan to expel,because it seemed cruel, and they really felt that they couldn't do it for moral reasons.''
``But no one was sorry when the flight began,'' she conceded.
The debate has degenerated into name-calling in recent months in a feudbetween Morris and Karsh, who wrote a book called ``Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians.''
Karsh told the AP that Morris ``would be in jail'' if he applied hisacademic standards to his tax returns.
``Karsh is a liar,'' snapped Morris.
The anger that accompanies the debate appears to be fueled by an evidentpolitical split.
Karsh, Shapira and most other ``old historians'' are Zionists. Pappeand many of his colleagues declare themselves ``post-Zionists'' who believe Israel should drop the ``Jewishstate'' mantle.
The post-Zionists would cancel the Law of Return, which allows anyonewith a Jewish grandparent to immigrate and receive automatic citizenship. They also want to change ``Hatikva,''the anthem that speaks of Jews' longing for their land and ignores the Arab minority that accountsfor almost a fifth of the population.
At the heart of the debate is a challenge to the fundamental idea justifyingthe Jews' return to Israel over the past 100 years -- that they deserve a state because they are a ``people.''
``Jews are nothing more than a religion. To have a `Jewish state' islike having `a Catholic state' in France,'' said Pappe.
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