Posted 21December2016 TheJerusalemCenter:
Was Israel born in sin? Alleged atrocities launched by the Jews during the 1948 War, the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, the conduct of the War of Independence, and the ensuing issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict refuse to disappear from our horizon 70 years later. Dr. Raphael Israeli contends that these recriminations are exaggerated and some historians are guilty of not having consulted the Arabic sources. They show that the basic hatred and rejection of nascent Israel by the Arabs would have been remained unchanged regardless of Israel’s actions.


Dr. Raphael Israeli, born in Fes, Morocco, currently teaches Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern History at Hebrew University. He has been a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s and is the author of over 50 books and some 100 scholarly articles in the fields of Islamic radicalism, Islamic terrorism, the modern Middle East, and Islam in China and Asia.