The first interesting thing about the Tantura story is that it’s a new addition. It exploded into public view in January, 2000, when the Israeli daily Ma’ariv first published details of a Haifa University Master’s thesis entitled "The Exodus of the Arabs from Villages at the Foot of Southern Mount Carmel." The study purported to document a massacre by the Israel Defense Forces' elite Alexandroni Brigade of over 200 residents of Tantura in late May, 1948. More “interesting” is that the author of this work was a middle aged Jewish kibbutz member named Theodore Katz. Katz is also a member of the group of Israeli anti-Zionist revisionists commonly known as “new historians,” and a student of Ilan Pappé, one of the leading “lights” of that movement. But the most interesting thing about the story is that Mr. Katz’s “research” has been meticulously examined and revealed to be a complete and utter fraud.
The controversy has been described in a number of places and from a number of perspectives. Pappé, Katz’s mentor and one of his thesis advisors, has published an exhaustive defense of both Katz and himself here. This article [original link defunct - this is an archive] in the Jerusalem Post presents quite a different view. An article in the Fall 2001 Middle East Quarterly entitled “Israel’s Academic Extremists” also includes an interesting analysis. And then there’s this version from Palestine Media Watch. Just the facts, please.
Mr. Katz’s problems began when veteran Alexandroni Brigade members sued him for libel. After discrepancies were revealed between his interview tapes and the excerpts published in his thesis, Katz agreed to settle the case by publishing a public apology. In what he later described as a moment of weakness, Katz wrote:
I wish to clarify that, after checking and re-checking the evidence, it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed killings of people in Tantura after the village surrendered. Furthermore, I wish to say that the things I have written must have been misunderstood [by the press] as I had never intended to tell a tale of a massacre in Tantura. . . . I accept as truth [only] the testimonies of those among the Alexandroni people who denied categorically the massacre, and I disassociate myself from any conclusion which can be derived from my thesis that could point to the occurrence of a massacre or the killing of defenseless or unarmed people.
Within hours, Katz renounced his apology, but the court required him to honor the agreement nonetheless. When he refused, Brigade veterans published his statement themselves.
Back at Haifa University, a board of inquiry was appointed to review Katz’s work. They, too, found discrepancies as well as coercive and leading interview techniques and selective editing. The thesis was pulled from the library shelves and Katz was given six months to revise the paper. Almost a year later, there’s no evidence that he has done so.
What has emerged in the interim, however, is the source of funding for Katz’s legal defense. The PLO contributed $10,000 of its hard-earned cash to rescue the Tantura massacre hoax. [Update: Ha'aretz reported that it was $8,000 and paid by former Palestinian Authority minister Feisal Husseini.] When asked to comment, Katz said that he didn’t see anything wrong with that. Of course, one could assume that his backers were likely displeased by his apology. Whether that displeasure might have had anything to do with his subsequent retraction and refusal to honor his settlement agreement is a matter of pure speculation.
As for what really happened at Tantura, contemporaneous news reports in the Israeli press appear to concur with the account given by one of the veterans:
"One of the reasons it was decided to take over over the village was to stop the smuggling of arms and food, and to make sure they didn't cut the main road from north to south, from Haifa to Tel Aviv. At one point, the coastal highway had been cut.
"It was quite a battle. We lost 14 members out of the battalion. Katz's claim about the massacre is wrong for the simple reason that early on, by 10 a.m., 99 percent of the villagers had been transported. We first gathered the fighting men in one area. The women and children were put in another, and we gave them water; most of them were transferred to Faradis. The men were transferred to the police yard in Zichron Ya'akov, and then to the Arab area in Netanya, Um Halid."
Certainly claims of massacres and atrocities should not go without investigation. The problem is that, like the case of Dir Yassin, even when the claim is shown to be unfounded, the legend persists. It is convenient for the enemies of Israel to portray her armed forces as ruthless savages, but that propagandistic position cannot be supported by any facts.
For example, Tantura. A Haifa University revisionist historian, Theodor Katz, claimed in his M.A. thesis (released January 2000) that an IDF unit had massacred over 200 Arab residents of the village of Tantura in the 1948 War of Independence. He was brought to court in 2001 by surviving officers and men of the unit who presented contrary evidence including review of Katz's tape recordings showing how he had manipulated the testimony of survivors. Katz admitted finally that he had selectively used reports from Arab sources, taking only those that supported his thesis. The lawsuit was dropped after Katz signed a renunciation of his own work and Haifa University pulled the thesis from library shelves. [It was revealed in September 2002 that tormer Palestinian Authority minister Feisal Husseini paid $8,000 for the legal defense of Teddy Katz.] The University conducted its own review of the evidence. After six months of work, the committee had managed to review only a little more than one-fourth of Katz's tapes, mostly in Arabic, which bore direct relation to the question of whether any massacre took place. Yet even in that limited selection, 14 major discrepancies - in which the tapes didn't accord with the written text - came to light.
No pro-Palestinian Arab source had ever pointed to a massacre at Tantura before Katz's thesis appeared in 2000. The thesis has been completely debunked. Nonetheless, there are now hundreds of web sites that cite the "Tantura massacre" as historical fact. And while Arab sources rushed into print to trumpet the news of Katz's thesis, none has mentioned the retraction save a few who cite it as an example of a massive coverup.
"NEW HISTORIANS" ARE ANTI-HISTORIANS
That Tantura tale, that the IDF had slain more than 200 unarmed and surrendered residents on May 22-23, was Teddy Katz' master's thesis. No such massacre had been recorded there nor was any like it anywhere else in Israel. "Maariv" published a summary of the thesis, to the astonishment of veterans of the Israeli Alexandroni Brigade, that had captured the village.
The thesis quoted two Arab survivors attesting to the massacre. However, neither the interview notes nor Katz' recording contained such statements. It took only two days of cross-examination in libel court for Katz to sign a statement, "After checking and re-checking the evidence, it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever to the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed the killing of people in Tantura after the village surrendered." Within a day, Katz retracted his statement and sought to continue the trial, but the judges refused. The University found that Katz had falsified "gravely and severely" testimony at 14 different places in his thesis.
His thesis advisor, Dr. Ilan Pappe, insists that Katz' conclusions were correct, even if his alleged facts were not. Historical research need not be based on facts -- Katz understood the overall picture, "leaving behind, perhaps forever, certainties about exact chronology and names and precise numbers." The Left and the Arabs now cite this non-existent massacre, which Pappe claims was typical in 1948.
Post-Zionist historians now accept admitted falsehoods as historical evidence. Not only in political discussion but even in scholarship, truth has become relative. Everyone has his own 'narrative.' The line between subjective and objective, between fiction and fact, has been blurred, if not obliterated. All academic standards are bent to demonstrate the "unjust and immoral" nature of Zionism and the State of Israel. Post-Zionist historians, who proudly style themselves slayers of the propagandistic 'myths' of Israel's creation and witnesses of truth, are actually the opposite: falsifiers of facts, for which they substitute a new mythology.
2007-06-07 13:03:04
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answer #8
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answered by Be me 5
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