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Avi Shlaim

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Avraham "Avi" Shlaim FBA (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli-British historian, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of the British Academy. 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. Avraham (Avi) Shlaim was born to wealthy Jewish parents in Baghdad, 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 then-prime minister Nuri al-Said.

In the 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Iraq deteriorated, with the persecution of Jews further increasing in 1948, the year of 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. He obtained an MSc (Econ.) in International Relations in 1970 from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from the University of Reading. He was a lecturer and reader in politics at 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.

Shlaim taught international relations at Reading University, specializing in European issues. His academic interest in the history of Israel began in 1982 when Israeli government archives about 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's Reader in international relations at Oxford from 1987 to 1996 and director of graduate studies in that subject from 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." 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 the 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 the letter criticizing The Jewish Chronicle's reporting of Jeremy Corbyn's association with alleged antisemites.

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