Discover the Best Books Written by Benny Morris

Benny Morris is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians," a term Morris coined to describe himself and historians Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé, and Simha Flapan. Morris's work on the Arab–Israeli conflict, and especially the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, has won praise and criticism from both sides of the political divide. 

Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened." Morris was born on 8 December 1948 in kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, the son of Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom. His father, Ya'akov Morris, was an Israeli diplomat, historian, and poet, while his mother, Sadie Morris, was a journalist. According to The New Yorker, Benny Morris "grew up in the heart of a left-wing pioneering atmosphere." 

His parents moved to Jerusalem when Morris was a one-year-old. He later accompanied his parents to New York, where his father was an envoy in Israel’s foreign service. Morris served as an infantryman in the Israel Defense Forces, including in the Paratroopers Brigade, from 1967 to 1969. He saw action on the Golan Heights front during the Six-Day War and served on the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition. He was wounded in 1969 by an Egyptian shell in the Suez Canal area and was discharged from active service four months later, but he continued to serve in the military reserve until 1990. 

He completed his undergraduate studies in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a doctorate in modern European history from the University of Cambridge. Morris served as an army reservist in the 1982 Lebanon War, participating in the Siege of Beirut in a mortar unit. In 1986, he did reserve duty in the West Bank. In 1988, when he was called up for reserve duty in Nablus, he refused to serve on ideological grounds. He viewed Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as a necessity and did not want to take part in suppressing the First Intifada. 

He was sentenced to three weeks in military prison and was imprisoned for 19 days, with the remaining two deducted for good behavior. He was subsequently discharged from reserve service. From 2015–18, Morris served as the Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor in Georgetown University's Department of Government. He lives in Srigim (Li-On) and is married with three children.

After graduation from the University of Cambridge, he returned to Jerusalem and worked as a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post for 12 years. He covered the 1982 Lebanon War for The Jerusalem Post, which he also fought in as a reservist. While working at The Jerusalem Post in the 1980s, Morris began reading through Israeli government archives, at first looking at the history of the Palmach, then turning his attention to the origins of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. 

Mainstream Israeli historiography at the time explained the 1948 Palestinian exodus from their towns and villages as having been driven by fear or by instructions from Arab leaders. Morris found evidence that there had been expulsions in some cases. Another event that Morris revealed for the first time based on his archive study: the contacts between the Israeli officials and the Lebanese Kataeb Party figures, including Elias Rababi, in 1948–1951. The related news reports were also published in The Jerusalem Post in 1983.