Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, Michael Rubin wrote about the shoddy scholarship of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. In the course of this post, he mentioned the work of author Benny Morris. Morris has written in response to this discussion. Michael Rubin’s answer follows.
Contentions recently ran a piece by Michael Rubin stating that I had “mistreated quotes by David Ben-Gurion and Theodor Herzl” and that I had later “[come] clean and acknowledged that the Ben-Gurion quote was fraudulent.”
From start to finish, this statement is untrue, perhaps libelous. In my works I have quoted profusely from Ben-Gurion, without demur by scholars. Except for one quote, which, years after I had initially used it, it became clear to me was problematic.
