German university cancels lecture by Israeli historian Benny Morris

Professor once said 'when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide – the annihilation of your people – I prefer ethnic cleansing'

Israeli historian, Benny Morris. Getty Images

A German university has cancelled a lecture by an Israeli historian following student protests over his “offensive and racist” comments.

Professor Benny Morris was scheduled to deliver a lecture about extremism and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war at the University of Leipzig next week as part of a series on anti-Semitism.

A group called Students for Palestine Leipzig had demanded the talk be cancelled, saying Prof Morris was motivated by "deeply racist" views and recalling a time when he compared Palestinians to "wild animals". The students called him "a person who justifies the expulsion, killing and rape of hundreds of thousands of people" who should not be allowed to give the intended lecture.

The university, which had previously promoted the event as an opportunity for “critical discussion”, cancelled it citing security concerns while expressing concern about a double standard of anti-Israel protests being permitted in Leipzig while Israeli scholars were "increasingly marginalised". However, Leipzig professors said the student backlash was understandable given statements by Prof Morris that "could be read as harmful and even racist".

They include comments he made in a 2004 interview with the newspaper, in which he said “in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime … When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy … when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide – the annihilation of your people – I prefer ethnic cleansing”.

He went on to say of Palestinians that “something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there's no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another”.

Prof Morris told Israeli newspaper Haaretz the decision to cancel was “disgraceful, especially since it resulted from fear of potential violence by students. It is sheer cowardice and appeasement”.

He said the comments were made two decades ago, “during the second intifada, when terrorists were bombing buses and restaurants in Israel almost daily”.

“The word 'cage' that I used was indeed inappropriate, but my intention was correct – the need to place the Arab population in the [occupied] West Bank and Gaza behind fences so they could not enter and explode in Israeli cities,” he said. “Israel eventually did so, and it ended the phenomenon of mass killings by suicide bombers. Perhaps today, the word 'cage' might very well be fitting for the Hamas murderers and their enthusiastic supporters.”

The 75 year-old is an emeritus professor of history at Ben-Gurion University who upended the traditional Zionist historiography of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

He describes himself as a Zionist and once said “I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened”.

At the beginning of his career, he was considered a leftist and often celebrated by liberals. However, his work became increasingly more negative towards Palestinians, starting about the time of the Second Intifada, which began in the autumn of 2000.

In addition to his comments on ethnic cleansing, he described Palestinian citizens of Israel as “a time bomb … an emissary of the enemy that is among us”.

Prof Morris also condemned the Islamic world as one in which “human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West” and “the people we are fighting … have no moral inhibitions”.