Simha Flapan was an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i historian and politician. He was the author of The Birth of Israel: Myths And Realities.
He is probably best known for his book The Birth of Israel: Myths And Realities, published in the year of his death.

Biography

Simha Flapan was born 27 January 1911 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki

Tomaszów Mazowiecki

Tomaszów Mazowiecki is a town in central Poland with 67,159 inhabitants . Situated in the Łódź Voivodeship , it was previously part of Piotrków Trybunalski Voivodeship...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. In Israel,
Flapan was National Secretary of the left

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 Zionist

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 Mapam

Mapam

Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...

 party, and the director of its Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 Affairs department from 1959 to the mid-1970s; he also edited New Outlook magazine—a non-party monthly that promoted Arab-Jewish rapprochement.

View on Zionism

In the preface of 'Zionism and the Palestinians' (1979) Flapan writes:

To dispel misunderstanding, I want to make it clear that my belief in the moral justification and historical necessity of Zionism remains unaffected by my critical reappraisal of the Zionist leadership. The history of Zionism demonstrates the extent to which the urge to create a new society, embodying the universal values of democracy and social justice, was inherent in the Zionist movement and responsible for its progress in adverse conditions. Israel's problem today lies in the disintegration of these values, due largely to the intoxication with military success and the belief that military superiority is a substitute for peace. Unless the liberal and progressive values of Zionism are restored and Palestinian rights to self-determination within a framework of peaceful coexistence are recognised, Israel's search for peace is doomed to failure. I firmly believe that these trends will ultimately become the deciding force in Israel.

Published works

• Zionism and the Palestinians, Croom and Helm, London, 1979.
• The Birth of Israel: Myths And Realities, Pantheon Books, New York; ISBN 0-394-55888-X (August 1987).

Archives

Flapan's personal and professional archives are located at Yad Yaari, Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

 Research and Documentation Center at Givat Haviva.