Raphael Israeli

Israeli spent his early years in Fez, Morocco. The back-cover description of his 2012 Hebrew-language memoir recounts that he left his home and family there while still young and made his way to a foreign land before eventually building an academic career in Israel.[3] The description presents the book as both a personal account and a history of Moroccan Jewry, framing the community's earlier experience as life under what it calls "conquering and oppressive Muslim rule."[3]

He earned his undergraduate degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in History and Arabic Literature.[1] He subsequently pursued doctoral study in the United States, receiving a PhD in Chinese and Islamic History from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974.[1] His later academic work drew on both Islamic civilization and Chinese history.

Biographical profiles describe Israeli as a professor of Chinese History and Islamic Civilization and, more broadly, of Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Chinese history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[4][5] He also served as a Senior Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace and as a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.[1] YIVO lists him as a member of the Steering Committee of the ACPR.[5]

His published scholarship ranges across Islamic radicalism and terrorism, the modern Middle East, Islam in China and Asia, and the French opening of China.[1][2] His work in Hebrew, French, and English has appeared in international publications, including NATIV.[5] Moshe Yegar's review credits his knowledge of Arabic and Chinese and his use of sources including the Quran and Hadith as important elements of his research.[6]

Israeli is a prolific author. The back-cover description of his 2012 memoir credits him with 36 books and approximately 100 scholarly articles.[3] Other institutional profiles reported 30 books and some 100 scholarly articles.[1]

Among his books on Islamic civilization and radicalism are Fundamentalist Islam and Israel: Essays in Interpretation (1993)[4] and Living with Islam: The Sources of Fundamentalist Islam.[1] His China-related publications include Islam in China (2002)[6] and Islam in China: A Critical Bibliography, produced with assistance from Lyn Gorman.[7] His study of suicide terrorism produced Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology, published in London in 2003. Yegar's review credits Israeli with coining "Islamikaze" by combining Islam with the Japanese "kamikaze" to refer to suicide bombers.[6]

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and regional politics, Israeli authored Green Crescent Over Nazareth (2002) and Jerusalem Divided: The Armistice Regime 1947–1967 (2002).[4] He translated, edited, and annotated The PLO in Lebanon: Selected Documents (1983), an anthology of PLO documents captured during the 1982 Lebanon War.[6] Other works include The Oslo Process: The Euphoria of Failure (2012)[1] and The Iraq War: Hidden Agendas and Babylonian Intrigue.[2]

His studies of antisemitism yielded Poison: Modern Manifestations of the Blood Libel (2002) and Blood Libel and Its Derivatives: The Scourge of Anti-Semitism, published by Transaction Publishers in 2012 (xviii, 255 pages).[8] The latter addresses historical and modern manifestations of the blood libel and its use as a political tool against Israel.[8] His 2012 Hebrew memoir, בחזרה לשום מקום (Back to Nowhere: Moroccan Jews in Dream, Nostalgia and Reality), runs to 282 pages and is presented as both a personal account of his journey from Fez and a history of approximately 200,000 Moroccan Jews who immigrated to Israel.[3]

On Islamic radicalism within Israel, Islamic Radicalism and Political Violence: The Templers of Islam and Sheikh Ra'id Salah was published by Vallentine Mitchell in 2008 and runs to 175 pages.[6]

Following Sheikh Ra'id Salah's 2004 arrest and charge of transferring money to Hamas, the Haifa District Attorney asked Israeli to prepare an expert opinion on Salah and the Islamic Movement in Israel.[6] Israeli's book argues that the Islamic Movement should be understood in the broader context of trends in the Muslim world and examines the movement's ideology, organization, and alleged links to Hamas.[6]

According to Moshe Yegar's review, Israeli spent two years involved in trial proceedings, studying documents, testifying under oath, and facing several days of cross-examination.[6] The review states that Israeli's expert role included presenting what he considered an ideological link between the Islamic Movement led by Salah and Hamas.[6] These characterizations reflect Israeli's analysis and the reviewer's account of the proceedings rather than uncontested judicial findings.

On the Palestinian exodus during the War of Independence, Israeli rejected the use of a single comprehensive explanation. In his review of Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli argued that the departures resulted from varied causes—expulsions, flight from combat, refuge-seeking, and other circumstances—and contended that applying the umbrella label "ethnic cleansing" obscured this complexity. He explicitly acknowledged premeditated expulsions at Lod-Ramla while arguing that the overall picture was more mixed.[1] In a pointed formulation, Israeli compared one-sided historical narration to "reporting a boxing match on the radio or in writing by describing only the punches delivered by the winner, while completely neglecting to mention the defensive and offensive steps taken by the loser."[1]

In reviewing Hillel Cohen's Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism 1917–1948, Israeli argued that Palestinian collaboration with Zionist forces could be driven by family rivalry, economic gain, tribal loyalty, or local self-interest rather than ideological sympathy for Zionism. He highlighted the case of Sheikh Sa'id Musa Darwish of Maliha—described in Cohen's account as having sold land to Jews and prevented other Arabs from attacking Jewish positions—as an example of local pragmatism that complicates binary narratives of collaboration and resistance.[9]

In Poison: Modern Manifestations of the Blood Libel, Israeli interpreted the 1983 episode in which Palestinian schoolgirls fell ill as a case of mass hysteria rather than poisoning, presenting the resulting accusations against Israel as a modern form of the blood libel amplified by media and political actors.[4] His broader treatment of the subject in Blood Libel and Its Derivatives (2012) traced historical and contemporary uses of the accusation as a political weapon.[8]

On European Islam, a 2007 Jerusalem Post report described Israeli's forthcoming The Third Islamic Invasion of Europe as addressing demographic change across the continent. At that time, Israeli estimated that some 50,000 French and 50,000 British individuals had converted to Islam over the preceding decade, projected that the Muslim population of Europe would double within 25 years, and suggested that Turkish accession to the European Union would bring the number of Muslims in the EU to 100 million out of a total population of 450 million.[10] In a 2011 Jerusalem Post article, Israeli argued that "the Islamist wave sweeping today's world is also nothing the world hasn't seen before," characterizing contemporary Islamist movements as a recurring historical phenomenon.[11]

Israeli's reading of the Palestinian exodus during the War of Independence is a contested historical interpretation rather than a consensus position. His acknowledgment of expulsions at Lod-Ramla while resisting Pappe's broader "ethnic cleansing" characterization places his review within an ongoing historiographical debate.[1]

His analysis of the Islamic Movement in Israel and its alleged ties to Hamas, presented in his book and expert testimony in the Ra'id Salah proceedings, represents his own scholarly and legal judgment; these political and historical characterizations should not be read as judicially established findings.[6]

Israeli's 2007 demographic projections about Muslim population growth in Europe were estimates and forecasts offered at the time, not independently confirmed outcomes.[10] His 2011 description of contemporary Islamism as a recurring historical wave was an interpretive framing rather than a reported empirical finding.[11]

Published profiles give conflicting totals for Israeli's output. A Jerusalem Center profile reported 30 books, while his memoir's back-cover description reported 36.[1][3] Yegar's review reported 25 books, whereas YIVO listed 15 books and some 80 scholarly articles.[6][5] The sources do not explain these differences.