Did Benny Morris ever say "all Palestinians are animals and should be locked up in a cage?"

A self-answered question censored by skeptics.stackexchange, rehomed on Substack.

On April 23, 2024 I was watching a podcast by Briahna Joy Gray — one of my favorites — I wanted to dive further into content than the interview permitted. I wanted to check it, cite it, and confirm the correctness of it. That is to say, I was skeptical and I was standing up to the plate of a fact-checker. I am also a member of a website called skeptics.stackexchange.com. This network provides value by allowing us to host our fact-checking escapades. Or, that’s what they purport.

I was able to confirm the claims in the podcast. And I wanted to contribute that content back. The skepticism was directed at an inhumane statement made by a prominent Israeli historian Benny Morris. Morris frequently comes up in conversations about Palestine and Israel. I did not want parrot a claim that would merely benefit my arguments if it was untrue. However, when the claim is true you can bet that the content is not permissible.

It usually doesn’t take long,

“This post is hidden. It was deleted 11 months ago by Mad Scientist♦.”

The Question

Reproduced here with added clarity,

In this video

Norm Finkelstein says that Benny Morris once said, "all Palestinians are animals and should be locked up in a cage."

The interviewer, Briahna Joy Gray, says that she is surprised by that. To which Norm replies that the interview comes from Ari Shavit. I found this interview between Shavit and Morris, but it lacks that claim about caging the Palestinians.

Is this quote correct?

This is typical content of skeptics.stackexchange. You can have a question which either starts your inquiry and await for others to answer it. Or that represents something you found that you want to contribute back and then you can supply your own answer to it.

My findings; the answer

Also reproduced verbatim

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The quote is from an article in Haaretz called "Survival of the Fittest" by Ari Shavit, but it's on the unabridged source of the interview not the article.

Referring to Sharon’s Security Wall, he says,

"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."

Note: the context of “wild animal” here. He doesn’t say all Palestinians are “wild animals.” But he does say a cage must be built around “them” (plural) because there is “a” (subse or singular) wild animal. He confirms this interpretation by saying “locked up one way or another”. As if to say explicitly he’s willing to accept any form of locking up the wild animal, including collective punishment of the Palestinians as a whole.

The rest of the interview ages just as poorly, he owns being tribalistic

Preserving my people is more important than universal moral concepts.

And he creates an analogy where Muslims are Barbarians and Israel is the West, in answering "The Muslims are barbarians, then?" Morris responds,

I think the values I mentioned earlier are values of barbarians - the attitude toward democracy, freedom, openness; the attitude toward human life. In that sense they are barbarians. The Arab world as it is today is barbarian.

He goes on to say,

The whole Zionist project is apocalyptic. It exists within hostile surroundings and in a certain sense its existence is unreasonable. It wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1881 and it wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1948 and it's not reasonable that it will succeed now.

And the interview concludes with a rather revealing question

So what you are telling me is that you live the Palestinian Nakba of the past less than you live the possible Jewish Nakba of the future?

"Yes. Destruction could be the end of this process. It could be the end of the Zionist experiment. And that's what really depresses and scares me.

I read this to say that anything to continue the "Zionist experiment" is excusable regardless of whether or not it's moral.

Reception

What did the community think? The question was a “Hot Network Question” with +6. The Answer I provided was +14. That is to say, this was otherwise ideal content for the network. But if the content offends Israel, it’s outta there.

The site really needs rethink moderation in its entirety. But I’m glad I found a new place to home my content where I have more control, and get less drama and opposition.