Raphael Israeli (born September 15, 1935) is an Israeli historian and writer. He is a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Chinese history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Biography

Israeli was born in Fes, Morocco and emigrated to the new state of Israel at the age of fourteen. For twelve years he was a career officer in the Israeli Defence Force in Military Intelligence, whereafter he switched to Academia. He received a degree in Arabic and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then studied at the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D in Chinese and Islamic History. He has taught for 30 years at the Hebrew University and was a visiting professor at universities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Europe. He is the author of over 50 research books and some 100 scholarly articles on the Modern Middle East, Islamic radicalism, Islam in China, Asia and Europe. In 2017, Israeli published a book in Hebrew titled The Arab Minority in Israel, Open and Hidden Processes, in which he calls the Arab minority a "fifth column", who receive more from the state than they contribute and expresses regret that they are not confined to camps like Japanese Americans were in WWII. The Anti-Defamation League called the book "hateful rhetoric". For his 2008 book The Spread of Islamikaze Terrorism in Europe: The Third Islamic Invasion, Israeli said that Europe is in danger of becoming "Eurabia" within half a century. Israeli has been described as a proponent of the counter-jihadist worldview of Bat Ye'or.

Publications