Martin Shawbiography
- MARTIN SHAW
- born, Driffield, East Yorkshire, England (1947)
- educated at schools in Leeds, Bradford and Stoke-on-Trent (1952-65)
- studied Sociology, London School of Economics (1965-70)
- BA Sociology, University of London (1968)
- PhD Sociology, University of Hull (1993)
Academic posts
- lecturer in Sociology, University of Durham (1970-72)
- lecturer, senior lecturer and reader in Sociology, University of Hull (1972-94)
- Professor of Political and International Sociology, University of Hull (1994-95)
- Professor of International Relations and Politics, University of Sussex (1995-2008)
- Research Professor in International Relations, Sussex (2008-)
- Visiting Professor, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (2010-11)
- Professorial Fellow in International Relations and Human Rights, Roehampton University, London (2010-date)
- Research Professor, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (2011-date)
Other academic highlights
- Head of Department, Hull Sociology (1989-92) and Sussex IR and Politics (1996-9)
- Director of Centre for Security Studies, Hull (1989-92)
- Leverhulme Research Fellow (2000)
- ESRC Research Fellow (2004-5)
- member of the editorial advisory board of a number of international journals
Political career
- member of the Labour Party (1962-66, 1979-date)
- editorial board, Catholic-left journal Slant (1965-67)
- International Socialism Group / International Socialists (1966-77)
- 1960s student and anti-Vietnam war movements (vice-president, LSE students’ union, 1969-70)
- member, steering committee, European Nuclear Disarmament (1981-85) and chair, Humberside CND (1981-84)
- Labour parliamentary candidate, Beverley, East Yorkshire (1987)
- regular contributor to Open Democracy (2003-date)
Comments
25 February 20111
Dear Mr. Shaw
The recent article “Conflict Erupts Among Top Genocide Scholars” in The Forward reports that you were called delusional for describing Israel as having practiced “genocide” against the Palestinians which resulted in a controversy among scholars.
However, I strongly agree with that description. It doesn’t take a learned academician to see over one million Arabs living as citizens of Israel some serving in the Knesset, in the armed forces and thriving throughout Israeli society. If Israelis practiced “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” in 1948, they surely did a poor job.
On the other hand, the Jewish community of Jerusalem was summarily driven from their homes with no criticism from the outside world. I’ll be awaiting your comments on that.
Furthermore, If academicians like you and others want to spend their time wisely reviewing cases of genocide or ethnic cleansing, I would suggest you look no further than the surrounding Arab world where the Jewish communities were destroyed and their members driven away to the tune of close to a million people.
No doubt individual cases of hatred and persecution occurred during and after the 1948 war in what is now Israel but these were isolated. As the present Arab population numbers attests, neither planned or orchestrated genocide or ethnic cleansing occurred.
Also, if you have time in your schedule, I would really like to see you chair a conference on the Turkish genocide against the Armenians and a great location would be Istanbul. But I guess you might be a little less willing to take on the Turks than the easier chance to slam Israel.
George Reiss
Paradise Valley, AZ