Is all history biased?

[niaz]

Problem is that there can be no middle ground in describing a historical event. One way is to describe exactly how it happened. Any other way is incorrect. But then what is the truth? Truth depends upon how you look at it.

No matter how objective you try to be, it is not possible to be 100% objective because each human will have inherent bias.

Israel’s creation is a very good example to analyze. There is little doubt that Jews have been persecuted for ages and are supposed to originate from the lands of Judea and Israel. They have been vowing to return to their holy land for the last two thousand years. There was a holocaust and suffered at the hands of the Nazis, Don’t they deserve a homeland?

Then did allied powers have the right to force the Jews exiled from Germany into lands already populated by Arabs? Therefore a Jew would justify creation of Israel whereas an Arab would denounce as an illegally occupied land.

Until 1967 war, Israel was quite happy if allowed to exist in her original borders. Nasser of Egypt along with Syria and Jordan hatched up a plan to push Jews into the sea. Result was quite the opposite. Instead of getting Israel out; Arabs lost West Bank, Sinai and Golan heights. Now Arabs will be happy if Israel could revert to her original borders. Israelis consider new territories as conquered land and feel justified in building new homes on Arab lands.

Pray tell me what is the truth? Each version would be considered correct depending upon which side your sympathies lie.

 

[Tuahaa]

^

Again, good point! We don't exactly know the truth!

We went over this in today's humanities class (i.e. discussing it for those that were having trouble doing the task) and we pretty much came to the conclusion that history definitely is biased, but not an unreliable source because using different sources (e.g. Arab and Jewish journalists) to understand what both sides view the matter would reveal more or less a resemblance of the truth.

But I guess 100% unbiased history describes what but does not necessarily go in-depth with the 'why'. An unbiased statement would be "The war on terror was declared" but a biased one may be either "The war on terror was declared so that USA and its allies could access significant natural resources and regional power in the Middle East and Central Asia" or "The war on terror was declared so that world peace would be kept". One of these statements could be right, or both, or neither!