I first read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, one of the "Israeli New Historians" who looked at the archived materials from Cabinet meetings, politician diaries, Israel Defence Force orders etc... after they were eventually released forty years after 1948. I read Pappe following the a challenge by an politically anti-Israel Jewish friend of mine who teaches in Philosophy at UNSW.

I found Pappe's book painful as he outlined the atrocities committed by Israel - even though I was mindful of the one-sided non-contextual facts that Pappe was describing, and the consequent one-sided idealistic anti-Israel interpretation. It was painful because, as a Jew, I couldn't help feeling 'ASHamed' (as a Jew) to be just all the other racist nationalists the world over - Christian, Buddhist, Leftist, Rightist or Muslim.

I followed Pappe up with Benny Morris' book, knowing that Morris was one of the first of the "New Historians" to look at the historical material. Morris offers the balanced contextual background to Pappe's propaganda diatribe - with a 19th century starting point instead of one which commences in 1948. Morris accepts Pappe's atrocities but he also outlines the earlier Arab atrocities; he describes the self-delusion, corruption and moral bankruptcy of Arab leadership as well as the errors of strategy and internecine rivalries of the Arab elites; and he writes his history aware of the dynamics and uncertainties that are integral to war - in contrast to Pappe's simplistic interpretation of evil consequence being a result of evil desire.

Following the reading of both books I have come to the conclusion that there will NOT be any peace between Israel and the Palestinians until both sides recognise the atrocities and the errors of judgement that they have committed. At this stage, each side only looks at the atrocities the other side has committed, though I suspect that because of more freedom of speech and political-commercial transparency-accountability, there are more Jews, Israelis and Westerners who recognise the 'evils' of their ways than there are Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians who recognise the 'evils' of their ways.

War is evil - no doubt about that. War is two-sided - no doubt about that, either. The tit-for-tat strategy that both sides use has not produced peace in the near-term and there is no reason to believe tit-for-tat will bring peace in the long-term.

It is well to keep in mind that existence and honour seem to be two infinite values. Jews and Israelis see this conflict, following centuries of oppression and last century's attempt at liquidation in terms of existence. Simultaneously, Muslims and Arabs see the past century in terms of humiliation and loss of honour. At this stage in our history, non-indigenous Westerners in general, and non-Aboriginal Australians in particular, have little understanding of either existential threat or humiliation - and so it is that when I discuss the Middle East with them, I have a sense that they are clueless.

Reading Morris after Pappe is a good ways to become clued-up.reviewed34 s Khader3 3

This was an excellent read, although sometimes heavier in quantitative military details than I would have personally d. This is not a shortcoming of the book, but rather a lack of knowledge and interest on the part of the reader, as I was most interested in the political aspects of the 1948 war, as opposed to detailed information about every individual skirmish.

One of my favorite chapters of this book was the final conclusions chapter, where Morris urges Arabs and Palestinians to do the necessary soul searching to try to understand why their history took such a course. As an Arab, and an American Palestinian, I believe that this is critical. I grew up hearing and continue to hear people blame everyone but themselves for the negative turn of events. But the real questions to me are why did passions prevail over levelheadedness among Arab leaders? Why did Arab leaders, with the exception of King Abdullah, not have a realistic assessment of their military capabilities? Why did Palestinian society collapse in such a dramatic way, where disunity prevailed in such a way as to allow the IDF to pick off one Palestinian Village at a time, without other Villages rallying in their support? The national humiliation faced by the Arab armies during the 1948 war made all future conflicts inevitable.

It's always interesting to wonder what would have happened had the 1947 UN partition plan been implemented in an orderly fashion. Many would argue that regardless of whether it had, the conflict between the two nationalist movements was inevitable. The future however, remains to be seen.22 s Genia Lukin233 192

Okay, let's grab the bull by the horns: nobody (except maybe one or two military history nuts) actually reads this book wanting to learn the military history of the 1948 war. People just want to know one thing - did they, or didn't they? Did Israel ethnically cleanse the Palestinians or not? Or, alternately, I suppose (though less ly with Morris readers) did the Arab states want to throw all the Jews into the sea or not? And, most importantly, whose fault is it??

(The British. Guys, it's the British. Okay, moving on.)

What does this book have to tell us on the matter?

- It is abundantly clear that there was no preconceived plan to systematically cleanse the Arabs from the territory the UN assigned to Israel. Some people love claiming that, indeed, there was, and cite things the village files collected by Haganah intelligence (I'm looking at you, Pappé) to become "one of the most horrifying things done by mankind" (I'm loosely quoting a friend here). Except that we very quickly see that there wasn't. It appears that much of the earlier refugee wave was a result of abject fear and broken morale. I can't blame people; if you were in a situation of ethnic conflict, and being shelled, to boot, you'd flee the hell away, too. Israelis, stubborn idiots that they are, are clearly psychologically unsound and are an exception nobody should attempt to emulate, in that regard. Our basic response to shelling is to sit there and get stubborn. We are officially nuts. The Palestinians, much saner, decided to get while the getting was good, often on their own.

This is demonstrated aptly in places where expulsions did not take place, Haifa, Acre, the Druze villages, Nazareth, etc'. Places that surrendered or reached an agreement during the civil war stage of hostilities, and were left in place. We see this also in the uncertain, twitchy policy in central Galilee during the later stages of the war, where nobody could decide what to do, and just sort of went along with whatever seemed cool at the time, in typical Israeli fashion.

- Just as clearly, in the later stages of the war, when the situation was geared more toward solidification and expansion, rather than sheer survival, there were actual expulsion orders. There also was a policy of "good riddance", once people were out, they were out. The government and people on the ground tried to quickly put together a fait accompli, assuming they were going to get away with it - a very unsavoury thing in the 2000s, but much more understandable in the 1940s. Well, it was still unsavoury in the 1940s, but was more ly to be excused.

Many of these expulsions were driven by (often excessive) paranoia ( Ramleh and Lod) and opportunism, rather than by a desire for ethnic uniformity, but some definitely weren't. Policies were enacted to prevent the return of refugees. These policies were often also opportune ways to ensure the safety of settlements and cities that, previously, were under threat, or a way to house a new immigrant population, or just ugly revenge, or political calculation. The Arabs, on their end, did something similar to the (fewer) settlements they conquered on the way, not to mention expelled and persecuted their entire Jewish populations immediately after the war.

This presents a very ambiguous, uncertain and ambivalent picture, where people were making a series of ad hoc decisions, arguing endlessly about what to do, changing their minds, and in general trying to figure things out. That is not to say there is no guilt here, but, here's the thing. Many anti-Zionists, some of them even Jews, imbibed the anti-Semitic trope that requires finding the Evil Plot. They need - and will take nothing less than - a premeditated, calculated display of Evilness being Evil, Evilly. They are determined to perceive this Evil in every Israeli move. The reality is, of course, much more homey, and much more homely. The reality is selfish, opportunistic, paranoid, terrified, idealistic, conflicted, messy and uncertain. Instead of an axis of evil intent on a massacre of the innocents, you just have a bunch of guilty parties who are also innocent parties, fighting each other for what they see as their basic human rights.

- This was an ugly war. It was actually not as ugly as many other wars, and this is true for both sides, but that's not saying much. Of course, every war is ugly. There is no war, no matter how just, that doesn't get nasty, brutish and long. If anybody thinks there's gallant war out there, anywhere, they need their heads examined - or at least to read Amnesty's reports on the Ukraine.

- The whole war, beginning to end, was a massive post-colonial mess and communal landgrab. Everybody was pawing at the three and a half square kilometers (it feels ) of mandatory Palestine, trying to get a piece, before the icing melted. The Arabs wanted parts, or all, of it, the Israelis wanted more of it, the Palestinians wanted as much of it as they could get. The Israelis somehow found themselves in a position to execute a greater landgrab than they thought possible and, surprise, surprise, they promptly took it. If the Arabs had been winning, no doubt they would have done the exact same thing, which is why the Israelis felt they had to win.

- Speaking of landgrabs, it is astonishing how little the world mentions the staggering land grab executed by Jordan. If you're going around comparing Israel to the Germans - I don't think you should, but if you did - then Jordan pulled a thorough and complete USSR, grabbing, essentially, the vast majority of the territory allotted to the Palestinians, without a single peep out of anybody! Not only that, but it never had to share or assume any of the responsibility for doing so in front of the community of nations, neither then nor now. Considering the kind of crap Israel gets, 70 years later, an amoral asshole part of me really wants to know what is the secret of this astounding PR coup.

- The Palestinians were - pardon my delicate French here - fucked big time. By the international community, by their leaders (many times over), by the Arab world (extensively and thoroughly) and even by themselves. And, yes, also by Israel. The Israelis? They would have been utterly fucked too, except that they were, this time, hellbent on being the ones doing the fucking. Is that something to be proud of? Absolutely not. Is it better than being fucked over? I don't know, but I call out the massive hypocrisy of anyone who says they do.

- Jerusalem was, clearly, a major sticking point for all sides. especially, and understandably, for Israel, considering its primary importance to Jewish history and religion, and the large Jewish community living there, but also to the Arab world. It is interesting, and somewhat depressing, to speculate on what would have happened if Jerusalem were just another city with just another community.

- In general, the lack of regard the partition plans and international goals had for Jewish history is astonishing. The idea that the Jews should get precisely the part of Palestine that was not, historically, of significance to the Jews, makes a certain amount of geopolitical sense in light of where the greatest concentrations of Jewish populations actually were - largely a matter of necessity and accident - but completely ignored the whole reason Jews were in Palestine in the first place.

- It's amazing how easily terms such as "imperialism", "colonialism" and so on, were thrown at Israel, from the very beginning. These terms were adamantly applied, laughably, by an actual British colonial official in Jordan (known previously as the Protectorate of Transjordan) with utter seriousness, and the full weight of connotation, to an Israeli military expansion geared toward pushing the borders of the newly-created state outward by a few kilometers in each direction. This in the context of the still existent British empire, the recently defeated German and Japanese empires, the convenient annexation of the Baltic states by the USSR, and, even, the completely unauthorized snatch-and-grab pulled off by the Jordanians. It looks the tendency for words to just.. lose their meaning, has been a feature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, practically from day one.

- The Arab inability to recognize the state of Israel, and to make peace, kept biting them in the arse, and it's amazing how many of them knew it and could do nothing. The chronic refusal to negotiate actually peace accords - as opposed to cease-fires - has also massively exacerbated and entrenched the problems of the Palestinians, including the refugees, the return of which Israel was, apparently, at the time extremely not eager for (to say the least) but willing to contemplate under peace negotiations. This, too, somehow managed to completely go under the international radar.

- Israel committed more atrocities and massacres than the Arabs had, most ly because it was winning. The lack of atrocities and general push on the Arab side appears to be less a matter of high-minded moral and more a lack of enthusiasm. Nonetheless, the atrocities committed during the war need to be better recognized by Israel and acknowledged. We did it, we gotta live with it. We, of all people, aren't allowed to just shove it under the carpet.

- The international community, from the start, was very keen on sending "thoughts and prayers", but not much else, and even their thoughts and prayers were often high-handed and resented by both sides. The inability and lack of desire to actually enforce the partition that it, itself, decided upon, probably started the whole thing. It's odd to speculate, in retrospect, how things would have looked if, whether through Arab cooperation or international enforcement, the partition were to go through smoothly, but its conduct during this war was probably a huge part of building up negative credit with every side - and keeping that credit going ever since.

- Lehi and Etzel really managed to screw things up.

- The whole obsession with the Negev is weird. I the Negev, I guess, but the Zionist movement seemed so hell-bent on it, and then just couldn't sustain its own enthusiasm. Why it was so eager to make the Negev bloom in the first place is beyond me. Very romantic, I guess, but also kind of outré. Makes me wonder if resources wouldn't have been better off poured into something more productive in the first place.

- The present-day hatred of the kibbutz movement towards "those terrorist settlers" from Judea and Samaria is hilarious, in light of how much they benefited - more than anyone else, apparently - from the expulsion of the Arab population of Israel in 1948. Of course, the same kind of hilarious hypocrisy is true for the entire Western world - built as it is upon infinite suffering and exploitation - towards Israel and the Middle East. The atrocities they committed happened long ago, and are now invisible, it's time to guilt other people for the atrocities they are committing now, having had no opportunity to do so before.

Basically, this book is yet another depressing installment in humans being humans. I've spent the last while reading a lot of Jewish- and Israel-related nonfiction, and now I officially just want the climate catastrophe to come and drown us all. I appreciate Benny Morris's unemotional, dry take on the situation, but I think I'm going to spend the next few months reading Fantasy, or something.biography-history16 s Ram691 45

A well written account of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The history of the conflict before the war from the demographic, political, economic and religious aspects.

The various stages of the war and their outcome.

The decisions made by the leaders (military and political) and the priorities that guided them.

The reasons why the war ended as it ended and the reason it ended when it ended.

And much more.

Benny Morris is an Israeli historian. He is a key member of the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians" a term Morris coined to describe himself and historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé.

Morris's work on the Arab–Israeli conflict and especially the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has won praise and criticism from both sides of the political divide. He is accused by some academics in Israel of only using Israeli and never Arab sources, creating an "unbalanced picture". On the other hand, the "New Historians" are accused by many in Israel as presenting a pro Arab point of view.

Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened."

The narrative in the book is different from what I learned in history classes, and as I do not want to get into a long discussion of political aspects of the Israeli Palestinian conflict I will not go into too many details.

While I am familiar with most of the events and battles in the book, I found it interesting.

The political atmosphere of the time is well described and the author goes into many details explaining how the world events, trends, character and type of leaders, public opinion and interests influenced the decisions made by the world leaders, local leaders and people of both sides at various points in time.

From the military point of view, many of the battles occurred in places that I am very familiar with, including the hills surrounding the place I live and the bike paths that I ride on, so this added a personal touch to the experience.

This book is an important book in order to understand some of the roots of the Israeli Arab conflict.

9 s Gerhard VenterAuthor 12 books3

It would be unfair to expect a balanced view of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war from a Jewish author, and I picked up the book specifically to get the Israeli point of view. What I got, instead, was a pretty even-handed treatment of the events. Morris makes no attempt to disguise the often brutal way the Haganah, the forerunner of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) went about clearing Arab villages of their inhabitants, and making sure they can never return. In my opinion, present-day Palestinian narratives that tell exactly the same events would fare better if they included the Arab side of things, which was characterized by a blood-lust and level of antisemitism we can hardly imagine. What also stands out in the book is the almost institutionalized cruelty the British government displayed towards holocaust survivors at that time.
I bring from my reading is the impression that there were very few innocents in that piece of history, that the Palestinians had forever just lived and farmed there as subjects of the Ottoman Empire, that they weren't nearly ready to become a country or nation, that the Arab governments of Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt were forced into the war by their "streets," that the Jordanian royals have always (in context) been more wise than the others, that Egyptian soldiers can be very brave but were often made to look buffoons by corrupt and incompetent government, and that the Israelis fought devils, often within sight of their farms and houses.
It also leaves me despondent: those displaced Palestinians are never ever tever going to accept the status quo. I don't think I'll see in my lifetime the day when all the nations of the world say: Look, the borders are the borders. Let's work from there.
Extremely interesting, though.6 s Anatoly122 66

Excellent and well written. Though full with military details, the book also covers the political and geostrategic background which I am more interested in. Also, and that is important in a subject this (and in historical accounts as a whole) is that the book isn't biased to any of the sides. history6 s Andrew Daniels293 13

The strength of this book is the research behind it, and I respect Benny Morris as a serious historian who did important work, however, its not a particularly easy or interesting read. It is also a wildly biased work, Benny Morris is a radical extremist who advocates committing war crimes. His irritation with the period of 1948 is that the IDF didn't expel more Arabs. Ultimately, his bias afflicts his work to such a degree that he makes conclusions that do not match his research. He claims there was no intent to expel all the Arabs even as he reveals that there was such a plan, intent and it was carried out. Flimsily, he claims that because such a policy was only enacted and not advertised that proves it did not exist. Many parts of his history are incorrect or unreliable, in particular the entire conclusion is unreliable and problematic.
Ultimately, its manipulative and dishonest.

many military histories, it is a slog of names of the order of battle and a list of tactics of individual battles. This book does give some overall context, so it does have meaningful bits, but its mostly difficult to read all military histories are. You can get some good bits in between the battles, but its a real struggle to get through the repetitive battles. Reading this is similar to the experience of playing a grind-heavy RPG.

Would definitely recommend other overview books on Palestine, Israel-Palestine Competing Histories, to read first.5 s AskHistorians918 3,295 Read

This book covers the history of the first Arab-Israeli war, with great detail given for how the war was conducted, the events of it, and how the Israelis managed to succeed in winning the war itself. This focuses on the lead-up to war from the Civil War that had been going on before, and discusses the various fronts.arab-history israel-history middle-east-history ...more3 s Tami R Peterson60 23

Morris does a good job of exploring the various battles of the 1948 war in minute detail including excellent maps which make the troop movements, take overs and losses easy to follow, even for someone who is unfamiliar with the terrain.[return][return]He explores the reasons for the defeat of the armies of the surrounding Arab states, which include poor preparation, a lack of coherent ideology and lack of arms as opposed to the Yishuv which was literally fighting for its life.[return][return]It is clear that Morris is approaching the subject through the Israeli lens but there does seem to be a paucity of information from the side of the Arab states and armies meaning any scholarly attempt at covering this subject will be necessarily limited. In fact one cannot help but admire the tenacity and perseverance of the Israelis when they were underdogs, whatever one's current view of the situation in the Middle East.[return][return]For all this Morris is honest about atrocities committed by both sides in the course of the war and tries to hide nothing. It was a bloody, brutal conflict but ly no more so than the birth of any state. It is certainly worth a read for anyone interested in the issue, international politics or history.bookplated israel middle-east ...more2 s Jerome Otte1,795

A broad, nuanced and well-written history of the 1948 war.Most of the book is a straightforward military history, and Morris ably covers the excesses and blunders of all sides.

Morris ably covers the strategic aspects, and suggests that the war was all but inevitable. Morris argues that the Israelis won due to better preparation, planning, motivation and logistics, as well as international sympathy. The Arab nations, on the other hand, were wracked by infighting and often seemed to prefer rhetoric to adequate planning and training, even though they had years to prepare.Morris does acknowledge the atrocities committed by Israeli forces and argues that these were mostly ad hoc rather than deliberately planned. At the same time, he portrays the Palestinian Arabs as unorganized and often unwilling to fight for areas outside their immediate home.

A balanced, well-researched and well-organized work. Some better maps would have helped, though, and Morris seems to portray the war as a sort of east-west struggle, but supports it with little more than random quotes.2 s Ran54

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Just days before the latest Hamas attacks in Israel, I got “1948” by Benny Morris (2008), which is about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. My interest in this subject was spurred by reading the novel “Exodus”, which was reviewed previously.

The war was basically fought in two phases: the first phase, arguably starting decades earlier, really went into high gear in 1947 after the UN got involved in the British Palestine Mandate and came up with a plan to set aside a Jewish state to resettle displaced victims of the Holocaust, as well as other Jews that wanted to move there. The local Arabs were completely opposed to this and began fighting the growing numbers of Jews with local militias and a more ‘national’ organization called the Arab Liberation Army or ALA. The ALA and the Arab militias were little more than social clubs before the fighting started, doing no actual paramilitary training and really never even getting together except for the occasional parade. The Jewish Haganah, by contrast, was well-organized, fairly well-equipped, and had the Holocaust fresh in their minds as motivation to fight. The book makes it sound the battle between the Arabs and the Haganah was fairly one-sided, with the Jews getting most of the victories and capturing many Arab settlements. The Arabs, by contrast, usually got the worse end of every fight and never succeeded in capturing a Jewish settlement.

Jewish treatment of the Arab civilians ran the gamut from completely leaving them alone, to ordering them to leave their homes (sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently; sometimes they were told to just go to another town or region, sometimes they were completely expelled from Palestine), to murdering them en masse. There’s an argument that this policy was the worst of both worlds: it was brutal enough to embitter the Arab population against the Jews for all time while still leaving said Arabs in the Jews’ midst where they could act as a fifth column against the emerging nation state of Israel.

The second phase of the war was the day after May 15, 1948, when the Jews had trounced the Arab Palestinian population to the point that they felt sure about declaring independence and renaming their state “Israel” (this was also after the British had cleared out of Palestine and washed their hands of that troublesome colony). On May 16, all of Israel’s neighbors began invading the nascent state. On paper, this was a huge threat to the Jews’ existence in the region: the combined Arab population was around 40 million at that time while the Jewish population was more 600,000 - 650,000. In reality, the first phase of the war wound up being a preview of the second phase, with Arab armies being poorly led, trained, equipped, and motivated, un their Jewish enemies.

The Jordanians were the best-performing army that the Arabs had and were able to capture territory that we now call The West Bank. They actually had some battles where they were able to defeat the Haganah/IDF (the name change occurred at some point during the war) and had limited help from their British benefactors. As a side note, John Glubb, the author of the “Fate of Empires” essay, was one of the main British officers that was advising the Jordanians at this time and is mentioned frequently in the book.

The Egyptians were numerically significant in the war but performed poorly. They penetrated far into Israel at first but by the war’s end had IDF troops on Egyptian soil, driving the Egyptians toward Cairo. Only UN intervention stopped the IDF from going farther.

The Lebanese were a very half-hearted participant in the whole affair. Part of this was Lebanon’s significant Christian minority who viewed a Jewish state as something that could take the heat off of them from the Muslim majority. Even the Muslim majority, including their leadership, didn’t seem to want anything to do with the fighting. Lebanon got in the war late and contributed little.

The Saudis, Syrians, and Iraqis contributed quite a few troops but were also ineffective. All the Arab states treated one another as competitors rather than allies at every turn. They were constantly backstabbing each other politically and refused to come to each other’s aid with reinforcements, supplies, or even sharing information. As for the Arab populations, they were quick to stage angry demonstrations in their own streets against the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East, but few of them joined their country’s military and those who did fought poorly. I got the impression that most Arabs were motivated by the “honor culture” concept rather than actual victory.

The state of armaments was also lopsided, with Arab states getting used to simply being given weapons and materiel by either France or Britain (who carved up the Arab states for themselves with the Sykes-Picot Agreement during WWI) and who didn’t know what to do once the UN placed an arms embargo on the region after fighting started. The Arabs hadn’t stocked up on weapons beforehand, un the Jews, and what little they had tended to be an older generation of equipment that the European powers no longer wanted. As a side note, it was interesting to hear about equipment being used in this war that came too late to be used in WWI but that didn’t really cut the mustard by WWII; this war was probably the only place where it really got used in combat and was considered to be useful by both sides.

The Jews, by contrast, were well-funded by international Jewry (especially in America) and simply bought weapons on the black market to get around the UN embargo. Most of these seem to have come from Czechoslovakia but many C-47 and B-17 aircraft came from America too. A lot of machine tooling was also purchased from the USA to jump start the Israeli arms industry. Many of the new Jewish immigrants to Israel were skilled tradesmen who could build what was needed while such an industrial base was almost non-existent in the Arab world.

In the end, the Arabs didn’t seem to do much of anything right and executed their war very half-heartedly. This is somewhat confusing to me at first glance; in my mind, Israel’s enemies are so passionate about their cause that they’re willing to become suicide bombers just to kill some of their foes. This extreme worldview doesn’t seem to have existed in 1948 and, perhaps, was born of the humiliation at the Jews’ hands in 1948 and beyond.

Post war, there were two refugee crises that arose: the Arabs that were kicked out of Israel and sent to neighboring Arab states and the Jews that fled those states (and others) to come to Israel. Some of the numbers are amazing: Yemen had 40,000-50,000 Jews in 1948 but had only about 200 by the 1960’s, as most had left for Israel. In a few short years after the war, the influx of Jews into Israel had doubled the population of the nation. All of these immigrants seem to have been integrated into Israeli society fairly quickly and easily, in spite of many of them coming from disparate backgrounds and virtually none of them speaking Hebrew. By contrast, the Palestinians that made it to other Arab nations have been excluded to this day from those societies in spite of their shared ethnicity, religion, and language.

As for the book itself, the writing style tended slightly towards dryness that made some parts a little hard to read. Luckily, the whole book wasn’t that and so I was able to focus on it for the most part. There were a lot of statistics about how big a military unit was, how many vehicles or artillery pieces they had, and how many casualties there were on each side of each battle. While useful historical information, this could be presented mechanically at times. On the matter of numbers, it was also remarkable how few casualties there really were in this war; major battles where one side would lose more than low to mid double digits worth of soldiers killed were rare. For such a world-changing war, and one that took place immediately after WWII, the largest war in human history, these numbers seem very low. Of course, the populations of the states involved were also quite sparse and the Arab nations, more heavily populated by far, were too poor and disorganized at the time to mobilize more than a tiny amount of their manpower.

I’m left with the impression of almost confusion; the Arab/Muslim passion and outrage at Israel that I’ve taken for granted my entire life just isn’t present in this story. The isolation of the Arabs is also something that I can’t fathom today, their oil being too valuable to too many in our world. In 1948, the USA was actually trying to distance itself from the conflict (quite the opposite of our policy today!) and the USSR was actually backing Israel since the Jews were seen as an opponent of the British at this stage. Of course, this would reverse as the Cold War evolved.

The British were a wild card in the story, as they were nominally just keeping a lid on any violence in the Palestine Mandate, but they were constantly erring on the side of not angering their Arab subjects, of whom there were millions across the globe. There were times when they stopped Arabs from killing Jews, times when they literally stood by and watched Arabs kill Jews, and even times when they assisted Arabs with killing Jews. There were no stories about the British fighting alongside the Jews, with the exception of some British deserters that joined the Haganah. There were at least two incidents late in the war where RAF planes were shot down by the IAF or Israeli anti-aircraft batteries. British public opinion was mixed, with some seeing the Jews as terrorists that were killing their troops overseas while others sympathized with the recent victims of the Holocaust.

I’m glad I read the book but the story is, in some sense, oddly simple: the Jews prepared to fight, organized well, and took the war seriously and the Arabs did not. Such a significant epoch in history seems it should have more to it than that but, broadly speaking, it appears that that’s really all there is to it. I kind of feel saying that if you accept that, then you don’t really need to read the book, unless you want the details of how that all went down. Still, I’m glad I did read it so that I can say that I know more about this war, strange though it feels to me.
Sherif Gerges118 13

Benny Morris belongs to a special cadre of Middle Eastern "New Historians", whose work revised the sanitized narrative of Arab expulsion (reframing it as voluntarily emigration) which the Israeli government promulgated post-1948. In this dexterously written and dense book, Morris undoubtedly invited considerable controversy - albeit not just within Arab circles, but Zionist as well.

Most books written about either Israel or Palestine have not sought to accomplish this. They either try to A) highlight the authenticity of the Jewish connection to Israel and their rights to sovereignty. Or B) conversely, the Palestinians as being indigenous to a land, and their collective plight as subjects of European settler colonialism. Critical to appreciating the broad appeal of Morris lays in his style. He's not interested in pontificating or languishing. His writing is a precise, sterile description of what he has determined to be facts on the ground. I found this approach refreshing.

In this book I learned a bit more about the mentality of the Israeli and various Arab nations and Palestinian factions that fought. I learned that the Israeli army committed multiple expulsions and sometimes massacres in order to occupy as much territory as possible while reducing the number of Palestinians. However, you also learn about the intense Judeophobia and murderous intent of the Arab armies. It is clear the two sides harbor an inherent distrust of one another with completely uncompromising claims to the land. It can only end badly for the loser.1 Alex Goldstein109 4

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This is the most horrible book about the 1948 war that I've read and I've read many. This so called historian lies and distorts history on every page. To be honest, I didn't finish the book, I was too appalled by its obnoxious lies. The very name that the writer gives to the Israeli War of Independence is wrong from the get-go. He calls it a civil war. A historian not knowing the difference? Where did he get his degree? In the Ramallah bomb making university? Second and probably the most important lie is that the writer places the blame for the war and displacement of the Arabs on Israel. Morris enligthens us that the five Arab states attacked Israel only bc of the massacre of Deir Yassin, not bc they hated the idea of a Jewish state in their midst and Jews in general, which they still do now, hence the 1967 and 1973 attempts. Were those caused by Deir Yassin too? The Deir Yassin affair, as it's known to us today, is based largerly on the testimonies of the Arabs themselves. Of course, Arab lies matter, no doubt, they did then and do now. In the 1967 war, the honest Arabs declared to the world that it was Americans and Brits who attacked them. Why is it that the writer doesn't say much about the massacres of the Jewish convoys that went through Bab el Wad to supply Jerusalem that was starving under the Arab siege, why not about the convoys en route to Kfar Etzion, why not the destruction of Kfar Etzion itself when the great, kind hearted Arabs shot those ppl who had already surrended? It was the fault of the Jews too, right?

The book is full of fake pics meant to elicit sympathy for the Arabs. One photo, for instance, depicts a group of men w/o any insignia, one holding a sack in his hands. The inscription informs us that it's Arab soldiers holding a Jewish baby. Really? The sack is just a sack, nobody knows what's in it. There is no indication it's a baby, no face, nothing. Even if it is a baby, how is it a Jewish baby? How is it a live baby? Where did Arab soldiers get a Jewish baby?

I have a feeling that writers Morris take blood money from enemies of Israel to produce opuses this one and help them with their ideological war. I think that here, in the USA, if somebody falsified our history that, they would be prosecuted.1 2 comments Raymond Thomas204 4

Excellent examination of the causes and course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War from an unbiased source. Critical examination of the motivations, actions, and decisions of all sides involved in the conflict. Details some of the darker aspects of the war and the reasons for their existence.

Additionally, I would to add that the author does a brilliant job pointing out the frankly ridiculous position the Arab governments put themselves into when reacting to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Israeli statehood, and the post-conflict peace process. Very interesting read, definitely recommend.history non-fiction1 Caitlin57

Written by an Israeli historian, the historical part was fair and informative. I ended up skipping a lot of the battles due to more interest in the political history of the country.
I do admit I didn't finish the final section entitled "Conclusions". I became frustrated rather quickly as the author seems to throw in the towel on his unbiased streak. He starts by talking about how the Arabs of the region have always been hostile towards the Jews citing examples from the 1940's, and yet he spent a good portion of the book describing how Jews began immigrating to Palestine in the 1880's and Arabs happily sold them land to live and work on. These two groups lived harmoniously for decades until the British Empire took it upon themselves to give the land to the Jews without a second thought of the third world people that already lived there. 1 ShawnAuthor 6 books44

An in-depth, detailed account of the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948. Starting with the historical background of the Zionist movement and immigration into the area, Morris then moves to the UN and the steps taken towards partition. The conflict is broken into two main parts. First what Morris calls the civil war. This is the small-scale battles and skirmishes between the Yishuv (the Jewish community) and the Arab community in Palestine/Israel-to-be. The Yishuv was relatively well-organized and prepared, while the Arabs were divided, unprepared, and lacking any kind of strategy or direction. The leadership was divided and various quarters squabbled with each other for control. As a result, this part of the war was decisively won by the Yishuv and the Palestinian Arab society more or less collapsed and many, with the means, left the country at this point. The state of Israel was declared and the Yishuv institutions transitioned into state agencies.

The second part of the conflict begins with the invasion by Arab armies from without: mainly Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Through his analysis, Morris shows that, at first, the Israeli goal was purely defensive: to hold the land it controlled and prevent the Arab armies from penetrating. As the Israeli forces proved effective and the Arab armies less so, Israel shifted towards a more offensive mindset and looked to gain strategic ground around Jerusalem and in the north.

For their part, the Arab armies were shockingly incompetent. Except for the Jordanian Arab Legion (which was trained and armed by the British), the armies lacked resources, training, and direction. The various countries, while sharing similar rhetoric about “saving Palestine,” all had their own divergent agendas. There was little cooperation or coordination between the invading armies. The soldiers were not training or prepared. There was a view that the fight would be quick and easy. Instead, they faced fierce resistance from a well-trained, highly motivated opponent who was fighting for its very existence.

The UN repeatedly tried to step into to stop the fighting and seek some kind of settlement. The main result, according to Morris, of this seemed to be avoiding a total rout of the Arab armies, in particular Egypt. Whether a more total and decisive victory by the Israelis would have avoided future wars and the refugee problem is impossible to say, but Morris doesn’t think it would have. There was far too much animosity towards the Jewish state. The so-called Arab Street would ly have continued the pressure to attack Israel.

Most of this was not new to me. But there were several interesting parts of the book that were new.
First, the insight that Morris gives into the mindset of the British and Arab leaders was fascinating. I didn’t realize the extent to which the Arab leaders (especially Jordan’s King) understood their weakness relative to Israel and that the war was unly to yield the stated public aims. And yet all felt the pressure of the street and felt compelled by this to move forward. I also didn’t realize the extent to which the British were more or less active against Israel—even threatening to attack at certain points.

Second, Morris disabused me of the idea of Israeli “purity of arms.” The Israel army at times acted every army ever has in the field of battle. There were killings of civilians and POWS, rapes, and other abuses. This was hard to swallow, but also not surprising that such things happen in war. It is tragic, awful, unnecessary, but such is the awfulness of war. This doesn’t excuse or justify, but it does contextualize it. Nevertheless, Morris is quick to point out that these sorts of horrors occurred less than in other wars in the 20th century. Both sides were relatively constrained in terms of such atrocities.

Related to this second point, is the extent to which Israel took active measures to push out the local Arab populations. While I understood that some of this happened, I didn’t appreciate the extent to which there were direct expulsions made by the Israeli army. Still, contrary to the harsh critics of Israel, Morris explains that this was not a concerted effort at mass population movement, but as the facts on the ground shifted, the Israel army and command were more than willing to help things along. Militarily it makes sense: leaving a hostile population behind your lines is a bad idea. And as the Israelis pushed forward to push back the invading armies, they felt compelled to expel local populations that were hostile. For the most part, Morris showed that when villages quickly surrendered and didn’t have a history of attacking nearby Jewish communities or convoys, these were not expelled. Such people become the Israeli-Arabs of today. Still it happened more than I realized, and that too is an unpleasant truth to process.

I found the book strongest when getting into the discussion of strategies, policies, and ideas. His evaluation and digestion of the evidence was clear and carefully presented. Where I found myself drifting away was the detailed descriptions of battles. There was a lot of taking this hill or attacking that hill; this division moved here and there. It was hard to keep track of and to follow; or to see how meaningful that level of detail was to the overall through line of the work. The best I can say about it was that it did allow you to experience the war at a bit more of a fine-grained perspective, than the grand sweep that one might otherwise get.

If one is interested in military history or the history of the Arab-Israeli, I think this is an important work to read. Still, it can be a bit of slog at times, but only because of how in-depth it is.
history jewish-related non-fiction Stu5 1 follower

Though dry in parts, this history of Israel's War of Independece is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the modern Middle East. It is by far the most balanced (yet not revisionist) history on the subject I have read. In retrospect, all sides (both state and non-state actors) acted according to their interests, not according to the popular myths of both the Jewish and Arab sides. No more, no less.

I could have used better maps throughout, but the maps that were provided allowed for a decent picture of the changing strategic situations throughout the war.1 Jasper Sendler75

In many ways a dangerous book. The arguments put forward seem academic and appear to be well evidenced. However, on closer inspection you realise that the majority of the sources are from Zionist organisations or sympathisers. Arab voices are silent here. Perhaps because Morris doesn’t speak Arabic. The arguments are often flawed or leave out key contextual points. Gave two stars as he does recognise key events (although only if evidenced by Israeli sources really). I’d definitely recommend Pappe or Shlaim for a much more convincing account. 1 Behzad68 12

A very insightful read which raises many intriguing questions in mind. Generally the book is very easy to read but contains a lot of details that may make it incoherent and sometimes tedious.history1 Vic Lauterbach444 2

This is a war story that plays out as a tragedy in three acts: 1) the Old Yishuv and the British Mandate, 2) U.N. Oversight and Partition, and 3) Civil War. Each act deals with the same intractable problem. How do you divide one small region equitably among five distinct peoples (Palestinian Arabs, Bedouins, Christians, Druze and the Yishuv). In the end, the problem remained. It's painful to witness the slim chance for a peaceful settlement being wasted by the incompetent and intransigent Palestinian leaders and the duplicity of their Arab Allies. Amidst all the suffering on both sides, the greatest tragedy is the transformation of the Yishuv and the Aliyah Bet from peaceful colonists and refugees seeking coexistence into militants capable of terrorism and ethnic cleansing. The imperative to create a contiguous Jewish state capable of surviving invasion by its Arab neighbors pushed the civilian and military leadership of nascent Israel into adopting policies that ensured the lasting enmity of the Palestinian Arabs. Was there another course? Mr. Morris provides all the information you need to make your own decision on this crucial question. While hugely informative, this isn't a pleasant book to read, but the Conclusion alone is worth the effort. It's a concise summary of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a cogent explanation of why it defies solution to this day. This is Oresteia in the desert and now, 70 years later, we're still waiting and hoping that the Furies can be transformed into Eumenides. Oren Mizrahi297 17

If you want to know about the Israeli War of Independence, read this book and no other.

In this frighteningly even-handed account of the 1948 Arab Israeli War, Benny Morris lays down the law. The book is a culmination of his work investigating the recently released Israeli war archives and ly the best among other works by the "new historians." He covers atrocities and mistakes on both sides and weaves together large ideas and minute details to stitch an excellent picture of the conflict and the state of the middle east at the time.

At a time when so much misinformation is being disseminated by incredibly under-read (and occasionally incredibly "over-read") individuals, this book fixes its feet in the ground and establishes the authority of fact. I highly encourage anyone interested in this conflict (read: everyone) to dive into this book. The middle gets a bit pedantic but it's there for those who want to nitpick at military history. Much of the book is based on primary sources, is incredibly well-cited, and replete with notes. Dan Zarfati494

Some people claim that Benny Morris is not a balanced writer, well you should then consider the views on the Arab side of the conflict, Israel is the single country in the Middle East that allows an honest report on its history. Benny Morris did not harden his views on the Palestinian side, he just started to see it for what it is, Arab ideology and culture, which very much comprised the Islamic view of life as a dystopic, imperialistic, and obsolete view of the world. I had the same path, and I am seeing reality for what it is. Regarding the book per se, the author does expose a lot of wrongdoing on the Jewish side, and also on the Arab side, there were a lot of things I did not know, and I am glad that I have learned. Talking about the new historians, they got a pass into the intelligentsia with the single and so much loved move that was "to denounce Israel and kowtow to Barbaric Islamism", Benny woke up to this reality, a reality that Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky, Avram Shalaim and so many others are still buried in. Andreas Schmidt731 6

Bisogna dare atto all'autore, gode di estrema professionalità. Forse un po' troppa, e questo è il motivo principale per cui questo testo è difficilmente digeribile; una serie di fatti dopo l'altro, senza dare possibilità al lettore di assimilarli (in fondo, lo storico che deve divulgare, deve rendere il testo interessane, non proporgli il fatto in sé). Malgrado la storia del sionismo non sia tra i miei argomenti preferiti (visto che al massimo riesco a ricordarmi Ben-Gurion, Dayan Moshe e Ariel Sharon), questo testo è parecchio illuminante, se non altro sulle origini del conflitto che perdura da secoli e si è accentuato con i nazionalismi degli ultimi 150 anni. E' un lavoro estremamente corposo e per quasi trecento pagine copre solo due anni di conflitto (non oso immaginare le dimensioni di una storiografia che ne copra 100, di anni).
Patricio Ramos34

A very thorough and (surprisingly) balanced account of the first Arab-Israeli war, which ends in the complete humiliation of the nascent Israeli state's neighbors by the fledgling country. As happened in all subsequent wars, the Israelis are extremely well organized and united, while the Arabs' war effort is constantly marred by corruption, logistic problems, poorly performing armies, and suspicion between themselves. Today, Israel is one of the world's most advanced countries and has managed to earn the respect (if not acceptance) of the Arab world. However, the problems started by the 1947 partition declaration and the subsequent Palestinian refugee deluge (which the Arab countries were unable/unwilling to solve) continue to haunt middle eastern politics to this day. The Israelis do not get a pass
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