1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
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'Morris's account seems admirable, because he is unafraid of upsetting both camps... His commitment to the pursuit of historical truth deserves as much admiration as his dismay at Arab intransigence commands sympathy... Morris's book is no mere military narrative, but a crisp, vivid introduction to the historical tragedy of Palestine.' Max Hastings, Sunday Times. 'Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and sombrely, evenhandedly and exhaustively... An authoritative and fair-minded account of an epochal and volatile event.' David Margolick, New York Times Book Review. 'An ambitious, detailed and engaging portrait of the war itself - from its origins to its unresolved aftermath - that further shatters myths on both sides of the Israeli-Arab divide.' Glenn Frankel, Washington Post Book World. --Sunday Times, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World
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'Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and sombrely, even-handedly and exhaustively.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an absolutely brilliant piece of history, which completely changed my view of the Palestine/Israel situation. I confess I chose this book because it was written by an Israeli scholar, so I was very impressed indeed by the dispassion with which Benny Morris recounts the pre-history and history of the Arab/Israeli conflict. It is very clearly written and is obviously based on a thorough knowledge of the sources (though I guess most of these are Israeli). Not to put too fine a point on it, it puts Israel and its army firmly in the dock, but with no easy way out, given the nature of the surrounding, hostile countries. It underlines the supreme relevance of, but gives no encouragement to, the phrase "blessed are the peacemakers". A total must for anyone who wants to get as near to a dispassionate account as you are likely to get.
4 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't wish to begin my review by trashing the previous one so better to start by agreeing that 1948 is an excellent book, but not for the reasons stated of putting Israel in the dock. Just the opposite. The newly established israeli army fought a desperate battle to prevent arabs in Palestine from falling upon the jewish communities there and slaughtering them (10% of the army were killed during the war, definitely not fitting in with the usual mantra of israelis supposedly falling on the defenceless Palestine arab victims).
Haj Amin el Husseini the recognised leader of arabs in Palestine made no bones about this being a war of anihilation against the jews (he could be believed as he along with his top commanders had set up the Nazi Bosnian SS division that massacred thousands of jews and partisans alike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)),
likewise the head of the Arab League Azzam Pasha who said about the war, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Hassan_Azzam
Israel's defence forces might (like all other armies) have at times done some pretty unpleasant things in defending itself. But it was fighting firstly against murderous and uprovoked attacks by palestinian irregular forces and then against an invasion by 5 arab armies armed, supplied and in part led by officers of the British imperial army (The British Army never did have an investigation into its officers, nominally under the command of Jordan (under 'Jordanian' general Glubb Pasha) firing artillery point blank and indiscriminately into jewish civilian areas from the heights over Jerusalem).
Benny Morris being the consummate historian he is does not gloss over failings on the jewish side, but if any lesson is to be taken from this book, it is that despite the jews being attacked throughout the country from the moment the UN decided to partion Palestine (a pogrom took place in jerusalem the day after the Nov 30th 1947 decision and in the Jaffa area jews were taken off buses and slaughtered by Palestine arabs) even before the jewish state was established the Israelis did not reply until forced to do so in April 1948. The Haganah contented itself with its traditional policy of 'restraint' or 'Havalagah' which meant simply defending its towns and villages without counter-attacking.
This policy did not lead to moderation on the part of the arabs of Palestine but rather allowed them to think they could strangle Israel even before the British army left in May 1948. Increased attacks meant that the jewish areas of the city of Jerusalem were constantly being cut off along with its water supply. The supply route from Tel-Aviv was highly dangerous and many jews were killed in the convoys that brought food to Jerusalem. It should be remembered that before May 1948 the British army was responsible for security in Palestine yet it refused to protect the convoys and confiscated arms from the jewish guards trying to protect it. The results were hundreds of dead and wounded jews just on this route alone. The remains of attacked convoys can be seen along the road from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem to this day.
With one month left until the British sponsored arab armies invaded in May 1948 the Hagana finally went over to the attack in protecting its lines of supply that had until now been under constant attack from guerilla bands based in arab villages along the roads. This is often described as 'ethnic cleansing' nowadays but those who argue this can't explain the fact that after Israel's War of Independence it still had many hundreds of thousands of arab citizens who became Israelis with fulll rights. There are documented cases such as in Haifa whereby the representatives of Israel pleaded for the arab community to stay. That many didn't but went to Lebanon was their own mistake. In hoping they would return in the wake of victorious arab armies they instead now reside in the apartheid conditions in Lebanon where they at least until recently were not allowed to work, mix with or have services given to Lebanese citizens. The same applied to other areas that arabs from Palestine fled to.
The Jewish State however absorbed over 700,000 jews expelled from arab countries during 1948 onwards. Unlike many in the arab population of Palestine they had done nothing to deserve this treatment. Where do we ever hear of the plight of jewish refugees from arab countries and their rights?
Even the British mandatory authorities who were for the most part extremely indulgent towards the arabs of Palestine in 1936 waged a war of anihilation against the terror bands that had widened their attentions from killing jews to the British authorities. Terror begat terror and the British army did not pussy foot around. The arab terrorists were ruthlessly crushed. Villages that sheltered terrorists were blown up and terrorists executed on the spot.
So yes, I wholeheartedly recommend this book as for an unbiased reader will be able to understand why it was that Palestinians left Israel. Not because the jews had dastardly intentions but rather that many in the Palestine arab community had since at least the 1920's carried out a war of terror against the peaceful jewish community there. The arabs who didn't fight the jews are Israelis today.
Unlike most other books on this subject by polemicists such as Pappe and Shlaim etc you can read this book, absorb the wealth of detail (yes, provided by Israel as in the tradition of a democracy and unlike the arab countries they allow full access to their archives. I would dearly like to read material from the arab archives and wonder just why they are closed to researchers) and make up your own mind.
Haj Amin el Husseini the recognised leader of arabs in Palestine made no bones about this being a war of anihilation against the jews (he could be believed as he along with his top commanders had set up the Nazi Bosnian SS division that massacred thousands of jews and partisans alike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)),
likewise the head of the Arab League Azzam Pasha who said about the war, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Hassan_Azzam
Israel's defence forces might (like all other armies) have at times done some pretty unpleasant things in defending itself. But it was fighting firstly against murderous and uprovoked attacks by palestinian irregular forces and then against an invasion by 5 arab armies armed, supplied and in part led by officers of the British imperial army (The British Army never did have an investigation into its officers, nominally under the command of Jordan (under 'Jordanian' general Glubb Pasha) firing artillery point blank and indiscriminately into jewish civilian areas from the heights over Jerusalem).
Benny Morris being the consummate historian he is does not gloss over failings on the jewish side, but if any lesson is to be taken from this book, it is that despite the jews being attacked throughout the country from the moment the UN decided to partion Palestine (a pogrom took place in jerusalem the day after the Nov 30th 1947 decision and in the Jaffa area jews were taken off buses and slaughtered by Palestine arabs) even before the jewish state was established the Israelis did not reply until forced to do so in April 1948. The Haganah contented itself with its traditional policy of 'restraint' or 'Havalagah' which meant simply defending its towns and villages without counter-attacking.
This policy did not lead to moderation on the part of the arabs of Palestine but rather allowed them to think they could strangle Israel even before the British army left in May 1948. Increased attacks meant that the jewish areas of the city of Jerusalem were constantly being cut off along with its water supply. The supply route from Tel-Aviv was highly dangerous and many jews were killed in the convoys that brought food to Jerusalem. It should be remembered that before May 1948 the British army was responsible for security in Palestine yet it refused to protect the convoys and confiscated arms from the jewish guards trying to protect it. The results were hundreds of dead and wounded jews just on this route alone. The remains of attacked convoys can be seen along the road from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem to this day.
With one month left until the British sponsored arab armies invaded in May 1948 the Hagana finally went over to the attack in protecting its lines of supply that had until now been under constant attack from guerilla bands based in arab villages along the roads. This is often described as 'ethnic cleansing' nowadays but those who argue this can't explain the fact that after Israel's War of Independence it still had many hundreds of thousands of arab citizens who became Israelis with fulll rights. There are documented cases such as in Haifa whereby the representatives of Israel pleaded for the arab community to stay. That many didn't but went to Lebanon was their own mistake. In hoping they would return in the wake of victorious arab armies they instead now reside in the apartheid conditions in Lebanon where they at least until recently were not allowed to work, mix with or have services given to Lebanese citizens. The same applied to other areas that arabs from Palestine fled to.
The Jewish State however absorbed over 700,000 jews expelled from arab countries during 1948 onwards. Unlike many in the arab population of Palestine they had done nothing to deserve this treatment. Where do we ever hear of the plight of jewish refugees from arab countries and their rights?
Even the British mandatory authorities who were for the most part extremely indulgent towards the arabs of Palestine in 1936 waged a war of anihilation against the terror bands that had widened their attentions from killing jews to the British authorities. Terror begat terror and the British army did not pussy foot around. The arab terrorists were ruthlessly crushed. Villages that sheltered terrorists were blown up and terrorists executed on the spot.
So yes, I wholeheartedly recommend this book as for an unbiased reader will be able to understand why it was that Palestinians left Israel. Not because the jews had dastardly intentions but rather that many in the Palestine arab community had since at least the 1920's carried out a war of terror against the peaceful jewish community there. The arabs who didn't fight the jews are Israelis today.
Unlike most other books on this subject by polemicists such as Pappe and Shlaim etc you can read this book, absorb the wealth of detail (yes, provided by Israel as in the tradition of a democracy and unlike the arab countries they allow full access to their archives. I would dearly like to read material from the arab archives and wonder just why they are closed to researchers) and make up your own mind.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
32 reviews
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful
The most important book on 1948
29 April 2008
Format:Hardcover
In tackling the controversial and important, but gigantic, subject of the 1948 war, the Nakba, the Israeli was of independence, Mr. Morris has come full circle from his original study The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge Middle East Library). This journey was a process that has already involved one revision of that celebrated thesis on the Palestinian refugees. Undoubtedly it was inevitable that this book had to be written in order not only to show the context and the military side of 1948 but also to show the Jewish side, the fate of Jewish areas conquered by Arabs, the fate of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, and the agency, the decisions, made by Arab leaders and local Arabs that led to the war.
There have been other stand alone studies of the war by Gelber, Palestine 1948: War, Escape And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy (Israeli History, Politics, and Society). But each has had its own weaknesses, either because it concentrates on the military aspects or because it is terribly biased.
Here, at last, is a full account that is not biased and is not overly focused on the military side and does not take for granted the conclusion that the Zionists would prevail and therefore all their actions should be judged as if they knew the results beforehand. Morris also sheds light on the fate of Christian Arab villages in the war and the many nuances of the war, including the very controversial issues of massacres and 'ethnic-cleansing'.
This book is a tour de force, a masterpiece of writing that should be read by anyone interested in the conflict, the Middle East, Israel, the Palestinians or the Holy Land. It strips away the clichés of 'conceived in sin' and the old narratives of right and wrong and heroism and suffering and presents a balanced historical view based on archival sources.
The organization of the book is first class. It is chronological and divides the war by phases, especially the civil war between November 29th, 1947 and May 15th, 1948. It gives the reader a complete understanding of the military situation and how the Jewish forces, which were composed originally of an underground militia and several smaller units, was able to gain mastery over not only Arab militias but also Arab armies that were supplied with modern European weaponry. How they overcame both the air forces, artillery and armour that was thrown at them and how they succeeded, using interior lines, to actually bring the war into the Sinai and Lebanon.
Seth J. Frantzman
There have been other stand alone studies of the war by Gelber, Palestine 1948: War, Escape And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy (Israeli History, Politics, and Society). But each has had its own weaknesses, either because it concentrates on the military aspects or because it is terribly biased.
Here, at last, is a full account that is not biased and is not overly focused on the military side and does not take for granted the conclusion that the Zionists would prevail and therefore all their actions should be judged as if they knew the results beforehand. Morris also sheds light on the fate of Christian Arab villages in the war and the many nuances of the war, including the very controversial issues of massacres and 'ethnic-cleansing'.
This book is a tour de force, a masterpiece of writing that should be read by anyone interested in the conflict, the Middle East, Israel, the Palestinians or the Holy Land. It strips away the clichés of 'conceived in sin' and the old narratives of right and wrong and heroism and suffering and presents a balanced historical view based on archival sources.
The organization of the book is first class. It is chronological and divides the war by phases, especially the civil war between November 29th, 1947 and May 15th, 1948. It gives the reader a complete understanding of the military situation and how the Jewish forces, which were composed originally of an underground militia and several smaller units, was able to gain mastery over not only Arab militias but also Arab armies that were supplied with modern European weaponry. How they overcame both the air forces, artillery and armour that was thrown at them and how they succeeded, using interior lines, to actually bring the war into the Sinai and Lebanon.
Seth J. Frantzman
41 of 44 people found the following review helpful
A Vital Work on the 1948 Israeli-Arab War
5 May 2008
Format:Hardcover
In 1948 Benny Morris shows himself to be a first-rate historian with an accurate and detailed command of the events leading up to the first Arab Israeli War and the war itself. The book is primarily the military history of the conflict, and Morris is a well informed chronicler of military engagements. Morris, also considered one of the grandfathers of the "revisionist" school of Israeli historiography, here shows that he is not afraid to document both Jewish/Israel and Palestinian/Arab excesses and missteps in the war, opportunities missed or failed to be exploited. By and large Morris is very sympathetic to the Zionist enterprise in the Holy Land in this book. He views war in 1948 as inevitable given the demographic/strategic situation in Palestine since the arrival of the first Zionist settlers in the 1880s. This is in keeping with some of his more recent utterances about the Israeli Arab/Palestinian conflict. Given the pressure the Yishuv and early state of Israel were under, he states, conflict was unavoidable. In 1948 Morris seeks to show that calls for jihad against the Jews in Palestine was no mere bluster; that it was just as powerful (if not more so) source of Arab ire against Israel as the rising sense of Arab nationalism following WWII. It is here, I suppose, where Morris makes his most original contribution to the study of the 1948 war.
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Beginning of the Cycle
28 April 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Benny Morris, considered by many to be the"Dean" of Israeli Middle Eastern historians, is noted for "revisionist" works on the genesis of the Palestinian Arab refugee issue and rewriting of Israeli historical hagiography. This book, a comprehensive history of the dual-phase 1947-1948 war (civil war between Jews and Arabs antedating Partition, followed by invasion by a constellation of Arab professional militaries and various ad hoc militias) reviews the entire enterprise from both a military and political perspective.
The book can be divided into three segments: 1). an introductory section, which places in context the, 2). major middle-section, which exhaustively deals with military affairs and, 3). a summary/conclusion section, which presents the author's perspectives based on presently available evidence. As Arab archives have not been opened to researchers as of the 2008 publication date, this work cannot be considered "definitive", but certainly holds this status as of now.
There is one major shortcoming of this book: the lack of maps. The barrage of detail on virtually every military and paramilitary engagement becomes confusing and frustrating, as the reader cannot readily follow the strategy and tactics elaborated in the text. Further, many of the maps have inadequate legends, rendering the majority of them difficult to understand.
Morris attributes the Israeli military victories to a combination of better planning, better logistics, better preparation, better motivation, better training, fighting along "interior lines", internal cohesion in the form of communality of purpose and international sympathy. Surprisingly (at least for many readers) much of the initial political and military support came from the Soviet Union, later an ardent partisan of the Arab cause and foe of Israel. Czechoslovakian arms, supplementing those bought from international weapons dealers, helped turn the tide, in addition to the above factors. Conversely, lack of purpose, infighting, jockeying for advantage vis-a-vis rival regimes and cynical manipulation of Arab public opinion by Arab political elites did little to fashion a force capable of opposing the Jews. Heated rhetoric, in other words, did not serve as an adequate substitute for assiduous planning and training. Worse, innumerable inflammatory and "eliminationist" statements regarding the Jews tended to provoke, amplify and reinforce pre-existing reciprocal thoughts and statements in their enemies, hardening positions to the point of ossification; thus, the genesis of the current mess. The complexity of the situation is further enhanced by complicity of various Arabs in the acquisition of lands by the Jews. The branding of numerous Arabs as "traitors" by the mercurial Mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini, heightened internecine disputes, often with lethal consequences, not only for the "perpetrators", but also for the cause; this behavior continues to the present day.
As for presenting a "balanced" perspective on the "Middle East Problem", the author makes every effort to be scrupulously objective. Israeli military and paramilitary actions that resulted in war crimes against civilians were frankly acknowledged, as was the policy that underlay them, to wit, generally ad hoc, rather than the result of the product of Macheavellian scheming and malevolence. Whle Morris states that the Israelis committed more atrocities than did the Arabs, he notes that this was an accident of opportunity, rather than evidence of moral superiority of the Arabs and their fighters. His synopsis of the motivations of Zionist, British, Arab and Ottoman participants in the genesis of the modern Middle East is fair and bluntly accurate.
Certainly, one could conclude that the Zionist enterprise was not any more or less "fair" than the "Manifest Destiny" of the white invaders of the Americas (murdering, cheating, displacing and finally segregating the indigenous inhabitants into "reservations", where many continue to reside under rank and disgraceful conditions) or of the British in Australia, to cite but two examples. Similarly, the displacement of Arabs from their land is not much different from the massive population transfers that occurred after WW-II in, for example, the case of the German (civilian) expulsions from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Perhaps a better example would be the displacement/population exchange of millions of Hindus and Muslims during the Partition of India and Pakistan, which occurred around the same time (circa 1947). That division, accompanied by generally involuntary "repatriation" based on ethnic and religious affiliation, was accompanied by considerable violence, property damage/confiscation and left a residue of bitter inter-communal hatred, with intermittent terrorist attacks and threatened international war. These examples are not cited by Morris and are not offered by me as justifications; they merely illustrate a fundemental aspect of human nature.
In summary, this is an excellent history which would benefit from inclusion of more detailed maps to accompany the more important military engagements. It is objectively written, comprehensively referenced and the conclusions drawn by the author are buttressed by data and temperately drawn.
The book can be divided into three segments: 1). an introductory section, which places in context the, 2). major middle-section, which exhaustively deals with military affairs and, 3). a summary/conclusion section, which presents the author's perspectives based on presently available evidence. As Arab archives have not been opened to researchers as of the 2008 publication date, this work cannot be considered "definitive", but certainly holds this status as of now.
There is one major shortcoming of this book: the lack of maps. The barrage of detail on virtually every military and paramilitary engagement becomes confusing and frustrating, as the reader cannot readily follow the strategy and tactics elaborated in the text. Further, many of the maps have inadequate legends, rendering the majority of them difficult to understand.
Morris attributes the Israeli military victories to a combination of better planning, better logistics, better preparation, better motivation, better training, fighting along "interior lines", internal cohesion in the form of communality of purpose and international sympathy. Surprisingly (at least for many readers) much of the initial political and military support came from the Soviet Union, later an ardent partisan of the Arab cause and foe of Israel. Czechoslovakian arms, supplementing those bought from international weapons dealers, helped turn the tide, in addition to the above factors. Conversely, lack of purpose, infighting, jockeying for advantage vis-a-vis rival regimes and cynical manipulation of Arab public opinion by Arab political elites did little to fashion a force capable of opposing the Jews. Heated rhetoric, in other words, did not serve as an adequate substitute for assiduous planning and training. Worse, innumerable inflammatory and "eliminationist" statements regarding the Jews tended to provoke, amplify and reinforce pre-existing reciprocal thoughts and statements in their enemies, hardening positions to the point of ossification; thus, the genesis of the current mess. The complexity of the situation is further enhanced by complicity of various Arabs in the acquisition of lands by the Jews. The branding of numerous Arabs as "traitors" by the mercurial Mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini, heightened internecine disputes, often with lethal consequences, not only for the "perpetrators", but also for the cause; this behavior continues to the present day.
As for presenting a "balanced" perspective on the "Middle East Problem", the author makes every effort to be scrupulously objective. Israeli military and paramilitary actions that resulted in war crimes against civilians were frankly acknowledged, as was the policy that underlay them, to wit, generally ad hoc, rather than the result of the product of Macheavellian scheming and malevolence. Whle Morris states that the Israelis committed more atrocities than did the Arabs, he notes that this was an accident of opportunity, rather than evidence of moral superiority of the Arabs and their fighters. His synopsis of the motivations of Zionist, British, Arab and Ottoman participants in the genesis of the modern Middle East is fair and bluntly accurate.
Certainly, one could conclude that the Zionist enterprise was not any more or less "fair" than the "Manifest Destiny" of the white invaders of the Americas (murdering, cheating, displacing and finally segregating the indigenous inhabitants into "reservations", where many continue to reside under rank and disgraceful conditions) or of the British in Australia, to cite but two examples. Similarly, the displacement of Arabs from their land is not much different from the massive population transfers that occurred after WW-II in, for example, the case of the German (civilian) expulsions from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Perhaps a better example would be the displacement/population exchange of millions of Hindus and Muslims during the Partition of India and Pakistan, which occurred around the same time (circa 1947). That division, accompanied by generally involuntary "repatriation" based on ethnic and religious affiliation, was accompanied by considerable violence, property damage/confiscation and left a residue of bitter inter-communal hatred, with intermittent terrorist attacks and threatened international war. These examples are not cited by Morris and are not offered by me as justifications; they merely illustrate a fundemental aspect of human nature.
In summary, this is an excellent history which would benefit from inclusion of more detailed maps to accompany the more important military engagements. It is objectively written, comprehensively referenced and the conclusions drawn by the author are buttressed by data and temperately drawn.
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