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1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

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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

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.

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.

I approached this book with caution. I had not read any of Morris' prior books, fearful of his reputation (earned or not) for bashing the Israeli side without providing context for their actions. Though when I read history I already know how the story ends, I want something fresh, with context, and an attempt to give the losing side a chance to explain what it was thinking. To my delight, and to the benefit of those who like me devour serious histories written for scholars and non-scholars, Morris accomplishes this.

"1948" skillfully weaves together the political and military history of Israel's war of independence. The atrocities of war being what they are, he places those committed by Israelis, whose command was not always unified, against the Arabs' threats to destroy them Those threats remained largely (though far from completely) unfulfilled due to incompetence, and not a lack of desire. The Arab countries surrounding Israel had no interest in allowing the Arabs who lived in Mandate Palestine to form their own country, and the the Arabs who lived within the Mandate territory (whom we now call Palestinians) lacked the will to better their situation militarily, economically, educationally and politically. If they had succeeded in driving out the Jews, they would not have been Palestinians, but Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians. Their land would probably still be impoverished, disease ridden, and lacking any serious institutions of higher learning. They did not want a nation-- they just wanted the Jews to leave.

The men and women who formed modern Israel determined that they would be victims no more. Few gentiles complained when, wherever they lived, Jews' land, chattel and lives were stolen or destroyed. The Israelis' story, as told by Morris, is not always a comfortable one for Western sensibilities, but it holds up well compared to the birth of most other nations in the last one hundred years. That Morris could write a book that seems to contradict many of the theories he has put forward in the past is a credit to his intellectual honesty. That he can relate the tale in such an accessible package is to the history book reading public's benefit.

This is a very good narrative and analysis of the first Arab-Israeli War. Morris provides a well written narrative summarizing the military, diplomatic, and political history. He opens with a solid chapter on the background of the conflict and then proceeds to the role of the UN and the proposed partition plan. The proximate cause of the war was the rejection of partition by the Palestinians and Arab states. Morris divides the ensuing conflict into 2 phases; a civil war between the Palestinians and Jews and a second phase in which the primary conflict was combat between the army of the new Israeli state and invading Arab troops. The Israelis won both handily though the outcome was hardly a foregone conclusion. Morris concludes with a nice analysis of factors that contributed to the Israeli victory. Following some discussion in his book Righteous Victims, he highlights the relative lack of political development of the Arab Palestinian communities and the relatively weak nature of Arab state militaries as major factors. The Palestinians were not organized as a national entity, has weak organization and leadership, were riven by rivalries, were poorly equipped, and once the embryonic Israeli Army, the Haganah, went on the offensive, were vanquished relatively easily. A similar lack of coordination, leadership, and technical abilities characterized the efforts of the Arab armies. In contrast, the achievements of the Jewish community, the Yishuv, in developing the elements of a modern state, and then in expanding those elements into a modern state during wartime while dealing with a huge influx of refugees, is impressive.

Morris' tone is dispassionate and his judgements appear to be evenhanded but this book contains some controversial elements. He deals extensively with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, documenting the role of Israeli forces in the expulsion of Palestinians from many parts of what became Israel. He documents this phenomenon, and associated atrocities committed by Israeli troops, carefully, but views the ethnic cleansing as a largely improvised, ad hoc, regional process. Other scholars have asserted the existence of a systematic plan of expulsion. I'm impressed with Morris' reasoning but a fair criticism is that his conclusions are based primarily on declassified Israeli documents.

Morris' analysis makes much of the relatively poor political development of the Palestinians and Arab states as a major cause of their failures. Some of his language suggests that he sees this partly as a result of Islamic civilization. As he points out early in the book, however, much of the political disarray of the Palestinians was due to the failure of the Palestinian Revolt of the late 1930s. Its very successful suppression by the British decapitated the Palestinian leadership and destroyed the infant Palestinian political organizations. Similarly, as he points out, the failure of Arab militaries had a lot to do with the specific events of WWII. If the Egyptians, Iraqis, and Syrians had supported the British during WWII, the British would likely have modernized the Arab armies during and after the war. As shown by the performance of the small but well trained and well led Jordanian Army, Arab troops could defeat the Israeli forces.

More than 60 years after Israel's War of Independence, passions regarding its conduct and outcome are running higher than ever. Benny Morris has done historical research an invaluable service in writing this book that clarifies the background, conduct and outcome of this critical military conflict that has had such revolutionary effects on not only the Middle East, but also the whole world. Morris was considered 20 years ago a "revisionist historian" in Israel because he overturned some popular myths in Israel that were propagated due to inordinate feelings of inferiority and lack of confidence. This made him a darling of post-Zionist and anti-Zionist circles. However, in writings of his that he was made since then, he has shown himself a stauch supporter of the Zionist enterprise and has angered those same anti-Israel circles. In spite of the fact that he is so controversial his book has the ring of truth about it. What convinced me of this is the fact that he used only contemporary records and documents of the period as his sources and he did not use interviews, biographies, and reminiscences that came out years later and which are inevitably distorted due to peoples' attempts to justify their decisions, to cover up embarrassing facts and simply forgetfulness. A good example is the efforts by Israel-bashing charlatan historians like Ilan Pappe to claim that the Zionists had a malevolent plan to expel all the Arabs from Palestine since before the war broke out. Morris clearly shows that this could not be the case, since large Arab populations were left in place, particularly in the Galilee section of northern Israel and that the Israeli Arab population has grown and prospered under Israeli rule. However, it must be pointed out that "population exchanges" were NOT considered "shocking" in the time period that the war occurred.....similar things had been done between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II, and the creation by a Muslims of a ethnic/religiously sectarian state in India led to something like 1 million deaths and 10 million refugess, yet no one wants to reverse that outcome that like those who support the Palestinian "Right of Return". Morris makes clear that it was the Arabs who started the war and who attacked the Jews with the expressed intent of "driving them into the sea" (Morris provides ample evidence of this as expressed not only to their own population but to Westerners as well). This increased the Jewish fighters motivation to hit the Arabs before they could wipe out the Jews.

Morris clearly explains the general strategic flow of the war, something that is missing from earlier books on the subject and he shows the decision making by the leaders that led to this. The book does lack some of the "color" of previous histories (e.g. Dan Kurzman's "Genesis 1948")that give stories of individuals who participated in the war and specific small-scale engagements but the book does not suffer from this at all . He points out that the war had two distinct phases, the first being the "Civil War" which broke out immediately upon the adoption by the UN of the 1947 Partition Resolution. This was between local Palestinian armed groups with the addition of foreign Arab volunteers and the Jewish armed groups, primarily the Hagana, ETZEL (Irgun) and LEHI (Sternist) fighters. Morris points out that although the Arabs had years to prepare for the struggle, they were totally incapable of mounting a coherent fight. He notes that Palestinians from one town or village were rarely willing to go to fight for another town, and that Palestinians from the large towns such as Shechem (Nablus) and Hevron that were not involved in the fighting did not send many fighters to help their "brother" Palestinians. Morris says that this is a major indication that the concept of "Palestinian national identity" didn't exist then. The Jews quickly blunted the Arab offensive and turned around and went on the offensive themselves. The second phase was the organized invasion by the neighboring Arab state upon the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. Morris shows that as far as manpower was concerned, both sides were evenly matched, but that the Arab side had far more firepower, particularly tanks, artillery and aircraft. In spite of this, the Arab states fought a poorly run, uncoordinated war and they also quickly found themselves on the defensive, eventually begging for a cease-fire. Still, the Jews had something like 5800 killed out of a population of 600,000, including a quarter who were civilians. In spite of the fact that both sides claimed that there were atrocities against civilians, Morris notes that this war had far fewer atrocities against civilians that have had much more recent wars such as those involved in the break-up of Yugoslavia or the Sudanese civil wars.

One of the most important things Morris brings in the book is the clear evidence that the Arab side would not consider making real peace with Israel, that the view the existence of any Jewish state of any size as unbearable humiliation that refutes the Muslims' right, as they see it, to control the Middle East, and eventually the world, and that Arab attitudes today have not changed in any significant way, in spite of the exitence of "peace agreements" between Israel and Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians. These peace agreements are viewed by the Arabs merely as temporary cease-fires made in order to allow the Arabs to strengthen themselves pending a resumption of hostilities.

Morris ends the book on something of a pessimistic note, saying that although Israel won the war in 1948 and also subsequent wars, its future is still far from assured, but I don't agree with it. However, for there to be a change in Arab attitutes it is first mandatory that Jews and non-Jews who live in Israel or support it to understand the truth of what happened and to reject the false views of people like Ilan Pappe and various anti-Israel propagandists. Once the truth is known and spread to others, Israel can take a firmer stand on its rights and to make it clear that it will not grovel to the Arabs and make endless concessions to try to pacify those who will not be passified. Only a strong stand by Israel will make the Arabs realize that Israel is here to stay, and the eventually, a modus-vivendi, if not formal peace, can be achieved. Reading Morris' book is the first step in the this direction.

For those interested in a scholarly understanding of the First Arab-Israeli War, you've found the right book. Benny Morris owes his allegiance to the evidence rather than the popular narrative. Providing an erudite and expansive history is an achievement itself. That Morris was able convey this history in such gripping manner makes this book not just informative, but masterful.

One brilliant facet of this book is reflected in Morris' handling of historically uncertain or contended events. In addressing controversial issues, Morris weighs in using a critically reasoned approach. Specifically, he weighs both sides of the most contentious issues against one another, and using both historical context and his keen judgment, provides a compelling hypotheses regarding the actual course of events.

Despite giving the book 5 stars, I observed two minor shortcomings. Some more maps may have aided in the understanding of the events and battles, and Morris assumes a prior knowledge of battle terms and weaponry that many readers simply may not possess.

On the whole, it's difficult enough even for the critically minded individual to parse apart the actual history from the narratives, yet Benny Morris' 1948 provides a refreshing dose of clear-minded scholarship. It is the closest one will get to an authoritative account of what happened in 1948.

No need to repeat a synopsis of what the book contains - several of the reviews here have provided a very good digest. And indeed, Morris' '1948' is an extremely informative, generally unbiased and well-written rendition of its subject.

There are a couple of insights that Morris didn't furnish us with. For example, why didn't the Mufti opt for the 1937 British proposal that would have allotted 70% of Palestine's land-area to a sovereign Palestinian state? Al-Husseini knew that the locals couldn't defeat the Jews, and also knew that the invading Arab armies, if victorious, would take apart Palestine for themselves. Sure, the Jews might use their 20% (the remaining 10% was to be an international zone) as a springboard to expand (Ben Gurion hinted as much), but Al-Husseini's best - and only - bet was to insist the British be strategically placed as a permanent buffer. The British might have agreed, so why did the Mufti spurn the only real option he had?

There is also other information missing. What was the population of Gaza at the start of 1948 - and at the end of that year? Same question re the West Bank. And where were the Bedouin in this mix? Etc. Still, the book contains no end of useful facts, and is an exceptional contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian debate in numerous ways.

The MAJOR shortcoming of this book is its last chapter. Here Morris loses his footing and becomes shallow commentator, not careful historian. I wrote an article on how Jews are raised on a bogus narrative - and sadly, Morris, who so methodically and honestly debunks that bogus narrative in all the chapters (and courageously did the same in "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem"), falls back exactly into that sloppy and dishonest category. I'll excerpt from that article (the full piece can be accessed at www.bermigo.com/TN.pdf).

"Ask any Jew how 700,000 Palestinians became refugees, and you'll invariably get this kind of answer:

"The Palestinians were offered partition and rejected it. Instead, they attacked the Jews, calling on the surrounding Arab states to help drive the Jews out of Palestine. The Arab armies invaded, exhorting the Palestinians to vacate their towns and villages so the field would be clear - the Palestinians were to join military units over the border and return victorious.
"But the Arabs failed. The Jews, despite being grossly outnumbered, drove back the invading armies, and then refused to let these war-making Palestinians return to their homes. After Israel won this 1948 war to establish her independence, the Arab states summarily expelled their Jewish communities that had lived in their lands for over 2,000 years. So there was mutual displacement - of Arabs from Palestine, of Jews from the Arab countries. And thus Israel, which never started this whole conflict, cannot be accountable for the Palestinians' plight."

Now, let's bring in the missing precision.
For starters, it wasn't "the Palestinians" who rejected partition; it was the Palestinian leadership. "The Palestinians" were never asked by their despotic leadership if they favored compromise. Needless to say, this was no elected leadership; the British imposed the mufti, Amin Al-Husseini, on the Palestinians, and his strongmen were widely detested. In fact, more Palestinians died fighting the Al-Husseini clan than died fighting the Jews. So we simply don't know how Palestinians would have voted on a compromise with the Jews, especially given that many Arab villages had close relations with their Jewish neighbors - as literally thousands of testimonies on both sides affirm.

Next, it's a major stretch to say "the Palestinians attacked the Jews". When in Nov 1947, the UN stunned the Arab world by voting for a Jewish state in half of Palestine, less than 0.1% of Palestinians responded with violence. In the week following the famous pronouncement, a dozen small-scale attacks by Palestinians on Jews were recorded; in most cases, carried out by just 3 or 4 attackers. One concerted attack by over 100 Palestinian militants did take place in the Galilee - but that was about it. Countrywide, fewer than 300 Palestinians - out of a population of 1.35 million - attacked the Jews at this juncture.

Within months the violence did severely escalate - but the provocation hardly came from the Palestinians alone. Extremists among the Arab public attacked Jewish civilians indiscriminately, and Jewish extremists, arguing it was fatal to show weakness to Arab adversaries, responded in like manner. In increasing numbers, ordinary civilians on both sides were dragged in.

However, what primarily sent this civil war into high gear were the ominous preparations by the surrounding Arab states to invade May 15, 1948. That was the date the British were set to depart Palestine - which would leave the Arab armies a clear field. The Jews, increasingly concerned they'd be overrun if the local Arabs joined the invaders, felt they had little choice but to remove the local threat. So the civil war turned brutal as the Jewish forces enacted a full-scale expulsion policy.

Israeli archives show it was not the straightforward decision that Israel's detractors claim. The Jewish leaders knew that expulsion would induce the very enmity they so feared, and were very reluctant to start a war with hundreds of Arab villages which had thus far studiously avoided violence against their Jewish neighbors. And there was the moral issue; many of these villages had actually conspired against Arab warmongers, constantly alerting Jews to Arab marauders in the vicinity. How could the Jews suddenly start expelling these friendly villages?

But Palestine's Jewish immigrants, many of them survivors of the Nazi death-camps just a few years back, took no chances - for even Palestinians very friendly towards Jews might turn coat and assist the invading Arab armies. Some might view the chance to establish their own state as paramount; others might fear retribution by the invading Arab armies if they desisted from joining the Arab cause.

And so, in Feb 1948, Jewish forces started forcibly removing all Arab villages that lay along the expected invasion routes. Initially, the instruction was to relocate the villagers a short distance away, but the operation soon degenerated into wholesale expulsions from Palestine itself. The Jewish forces, many of the units filled in the course of battle by barely trained immigrants, were far less disciplined than the Israeli army of today - and the looting of Arab property was rife. A slew of atrocities were committed by Palestinians and Jews alike, and many prisoners shot to save the headache of housing them. The British tried to keep the lid on, but in several instances, behaved barbarically themselves.

And then came the turning point.

In the second week of April 1948 - five weeks before the last British soldier was set to leave and the massing Arab armies set to invade - occurred an event that more than any other, changed the course of the civil war. In truth, it's the event that enabled Israel to become a viable Jewish state. Yet, ask most Israelis - let alone, Jews in the Diaspora - about Deir Yassin and its aftermath, and fewer than 1 in 10 will have a clue. In America, almost no Jews have even heard of the place; the standard Jewish narrative omits all reference to it.

Deir Yassin was a small village - estimates range from 400 - 600 residents - a few miles west of Jerusalem. All accounts speak of it being friendly towards the Jews, although a few historians contend it had recently been infiltrated by militiamen. As their national campaign to empty Arab villages intensified, the Jewish mainstream forces assigned (reluctantly, say historians) two Jewish terror groups the task of clearing Deir Yassin. The taskforce, made up largely of teenage hotheads, met unexpected resistance and simply lobbed grenades through windows, wiping out entire families. Over 100 residents of Deir Yassin were killed, some (according to several reports) shot in the back as they fled.

The local Arab military command, hoping to enrage Palestine's citizens and goad the Arab states into early action, gave the event enormous publicity - and for good measure, doubled the actual death toll and added non-existent accounts of rape. The two Jewish terror groups, hoping to scare other villages into fleeing, contentedly affirmed this embroidered accounting. The mainstream Jewish leadership, though, was appalled and highly concerned at the international fallout - the massacre might cause an already divided world community to reconsider whether Jews were deserving of a state if they couldn't be trusted to protect Arab villagers. So, for several reasons (including the chance to taint Jewish right-wing parties), mainstream Jewish leaders also gave the event much publicity - by loudly putting distance between themselves and the `tiny, rogue' Jewish terror groups.

The net effect of all this publicity cannot be overstated; in the 7-week period that followed, 350,000 demoralized and frightened Palestinians (of the eventual 700,000 total) fled Palestine. Some put up a fight, but many fled before the Jewish forces even arrived on the scene. And all were prodded along their way until encamped beyond the envisioned border of an upcoming Jewish state. This hardly jibes with the Jewish narrative that says the Palestinians, upon the exhortation of the invading Arab armies (which, by the way, had not yet invaded at that juncture), vacated their homes in some grand, coordinated campaign against the Jews.

Furthermore, if any Palestinians were responding to the Arab regimes' calls to evacuate, it was surely not because they trusted these regimes. The Palestinians knew full well that the Arab states were invading not to help Palestinians, but to acquire territory for themselves. It was no secret that Jordan coveted the West Bank, and wanted to use it as a springboard to annex Syria. And that the deployment of Syrian troops was primarily designed to thwart the Jordanians - and perhaps acquire some of Palestine for themselves. And that the Egyptian deployment in the south mimicked exactly what the Syrians were up to in the north. In fact, the Arab armies' evacuation-orders to the locals, certainly in some cases, appear designed to prevent Palestinians siding with their Jewish neighbors.
Teamwork between the Palestinians and the Arab regimes as the Jewish recital goes?
Hardly.

In sum, most of the Palestinian refugees were victims three times over. First, by their despotic and grossly incompetent leadership. Second, by the surrounding Arab regimes which used them as pawns for a land grab. And third, by the Jews, whose desperate quest for a homeland brooked little compassion for the Palestinians standing in their way."

Quite frankly, I grimmaced when Morris - who, more than anyone, was a pioneer in bravely explaining all the above - ended his book '1948' with the kind of shallow imprecision that is far more characteristic of his barely-informed critics.

Gordon Miller

But Civil Wars are inevitably worse. Benny Morris has done historical justice to the 1948 conflict, detailing its political, social, economic and military dimensions. Perhaps even more vital to the destruction of so much myth-making, self-serving canards is the illumination of contingency. Nothing was foreordained, except perhaps the actual conflict. Extensive archival research and primary sources is truly prodigious. Some will and have criticized the lack of Palestinian or Arab sources. I think it likly self-evident why these sources are lacking, and will likely continue to be obscured so long as Arab states and people refuse to accept the consequences of the "disaster." Morris has written no apologia...I found the "revisionist" aspects to be simply honesty when describing a civil war for survival. There are going to be atrocities, and there were on both sides. Had the war gone the other way, we know what those results would have been.
War is never clean or pleasant. It invariably has horrible effects on those that fight or endure it. Morris has captured this fact and provided much needed context to the continuing antagonism in the Middle East.

This is the best book on the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. Morris has matured as a historian since his first book on the Palestinian refugees and puts various events into perspective. For example, Israeli behavior vis a vis the Arab population is seen in the context of fears created by the invasion of Palestine/Israel by the surrounding Arab states.

The book is very readable except for places when battles are described in detail apporpriate only for military historians.