The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge Middle East Studies) [Paperback]

Benny Morris (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521009677 | ISBN-13: 978-0521009676 | Publication Date: January 5, 2004 | Edition: 2

Morris' earlier work exposed the realities of how 700,000 Palestinians became refugees during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. While the focus of this edition remains the war and exodus, new archival material considers what happened in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, and how these events led to the collapse of urban Palestine. Revealing battles and atrocities that contributed to the disintegration of rural communities, the story is harrowing. The refugees now number four million and their cause remains a major obstacle to regional peace. First Edition Hb (1988): 0-521-33028-9 First Edition Pb (1989): 0-521-33889-1

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, a book of extraordinary power and integrity written by a young Israeli scholar and journalist, Benny Morris, takes that great tale of flight and conquest and tells it as it has never been told before: with precision and moral economy, with awesome detail and honesty." The Washington Post Book World

"The book remains a seminal work on the evacuation of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949. this extremely readable book narrates a powerful story of the uprooting of a people, even if the very voice of the uprooted is absent from it." Political Science Quarterly

Book Description

This is a revised edition of Morris' earlier work which exposed the realities of how 700,000 Palestinians became refugees during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The focus remains the war and exodus, but fresh archival material considers what happened in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, and how events there led to the collapse of urban Palestine. It also sheds light on battles and atrocities that contributed to the disintegration of rural communities. The story is harrowing. The refugees now number four million and their cause remains a major obstacle to peace.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 664 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (January 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521009677
• ISBN-13: 978-0521009676
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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42 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to make lasting enemies, October 24, 2005

By 

L. J. Waldron (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge Middle East Studies) (Paperback)

Review of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, by Benny Morris

Israeli historian Benny Morris largely succeeds in his intention to present a "complex and nuanced" history of the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. His extensive research, which led to the first version of this work published in 1988, was derived from archived records in Israel, England, the United States and the United Nations. Given the lapse of time since 1948 he found oral recollections inadequate and of dubious reliability. There is a torrent of detail in the book and there are hundreds of endnotes following each chapter.

Many readers will be shocked by the numerous detailed descriptions of the violence exercised on Palestinian non-combatants by Zionist forces. Even the most pro-Zionist readers will no longer be able to deny that a massive ethnic cleansing occurred in 1948. In fact, there are repeated references to "cleansing" in orders given to Haganah units, sometimes explicitly giving instructions to kill adult males, expel the women and children and destroy their homes to prevent return. Often units were not faced with the onerous task of killing and expelling because the Arabs had fled in anticipation of violence. The infamous massacre at Deir Yassin was not unique; Morris states that there were some 20 massacres, two of which were revealed for the first time in the 1988 version of this book.

About 700,000 persons (Morris's estimate) were displaced beyond the boundary of the part of Palestine allotted to the new state of Israel and beyond the additional area taken by Zionist arms. Figure 2 in the book is a map with some 392 numbered dots representing the Palestinian villages evacuated and destroyed. The legend to the map gives the Arab names of these former villages with estimates of the motivation for their abandonment.

Morris recognizes that the motivation for Arab flight varied among different segments of the Palestinian population. In December 1947 and early 1948 the exodus began when those of the upper classes who had resources fled to safety in Arab cities outside Palestine. The loss of actual and potential leaders undermined Palestinian morale, already suffering deep divisions from the 1936-39 revolt against British rule. In spring 1948, Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang operations began to terrorize the Arab population, and the massive outflow of all classes began. (Menachem Begin boasts in his book, Revolt, that without the instructive example of the Deir Yassin massacre by his Irgun boys there would be no Israel.) Murder, raping and looting by Jewish combatants shocked both Arabs and many Jews who witnessed it.

Morris could find no evidence for the often-repeated claim that Arab leaders broadcast appeals to Palestinians to leave their homes to expedite the killing of Jews by Arab forces. The appeals from the largely feckless Arab leaders were contradictory and had little effect.

Morris that argues that forced expulsion and destruction of homes and villages was not pre-planned by Zionist leaders, saying that Plan D of the Haganah, which prescribed exactly such measures, was not implemented until April 1948 in anticipation of attack by surrounding Arab states after the British leaving on May 15. He believes that it was opportunism driven by events, the seizing of a one-time chance to cleanse the new state of Arabs. Arabs, and some other Israeli historians, believe it was pre-planned. I'm not sure that there is an ethical difference whether ethnic cleansing was pre-planned or improvised. Certainly the idea of transfer of Arabs from Palestine was rife in Zionist circles before partition and Morris includes a chapter documenting this thinking.

On the Zionist left voices were raised against the policy and there are diary entries of horrified Jewish observers, one of whom concluded, " I hide my face in shame." However, David Ben-Gurion kept national unity intact by being careful not to expose in writing any draconian intentions and by telling different things to different people. In the case of the violent wholesale expulsions from Lydda and Ramle, a hand gesture to his staff conveyed his real intention.

The Israelis were so taken with the success of Arab removal that they adopted a resolute policy of no return of the refugees. United Nations Moderator Count Folke Bernadotte was dismayed that Jews with their history of persecution would themselves act so unjustly. Morris reports a conversation in which Bernadotte was trying to persuade Moshe Sharett, then Israel's Foreign Minister, to make at least a gesture of conciliation by allowing a partial return. Sharett replied that such idealism had no place in a world dominated by men of action (such as himself, presumably), and that Israel would be regarded as foolish by such men if it discarded the favorable situation created by war. A day after the release of Bernadotte's report on refugees, men of action from the Stern Gang murdered him.

This is not a history of the 1948 war, but Morris in summary blames the victims for their disastrous fate because, "They started the war", certainly a contentious conclusion considering that the refugees were mostly non-combatants, and furthermore had no voice in the partitioning of their country.

It appears to this reader that Morris makes a strong case that the refugees were victims of Zionist drives for exclusivity and expansion of territory. As an historian Morris deserves great credit for his diligence in bringing light to this dark event whose legacy still troubles the region. An IDF intelligence officer observing the pathetic stream of refugees fleeing Lydda wrote, Occasionally you encountered a piercing look from one of the youngsters in the column, and the look said, "We have not surrendered. We shall return to fight you."

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Both sides have problems with it, so it must be good, January 12, 2009

By 

Matthew Smith "Roger Mexico" (TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge Middle East Studies) (Paperback)

The strength of this book lies in its meticulous detail and the thorough research of its author. Even after two decades this work still stands as one of the most important books to cover the beginnings of the refugee problem. It is authoritative and very detailed.

Whether you agree with Mr. Morris or not, his book is a must read for any serious student of Israel, the conflict or the Middle East in general. I also feel that it is a testament to the evenhandedness of the author that the work has been derided by both camps. Only an honest attempt at analysis could make both sides so unhappy.

The book starts out with a brief history of the region before partition, and then moves along chronologically from the early ideas of population transfer through the war and ends with the last cease fire and the following negotiations. The main chapters are based chronologically, but within the chapters they are broken up geographically. This allows the author to focus in on each location the experienced a demographic change. With great detail the author explains each transfer, and gives the reader a detailed analysis of why these people left. This is one of the big problems in trying to understand the birth of the refugee problem. There was a great variety of reasons why these people left their villages and cities. Some were told to leave by the authorities, some were explicitly forced out by the IDF, others left out of fear, and others left due to stories of atrocities and rumors of atrocities. This is the crux of the problem that was tackled by the author in this work, why each group of refugees left. The author structured his book perfectly to give readers the most detailed analysis of why each group left each specific area. He gives the Israeli response to each exodus, and gives an account of Israeli actions that may have precipitated that flight out of design and sometimes as an unintended consequence.

Whether pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian or just someone trying to make sense out of this complicated area, Mr Morris' work is essential reading. It is a definitive work on the refugee problem. If you are interested in this topic you can't skip on this work.

With that said I did have some major problems with the book. The way it was structured had some major benefits, but also some major drawbacks as well. The problem with structuring the work around each geographic location rather than using chronology is that it creates only isolated pictures of each location. Instead of understanding each exodus on the macro level the reader sees only the micro. This allows the author to go into great detail, but it also minimizes what was happening all over the country, and how those happenings affected the other areas. The author had to make a decision of how to structure this book, and he was going to encounter problems however he went about it so I don't take off for that, but I feel it incumbent to air my problems.

Next I have never in my life encountered a work with so many brackets. They were everywhere. It seemed that almost every quote of any appreciable length would invariably contain at least one change made by the author. I can certainly see how Mr. Morris has opened himself up to charges of misquoting and taking things out of context. On page 558 Morris quotes Ethridge's view that Israel was "unwilling to negotiate", but Mr. Morris inserts that they were "unwilling to [meaningfully] negotiate". This simple addition by Morris changes the context of the quote quite a bit. I feel that the author used his discretion in good faith, and I don't feel that he knowingly attempted to mislead anywhere in his book, but the practice lends itself to criticism. The book would have been much better if this practice had not been so pervasive.

Lastly the author's strength lies in his ability to research, but not so much in his writing style. The book is very dry which makes the length demonstrably harder to cope with. With that said, the book is a labor of love. If you are a history person then you have coped with dry reads before. If you are generally interested in the area then you have come across plenty of agenda driven works so that this one will be a breath of fresh air. While this book may be criticized by the extreme pro-Israel crowd that refuse to accept responsibility for even one refugee, and it may be criticized by the extreme pro-Palestinian crowd who want to see the Israelis as merciless, monsters killing all they could lay their hands, if you are a neutral observer just trying to understand this topic then this is the book for you. It isn't an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly detailed analysis of the Arab refugees, August 29, 2005

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Ron Tenenhaus "Mid-East History addict" (Brandon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge Middle East Studies) (Paperback)

A very thorough and detailed examination of the events surrounding the departure of the Arab community from the British Mandate territory of Palestine. At times, this book reads like a diary with very specific references to dates and times when particular events occured. A knowledge of the geography of the area, and a background in the political events unfolding at the time would be helpful in deciphering the numerous figures and reference points. Morris does succeed in conveying the variety of conflicting forces at play during this time and how they converged to create what was truly a chaotic situation for all parties in nascent Arab-Israeli conflict.