Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 [Paperback]

Benny Morris (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0679744754 | ISBN-13: 978-0679744757 | Edition: Updated

At a time when the Middle East has come closer to achieving peace than ever before, eminent Israeli historian Benny Morris explodes the myths cherished by both sides to present an epic history of Zionist-Arab relations over the past 120 years.

Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but it also shattered Palestinian Arab society and gave rise to a massive refugee problem. Morris offers distinctive accounts of each of the subsequent Israeli-Arab wars and details the sporadic peace efforts in between, culminating in the peace process initiated by the Rabin Government. In a new afterword to the Vintage edition, he examines Ehud Barak’s leadership, the death of President Assad of Syria, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recent renewed conflict with the Palestinians. Studded with illuminating portraits of the major protagonists, Righteous Victims provides an authoritative record of the middle east and its continuing struggle toward peace.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Making sense of any particular episode in the long and convoluted conflict between Arabs and Israelis can seem a Sisyphean task--engineering peace in the Middle East has become nearly clichéd in its complexity, with each individual dispute traceable back to years of anger, mistrust, and mutual misunderstanding fueled by cycles of violence and revenge. To add to this confusion, the historical record has been colored by "emphatic partisanship by commentators and historians from both sides, as well as by foreign observers," adds Middle East historian Benny Morris. So what Morris has undertaken in this volume--an inclusive, dispassionate, and rigorous history of the conflict, from Zionism's birth in the wake of the Russian pogroms through to the uncertain prospects for peace in 1999--is no mean feat.

A calm, balanced voice (although a controversial one among some who fear revisionism), Morris has previously proven his scholarship with such definitive titles as Israel's Border Wars and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Righteous Victims likewise doesn't waver in its task, methodically unearthing the political and military roots of the struggle, from early friction between Zionist "colonizers" and native Arabs slowly through to the establishment of Israel and the bloody wars and terrorism that followed. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like Avi Shlaim (see above), Morris is a revisionist historian working to deflate the heroic-romantic Zionist view of Israeli history. A professor of history at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, Morris (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem) offers readers a more scholarly, rigorous book than either Shlaim or the authors of The Fifty Years War (see above). He also takes a longer and a deeper view, detailing relations between Israel and the Arabs since the beginning of the modern Zionist movement in the late 19th century and digging beneath politics and diplomacy to get at the broader social and cultural history of Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews. One of his central points is that the very success of Israel as a state has allowed the Palestinians to appropriate the identity of history's victimsAan identity once central to Israelis' view of themselves. Morris makes very clear how Israel's military and economic successes have slowly forced most of the Arab world to accept a Jewish state. At the same time, he notes the irony that the triumph of Zionism helped create a distinct Palestinian national identity that didn't previously exist. His view of Zionism is almost detached as he documents its successes. He has no trouble calling Zionism a "colonizing" movement, but he doesn't strongly condemn it for being so. His harsh judgment that a "fragmented, venal political elite" retarded the Palestinian cause does not make him deny the merits of the cause. Crisply written, balanced and comprehensive, this is an indispensable work of history. History Book Club alternate selection. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Updated edition (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679744754
• ISBN-13: 978-0679744757
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #141,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > History > Middle East > Palestine

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 121 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Controversial in its conclusions... January 13, 2003

By Stephen Armstrong

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Righteous Victims is a "revisionist" history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, so its conclusions spark terrific controversy (as you can see from the other reviews on Amazon.com!) I found this book very informative, balanced, and nuanced--a very well written analytic and descriptive history. As the NY Times reviewer said, the book's tone is "calm."

Morris had access to more Jewish and Israeli sources than Arab-Palestinian-Muslim sources, so of course critics can claim that the conclusions are "biased" in some ways. Nevertheless, at each turn in the narrative, Morris clearly describes the political, social, economic, demographic, ideological, intellectual, national, and military consequences of each "phase" or "stage" in the conflict, from "both" sides. (The conflict is far more complicated than "two" sides, however.)

No matter how one regards his conclusions, Morris's dual empathy--for a people nearly crushed under (centuries of European) anti-Semitism and Hitler, and for a dispossessed, poorly led, and impoverished people--comes clear. The book is 784 pages (counting the index) so there is ample opportunity to find something to disagree with, but the thrust and conclusions are hard to escape: security eludes Israel, which has never felt safe; and the Palestinians are citizens of nothing outside the refugee camps.

At some level, this book sadly reminded me of Yeats' poem, written in WW I, "Slouching toward Bethlehem." What new beast, in this terrible time for both Israelis and Arabs, is waiting to be born?

58 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars WELL WORTH YOUR TIME December 21, 2000

By "no1pilot99"

Format:Paperback

I recently finished my master's thesis, writing about the debate between Israel's "New historians" and the traditional accepted version of the events surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel. I've read a lot of books in the past year (from both sides of the argument) but I think that Morris's "Righteous Victims" did the best job of examining ALL the evidence--even the parts that were hard to accept--and writing a conclusion that was well thought out and highly accurate.

This book is easy to read and provides a solid background from Herzl through the events of last year. It is the most comprehensive of the new historians' works, and probably also the most tame. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand the background of the conflict in the Middle East.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and Fair March 30, 2005

By Bu-Chan

Format:Paperback

Benny Morris has tackled a difficult subject with flair. He has avoided the extremes that an emotionally provocative subject as this usually inspires in some people. He has presented both sides of the conflict, or at least done so as good as anyone could expect, as well as pointing out the failures on both sides that have conspired to leave us with a seemingly hopeless situation today.

For anyone looking for a broad introduction into the history, causes, contributing factors and personalities of the Arab-Zionist conflict, this book is hard to go past. It is comprehensive, well-written, well-referenced and very balanced in its presentation.

Morris is a lively writer, and has struck a happy medium between detail and the need to keep on track in what is a complex subject.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 694 pages!!! April 14, 2006

By Randal A. Culver

Format:Paperback

Actually, for a topic this fascinating, it could've been longer. Great book. One gets the impression Morris genuinely desires to be objective. The problems, however, were these: It WAS slightly biased towards the Palestinians. However, my guess is this was not ideologically based and more the result of another flaw: the overwhelmingly Israeli source material and the paucity of Arab documentation. This is glaring. How can one be totally objective with such missing data? It's easy to discuss Israeli aggressions with pages of detailed reports. Would he have found the same evidence of atrocity and plotting with adequate Arab documentation? My guess is the information would be rather disturbing and might vindicate the Jews a little more than does the tone of this book. Still..........great book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An objective history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict June 15, 2008

By Herbert Engstrom

Format:Paperback

Benny Morris, the author of "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001," has been counted as one of the Israeli "revisionist" historians, that group of Israelis that have debunked some of the myths that have surrounded the birth of Israel. In an earlier book, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949," Morris examined one such myth: that Palestinian Arabs left the nascent Israeli state in 1948 of their own volition or under the direction of their own leaders. Although that occurred in a small number of instances, there were many more cases in which the Israeli army drove Arabs out at gunpoint. Such revelations have not endeared him to many of his countrymen. In "Righteous Victims," first published in 1999, Morris also describes many instances of Arab antisemitism, venality, and brutality directed against Jewish settlements in Palestine. He provides many fascinating details in the early years of the interaction of the Zionist organization in Europe, British and French colonial policy, and the moribund Ottoman empire. For example, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which Great Britain promised the Jews of Palestine a national homeland was seen to be a completely self serving act by Britain to further its own military-political aims in World War I. This nearly 700 page book, as its title indicates, covers the entire history of the conflict from the origins of the Zionist movement including the birth of Israel and all of the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars as well as political considerations and attempts by Arab and Israeli leaders at achieving peace. Objectivity is Morris's aim, and he achieves it quite well.