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.
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