1948: A History of the First ArabIsraeli War

Benny Morris demolishes misconceptions and provides a comprehensive history of the IsraeliArab war of 1948This history of the foundational war in the ArabIsraeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the wars political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab sidewhere the archives are still closedis illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials.Morris stresses the jihadi character of the twostage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the wars military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a byproduct of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great PowersBritain, the United States, and the Soviet Unionin shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decisionmaking processes and at the nittygritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlies the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.