1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

Front Cover
Yale University Press, Oct 1, 2008 - History - 560 pages

Benny Morris demolishes misconceptions and provides a comprehensive history of the Israeli-Arab war of 1948

This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side—where the archives are still closed—is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials.

Morris stresses the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the war's military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a by-product of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great Powers—Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union—in shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty 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.

 

Contents

The Historical Background
1
UNSCOP and the Partition Resolution
37
3 The First Stage of the Civil War November 1947March 1948
75
4 The Second Stage of the Civil War AprilmidMay 1948
113
5 The PanArab Invasion 15 May11 June 1948
180
6 The First Truce 11 June8 July 1948 the International Community and the War
264
Illustrations
272
7 The Ten Days and After
273
8 Operations Yoav and Hiram
320
9 Operation Horev December 1948January 1949
350
10 The Armistice Agreements JanuaryJuly 1949
375
11 Some Conclusions
392
Notes
4-21
Bibliography
493
Index
507
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2008)

Benny Morris is professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He is the leading figure among Israel's "New Historians," who over the past two decades have reshaped our understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict. His books include Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001; Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956; and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.

Bibliographic information