Janice J. Terry |
Review of Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the
First Arab-Israeli War. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2008.
Pp. xiv, 524. ISBN 978-0-312-16223-8. |
In 1948: The First
Arab-Israeli War, Benny Morris provides a thorough and scholarly
account of the conflict appropriately known in Israel as the "War of
Independence" and among Palestinians as the Nakba or
"Catastrophe." His previous works include Israel's Border Wars
1949-1956[1]
and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.[2]
One of several so-called revisionist or new Israeli historians,
Morris joins Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Tom Segev, and Simha Flapan[3]
in using primary documents from Israeli and British archives to
document the emergence of the independent state of Israel and its
policies toward the Palestinians and Arab states. In the process
they have effectively refuted and in some cases demolished long-held
Israeli or Zionist nationalist myths, particularly with regard to
the relative military strength of the nascent Israeli state
vis-à-vis the Palestinians and Arab regimes, as well as Israeli
policies toward the Palestinian population prior to 1948 and in the
years thereafter. Although a committed Zionist, Morris does not
flinch from critical analyses of Israeli objectives, actions, and
policies especially as they have impacted the Palestinians. Because
the Arab state documents remain closed, Morris has had to rely
heavily on Israeli, British, and some U.S. materials; he has also
made use of an extensive and impressive array of Arabic, Hebrew, and
English newspapers and secondary works.
Morris begins the narrative
with the charge that the 1948 war was an "almost inevitable result"
(1) of fifty years of friction between the Arab and Jewish
populations in Palestine. In the first chapter, "Staking Claims,"
Morris provides a concise overview of the British Mandate in
Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s. In describing the status of
the Palestinian population, Morris's overstates the divisions
between Muslim and Christian Palestinians. Similarly, others have
questioned the claim that the Zionist movement's biggest problem
regarding land acquisition was the lack of money not a lack of
sellers. Morris goes on (chap. 2) to describe the involvement of the
United Nations under UNSCOP (UN Special Commission on Palestine) and
the partition resolution of 1947. He correctly notes that the
British were, in fact, eager to be rid of the Palestine Mandate;
they were also concerned over increased tensions with the United
States owing to their differing policies regarding the creation of
an independent Jewish state in Palestine (38). Although Morris does
not pursue this point, the importance of the United States in
influencing British, UN, and Israeli policies and actions is an
intriguing sub-text in this work. He also correctly emphasizes the
Zionist realization of the importance of UNSCOP and the failure of
the Arabs to recognize this fact. Consequently, the Zionists
launched what might well be called--although Morris does not use the
phrase--a "charm offensive" to influence UNSCOP decisions in their
favor. Morris again notes the importance of the U.S. in formulating
both the UN resolution for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish
state and Arab state and the borders for the Jewish state. He also
correctly observes that the Arab states reacted to the UN partition
plan by threatening war even though they were not ready for war.
In chapters 3 and 4, Morris
carefully traces what he terms the "Civil War" between Jews and
Palestinians from November 1947 through May 1948 when the
conventional war broke out in the immediate aftermath of the British
withdrawal and the establishment of the independent state of Israel.
Both Arabs and Israelis have claimed that during the last months of
the mandate, the British favored the other side, but Morris
effectively demonstrates that, although the British were generally
impartial, their determination to maintain law and order resulted in
interventions favoring the Jews. On the other hand, British troops
sometimes favored the Arabs especially after Zionist terror attacks
by the IZL (Irgun Zva'i Leumi = National Military
Organization) and LHI (Lohamei Herut [Y]israel = Freedom
Fighters of Israel, sometimes referred to as the Stern Gang) on
British troops and personnel (80). Morris effectively shows that, in
the struggle against the Palestinians for territory, the Yishuv or
Jewish population had the advantage of better organization,
training, weapons, arms manufacturing, and command (81). In
contrast, the Palestinian population and Arab governments were weak
and divided. In short, the Palestinians had nothing like to match
the Haganah (a Jewish paramilitary organization during the British
Mandate, later absorbed into the Israel Defense Forces [IDF]). The
disparity of military strength resulted, even before the 1948 war
itself, in "the complete destruction of Palestinian Arab military
power and the shattering of Palestinian society" (93). Morris then
gives a detailed description of the various military confrontations
between the two sides with detailed maps of military confrontations.
(The close-up maps may be difficult to follow for readers without
knowledge of terrain.)
Both sides committed atrocities
during the civil war and the Haganah aimed to destroy or permanently
occupy villages and towns from which militias operated (125). The
real significance of the struggle was demographic. Fear and panic
resulted in a massive exodus of Palestinians, who became refuges
internally or in neighboring Arab states, where many still remain.
Morris details the emptying of major towns such as Haifa and Jaffa.
His account adds to the growing body of work on the altered
demographics of Palestine;[4]
it effectively refutes allegations that Arab leaders told people to
leave and includes instances when they in fact told them to return.
Although Morris denies that
there was a master plan for the expulsion of Arabs (120), the impact
of Israeli military actions was precisely that, even if a policy of
ethnic cleansing was not explicitly enunciated. He does not deny
that mainstream Zionist leaders did consider--even before the
victories in the 1948 war--expanding the Jewish state beyond the UN
partition lines (101). He also notes that the Golani Brigade's
official history concludes that, as a result of its actions in the
north, "the valley was almost completely cleansed of its Arab
inhabitants" (161). The Israeli revisionist historian Ilan Pappe has
gone further in arguing strongly and controversially that there was
in fact a concerted effort to remove the Palestinian population.[5]
However, none of these historians denies that armed conflict between
the announcement of the UN partition plan in November 1947 and the
British withdrawal in May 1948 ensured eventual Israeli victory
before the actual onset of conventional war in 1948.
The account of the actual war
(chaps. 5-9) is straightforward and easily followed, even by those
unfamiliar with military history. Morris notes the lack of
coordination or planning on the part of the Arab states. He also
mentions but does not expand on the negotiations between Israeli
leaders and King Abdullah of Jordan whereby Abdullah agreed to
deploy the Arab Legion, arguably the best Arab force, only in
territories allotted to the Arab state under the UN partition plan.
Crucially, Jerusalem was not part of this top secret agreement. Avi
Shlaim and Joseph Nevo have both expanded on this vital aspect of
the 1948 war.[6]
Abdullah's territorial ambitions and dynastic rivalries with other
Arab rulers were certainly contributory factors--albeit not the only
ones--behind the generally poor performance of Arab militaries.
Thus, contrary to media accounts, the Arab governments, especially
Jordan, aimed not necessarily to eliminate the Jewish state but to
expand their own territories or improve their relative powers within
the Arab world (195).
As Morris explains the two UN
implemented truces, though violated by both sides, enabled Israel to
secure additional arms by both air and sea, whereas the Arabs were
impeded by the Western arms embargo, especially as enforced by Great
Britain. As a result, Israel consolidated and expanded its land
holdings by almost a third more than granted under the UN partition
plan. This territory almost immediately became non-negotiable as far
as Israel was concerned. Nor were the Palestinian refugees who had
left these territories--either out of fear or under force--allowed
to return. David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, was
especially opposed to both announcing the final borders for the
Israeli state or permitting the return of the Palestinians (177,
299). Israeli forces therefore implemented a "near-systematic
destruction of villages after conquest and depopulation" (303).
Again, Morris remarks on but
does not expand on U.S. support for Israel throughout the war.
Ben-Gurion and the Israeli leadership were well aware that, although
the UN might object to their attacks against Egyptian forces in the
south and the Negev in October, they could rely on U.S. support to
gain more time. Through a series of ruses (323-5, chap. 8), Israel
was able to brand Egypt as the aggressor and to launch successful
attacks in Operation Yoav. The maps in this section are particularly
helpful. In Operation Hiram, Israel for the first time crossed a
recognized international border to invade south Lebanon (344). The
fact that Israel, a state barely five months old, already had the
confidence and military strength to attack a neighboring nation
contradicts conventional belief, especially by the U.S. public, that
it was militarily weaker and more eager for peace than the Arabs.
Similarly Israel launched raids into Egyptian territory in the
Sinai (chap. 9) where some Israeli cabinet members wanted to expand
their land holdings.
Chapter 10, on the various
armistice agreements, comes almost as an anti-climax to the
narrative on the war itself. Israel had the clear advantage, and the
bellicose rhetoric of Arab leaders belied their weakness. Arab
verbal aggression also enabled the Israeli government successfully
to portray itself as the victim and weaker party, even though the
facts on the ground clearly indicated the opposite. Ben-Gurion
viewed the armistice agreements with the surrounding Arab states as
de facto peace accords and therefore saw no need to pursue "full
peace" (391); indeed, there has yet to be a comprehensive peace
settlement between Israel and a number of Arab states, let alone the
Palestinians.
Morris not only provides an
exhaustive account of the military aspects of the 1948 war, he
places it firmly within its all-important political context. His
blunt assessments of the weaknesses, brutality, and atrocities of
both sides will not find favor with either hard-line Zionists or
some supporters of the Palestinians. Both are certain to allege that
he favors one side over the other and discounts or downplays the
terror inflicted by their opponents.
Morris's personal bias only
becomes apparent in the conclusion,[7]
where he asserts that the conflict has been and remains part of a
global struggle between "the Islamic East and the West." Although
in the preceding ten chapters of his book, Morris occasionally cites
Islamic support for the Palestinian cause, as, for example, when
Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood volunteered to fight in
the 1948 war, his narrative fails to show that the conflict is
primarily rooted in religion. Indeed, the main Palestinian
nationalist organizations, especially the PLO, were steadfastly
secular for decades. Islamist movements, such as Hamas, only emerged
as the dominant forces in the 1990s, owing to the internal failures
and corruption of the PLO and its inability to secure a meaningful
independent Palestinian state. Others may also attempt to refute
Morris's judgment that even if Israel had been more forthcoming with
Arab states after the 1948 war, things would not have been different
(417). These debatable points in the concluding chapter do not in
any way lessen the importance of Morris's work as an objective
history of the first order. Military historians as well as a wide
array of experts and general readers will find this to be perhaps
the single best work on the 1948 war. It should stand as the
definitive work for some time to come.
Eastern Michigan University
jterry@emich.edu
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