- 22 May 2008 01:44
#1535931
From The Sunday Times
May 18, 2008
1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris
The Sunday Times review by Max Hastings
Between 1945 and 1948, the British government deployed 100,000 troops in a hopeless struggle to arbitrate between Arab residents and Jewish settlers in Palestine, under the terms of a League of Nations mandate. The commitment cost Britain, which was broke, £200m. In 1947, 60 British soldiers died there and 189 were wounded, victims, mostly, of Jewish terrorism. The following year, 114 were killed and 230 wounded.
Britain was reluctant to support the Zionist campaign for statehood, not least because of the damage such an outcome would inflict upon its standing in the Arab Middle East. But the burden of half-hearted refereeing was intolerable. When the Soviet Union amazed everyone by joining America to support the establishment of a Jewish state, the British threw up their hands. They agreed to surrender their mandate on May 15, 1948.
The United Nations decreed a partitioned Palestine, the boundaries of which the Jews would initially have accepted, and international trusteeship for Jerusalem. The Arabs, however, were determined to resist any Israeli state at all. The international community endorsed the new creation as western civilisation's gesture of atonement for the Holocaust. The Arab world rejected the West's right to make such restitution on soil from which Jews had been absent for almost 2,000 years.
Benny Morris writes that the conflict that followed was “a war of religion, as much as if not more than a nationalist war over territoryâ€. But once Arab intransigence became plain, the Jews grew increasingly ambitious for land beyond the UN-designated areas, and above all for Jerusalem.
On its 60th birthday, Israel is still a Jekyll and Hyde nation
In the last months before the British handover, Jews and Palestinian Arabs manoeuvred violently for territory. The Haganah, the Jewish underground army, smuggled weapons from Czechoslovakia and manufactured more in secret factories. Jewish terrorists of the Stern gang and Irgun - two of whose members, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, later became Israeli prime ministers - conducted bloody purges of vulnerable Arab areas, most notoriously at Deir Yassin on April 9.
Everything to do with Israel's history is beset with rival lies, and its first war is no exception. Morris's account seems admirable, because he is unafraid of upsetting both camps. A revisionist Israeli academic, he has become well known for his painfully meticulous research into the expulsions of Arabs from Jewish areas in 1948-49, systematic acts of ethnic cleansing that for decades most Jewish historians denied. Morris has often battled with personal despair about the implacability of Arab hatred for Israel, and thus about the future of his own society. His commitment to the pursuit of historical truth deserves as much admiration as his dismay at Arab intransigence commands sympathy.
Israel's Arab neighbours, he says, must accept responsibility for the plight of 750,000 Palestinians forced to abandon their homes. While most fled in the face of explicit or implicit Jewish terror, had the Arabs not resorted to arms, the Zionist settlers would have lacked excuse and opportunity to evict them.
Once the struggle began, however, modern Israeli attempts to dignify what took place as an exercise in “the purity of arms†by righteous Jewish warriors are unsustainable. Both sides behaved ruthlessly, but Morris asserts that the settlers' record was worse. He writes: “The Jews committed far more atrocities than the Arabs and killed far more civilians and POWs in deliberate acts of brutality in 1948.â€
He cites, for instance, a massacre at Saliha, where more than 60 people were blown up in a mosque; another episode at Hule on November 1, 1948, in which Israeli troops rounded up all the local males and prisoners, herded them into a building, in which they were shot, then blew the place up. The company commander responsible was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by an Israeli court, but never served a day.
Palestinian guerrillas behaved savagely when they had the chance, but they were much less well armed, organised and motivated than their enemies. In the face of chaos and terror, says Morris, “Palestinian Arab society, never robust, fell apartâ€. Although Palestinians outnumbered the Israelis by 1.3m to 630,000, the Jewish community possessed war veterans experienced in combat, together with money, leadership, a flow of arms that increased rapidly once Israel proclaimed statehood on May 14, and a single-minded commitment to survival.
As so often, the Arabs played their cards as badly as possible. The Middle-East nations distrusted each other too much to coordinate their attacks. No Arab government envisaged a Palestinian state. Beyond getting rid of the Jews, all hoped for territorial gains. Thus, in May 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq launched independent assaults.
It was a primitive war, interrupted by successive UN truces. Israel possessed few tanks and no artillery, but its embryo army ran one of the more remarkable come-as-you-are campaigns in history, which made the names of such officers as Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon. A handful of Israeli transport aircraft raided Damascus, crews rolling bombs out of the cargo doors. Explosive- laden speedboats sank a 1,440-ton Egyptian sloop in the Mediterranean. Passers-by were punished. When British Spitfires sought to reconnoitre the Egyptian border, they were shot down, then the wreckage of the planes was dragged over the border into Israel, to make it appear that they had trespassed in Jewish air space.
Jordan's excellent little army was led into battle by British officers, notably Glubb Pasha, the Arab Legion's commander. King Abdullah, the most pragmatic Arab ruler, aspired only to hold Jerusalem's Old City and the West Bank, and succeeded.The Egyptian and Syrian armies, by contrast, which tried to inflict wholesale defeat on the hated Zionists, suffered humiliation following a series of Israeli offensives that continued into the first days of 1949. Following the 1949 armistices, Arab refusal to resettle the Palestinian refugees in their own lands reflected understandable reluctance to disembarrass the Israeli enemy, but scant charity.
Morris's book is no mere military narrative, but a crisp, vivid introduction to the historical tragedy of Palestine. He concludes enigmatically: “Whether 1948 was a passing fancy or has permanently etched the region remains to be seen.†He quotes David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister: “If I was an Arab leader, I would never make peace with Israel...We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs...There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see only one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?â€
At a cost of 5,800 Israeli dead, including 500 women, in 1948 the embryo Jewish state was saved by the determination and heroism of its founders. But the intervening decades have shown the Israeli people - or at least those open to reason - that military prowess cannot alone provide national security.
1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris
Yale £19.99 pp540
Have your say
I have never read a more hideously biased version of history in my life. Not the least of which is the neglect to point out that every war Israel has been involved in since it's creation in 48 has been defensive against Arab aggression. The Arab intention has consistently been to wipe out the Jews
Tim, Brantford, Canada
Hastings continues with his and in general the Left's astonishment at how did Israel first survive, make Socialism work, discard Socialism and finally vanquish all attempts - strategic, political and economic etc to continue and now one of the major potential success stories for this millenium.
Richard, London, UK,
Adi,
The Grand Mufti was a fanatical anti-semite and Nuremburg declared war-criminal who preached killing all Jews for decades.
He was an ally and advisor to Hitler and tried to get him to extend the final solution to Palestine. He planned to return after the war and build a camp near Nablus.
N John, North Lanarkshire , Scotland
Though Benny Morris is a respected academic, his interpretation of history is contraversial, to say the least. There are many historians, no less respected, who's view of history differs substantially from Morris's. Even his terminology (Jewish "settlers" vs. Arab "residents") is contraversial.
Ehad Ha'am, Ra'anana, Israel
The obvious solution is simply for the US to agree that as long as there are no attacks on Israel, it doesn't need all that military aid and the money can instead be used to pay the Palestinians disposessed in 1948 for their land at current market rates.
Andy, Sammamish, USA
Why do some Jews keep harping on about Amin il Husseini being a "Nazi". I think he was much less so than many of their own people. He was naturally sympathetic to Germany because he was opposed to what was at that point an occupation of Palestine by Britain. It had nothing to do with the Jews.
Revisionists can write what they will but there is a reason why pogroms and ghettos are European concepts
Adi, athens, Greece
Where were the western leaders asking for 'unconditional withdrawal' as they did with Saddam Hussein. it is this kind of hypocrisy that has alienated the muslims against the West.
SARDAR, B/Burn, UK
Although I'm sure there was and still is liability/responsibility on both sides, I find the flavour/ballance of this article very one-sided...a big pity....just adds fuel to the flames...
Bruce, Nanavut, Canada
Do you think that Jews did not know that Arabs supported Hitler in WW II? Do you think they did not know that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini was an Arab-Nazi who lived in Germany,broadcast hate into the Arab world and supported the Third Reich due to the Holocaust? 1948 was about survival
Jeremy, LA, USA
Very Rare & Unbaised! Masterpiece!
We'll surely read
nate, Atherton, USA
Last edited by Tonic on 22 May 2008 02:10, edited 2 times in total.
- By litwin
- By wat0n