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16+ Works 1,485 Members 21 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Benny Morris is the leading figure among Israel's "New Historians," who over the past two decades have reshaped our understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict. He serves as professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University, Israel. His books include One State, Two show more States; Righteous Victims; Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956; and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. show less
Image credit: Photo by user Aude / Wikimedia Commons

Works by Benny Morris

Associated Works

MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 2009 (2009) — Author "Lashing Back" — 5 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1948-12-08
Gender
male
Nationality
Israel
Birthplace
Ein HaHoresh, Israel

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Reviews

 
Flagged
markm2315 | 5 other reviews | Jul 1, 2023 |
Began just looking for solid info on the 1930s Israel / mandate situation, but was so good, wound up running it all the way through. As often happens- I thought I was "strong" on the 6 day war, 1973 wars, but .... wrong again. This book had much to add - both in core content / facts, but more in what I thought was a fairly objective reporting of the mood of the participants. As even handed as one can hope for from a book like this.
 
Flagged
apende | 7 other reviews | Jul 12, 2022 |
Published in 1969, it is extremely detailed in terms of military history and covers both Arab and Israeli failures and atrocities, though there’s nothing uncontroversial in this area. Arab nationalism and Zionism were both locked in opposition and mutually reinforcing as Jews poured into Palestine, spurred by the Holocaust and the world reaction to it, and the British tried to appease their Arab clients without pissing off the far more pro-Jewish and then pro-Israeli Americans. The UN proposed a partition, which the Arab states didn’t accept and which initially proposed to leave a substantial (approaching close to half the population) Arab minority in the Jewish territory. Instead, the Arab states invaded (Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt), but were hampered by poor equipment, limited manpower, and a focus on making sure that no independent Palestine came into existence; they preferred to divide the territory among themselves and the existence of Israel didn’t necessarily seem that much worse than a Palestinian state, not that any of the leaders could say so publicly. Things got worse for them in terms of materiel because of an arms embargo once the war started, whereas the Jews were used to buying weapons on the black market and successfully got a lot through, with the help of substantial funds from Jews in the US and elsewhere and of trained military personnel (including a number of Christians), many of whom had learned their skills fighting against the Nazis.

Though the nascent state was in real danger of disappearing, things got better for Israel as the fighting went on. Nonetheless the entire Jewish state was mobilized for war, as the Arab countries weren’t, and the war footing couldn’t go on forever. With a lot of international pressure, mostly against the militarily more successful Israelis, it didn’t. But it turns out that an absence of peace can last a very long time, especially since the Arab states didn’t do much to integrate Palestinian refugees. Although the number of Jews expelled from Arab states was roughly equivalent to the number of Arabs expelled from Israeli territory, Israel made many more efforts to integrate the former (though they apparently remained a seriously right-wing, anti-Arab voting bloc), while Arab states kept the refugees segregated in camps, creating a reserve army of potential anti-Israel fighters. Weak states have trouble making peace, and the first two Arab leaders who seriously conducted peace negotiations were murdered (King 'Abdullah in 1951 and Anwar Sadat).
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Flagged
rivkat | 5 other reviews | Dec 23, 2021 |
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 by Benny Morris (2001)
 
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arosoff | 7 other reviews | Jul 10, 2021 |

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Works
16
Also by
1
Members
1,485
Popularity
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Rating
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Reviews
21
ISBNs
82
Languages
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Favorited
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