Pagina principaleGruppiConversazioniAltroStatistiche
Cerca nel Sito
Questo sito utilizza i cookies per fornire i nostri servizi, per migliorare le prestazioni, per analisi, e (per gli utenti che accedono senza fare login) per la pubblicità. Usando LibraryThing confermi di aver letto e capito le nostre condizioni di servizio e la politica sulla privacy. Il tuo uso del sito e dei servizi è soggetto a tali politiche e condizioni.

Risultati da Google Ricerca Libri

Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.

Sto caricando le informazioni...

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

di Benny Morris

UtentiRecensioniPopolaritàMedia votiCitazioni
317681,796 (4.03)4
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.?… (altro)
Sto caricando le informazioni...

Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro.

Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro.

» Vedi le 4 citazioni

Very sad. Rings true.(21) ( )
  markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |
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). ( )
  rivkat | Dec 23, 2021 |
I was nine years old when my parents took me to see the movie Exodus; since I wasn’t allowed to borrow books from the “adult” section of the public library I obtained a clandestine copy of the book and devoured that. As a result of these accounts a brave Jewish settlers struggling against fanatical and bloodthirsty Arabs, I became a “pro-Semite” to the extent that I began answering the phone “Shalom”. This annoyed my parents and drove more distant Missouri Synod Lutheran relatives – at least one of which was an unreconstructed Hitler Youth – into frenzy.


Alas for the shattering of yet another childhood illusion. In 1948, Ben-Gurion University history professor Benny Morris covers the birth of the Israeli state with all the warts exposed. The realities are quite a bit different from the Leon Uris romanticized version.


(Before I get much further, I must explain that Morris uses “Jews” to describe Jewish inhabitants of the area before the UN partition vote, and uses “Israelis” afterward. Although technically correct, and actually a useful distinction, this makes for some very anti-Semitic sounding language – “The Jews attacked an Arab village” for example. Similarly with “Zionist”, which has now become a term of opprobrium in some circles, is used in its original form in 1948.) Morris divides the conflict into a “Civil War” phase, when there was still a British mandate in Palestine and Jews and ALA fought with varying degrees of interference from the British government, and a “War of Independence” phase, when the Israelis took on invasions from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq (allowed to move through Jordan to get there), Jordan, and Egypt (supported by detachments from Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Morris uses Yishuv (Hebrew for “settlement”) to describe the Jewish community in the Mandate before independence, and “Israeli government” afterward; this can get a little confusing, too, especially when the situation changes in a few pages. Jewish/Israeli military and paramilitary organizations are usually referred to be initials or Anglicized Hebrew, which can be a little confusing if you’re used to other terms:


* Irgun Hahaganah, “Defense Organization”, usually Haganah, latter IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). An underground organization during the Mandate years, but usually not active against British forces or Arabs, instead preparing for the future. There was an uneasy truce between the Haganah and the British during WWII, to the extent that the British trained Haganah members to undertake guerrilla warfare in case the Afrika Korps reached Palestine; this group was the Palmach (from Plugot Macḥatz, “Strike Force”). The Palmach went underground after El Alamein.


* IZL = Irgun zvai leumi = “National Military Organization”. Always IZL in 1948, but non-Israeli histories usually just call it the Irgun. Engaged in terrorist acts against both the British and Arabs, including bombings (the King David Hotel being the most famous) and assassinations.


* LHI = Lohamei herut yisrael = “Freedom Fighters of Israel”. Always LHI in 1948 but usually “the Stern gang” in non-Israeli publications, sometime “Lehi” from the initials. Even more radical than the IZL and extremely anti-British, to the extent that they twice contacted the Wehrmacht offering assistance; assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine.


* ALA = Arab Liberation Army, more or less organized Palestinian Arabs (as opposed to the formal military forces of Arab countries).


*Arab Legion = The Jordanian Army, mostly British officered.

Now that we have the player identified, we might as well jump head first into the ugliness:


*The Zionist slogan of “A Land Without a People for a People Without a Land” was more or less true. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t any Arabs living in Palestine before 1948, but rather that there were no Palestinians. Instead Arabs saw themselves as residents of a particular village or area, or owing allegiance to one of the two powerful families in the area, the Husseinis and Nashashibis. In particular the Husseinis and Nashashibis spent a great deal of effort fighting each other, either militarily or politically, rather than the Jews. Therefore when Morris speaks of (for example) “Palestinian leaders” he means leaders who happened to live in the territory of the Mandate, not leaders who were identified as such by people who, in turn, identified themselves as Palestinians. The upshot of all this, of course, is the modern, self-identified Palestinian people was essentially created by the establishment of Israel.


* Conventional mythology of the founding of Israel often claims that Arab villagers and city residents left their homes on the urging of neighboring Arab states, ostensibly to keep them out of the area of conflict until the war was over. Although there were a few Arab radio broadcasts suggesting this, Morris admits that most Arabs were driven out by the Haganah/IDF under the explicit instructions of higher authority, often using the unpleasant term “cleansing”. To be fair, Morris notes that huge number of Jews were expelled from the Arab countries after the founding of Israel and subsequent Israeli victories in the Sinai and 6 Day Wars – 43000 from Yemen, “thousands” from Iraq, 65000 from Egypt, 15000 from Syria, 40000 from Libya, and 60000 from Morocco. (I remember reading that prior to the Egyptian recognition of Israel the few remaining Jews in Cairo had to borrow American Embassy personnel to make a minyan.) Ironically, according to Morris the expelled Jews were mostly Sephardic, have created something of a racial divide in Israel, and are generally more right-wing than Ashkenazi descendants.


* Most atrocities during the war were committed by Jewish/Israeli forces upon Arabs, rather than the other way around. Morris notes that there was a profound disparity of opportunity, with the Jews/Israelis advancing into Arab villages rather than the other way around. Morris claims that a lot of the atrocities were committed by IZL/LHI forces or recent immigrants from Eastern Europe; however, especially in the Civil War phase it was seemingly routine for Haganah/IZL/LHI to advance into a Arab village, summarily execute all the males of military age, force everybody else out, and raze all the buildings. Somewhat cynically, troops were ordered to stop demolishing buildings later in the war so they could be used for incoming Jewish immigrant housing. The Palmach units in the Haganah tended to be the most professional.


* Morris has considerable, if sometimes understated, praise for King ‘Abdullah and the Arab Legion, who generally behaved with military correctness whether their officers were British or Jordanian. Golda Meir – disguised as an Arab - visited ‘Abdullah just before the Invasion phase and found him generally sympathetic to the Jews but unwilling to risk the opinion of the “Arab street”. ‘Abdullah went as far as offering a Jewish state in federation with Jordan, although the details of what that would have meant were never pursued. Although the Arab Legion was far and away the most capable of the Arab armies, ‘Abdullah confined his advance to the West Bank, even though in the confused early invasion period he might have been able to advance all the way to the sea.


* David Ben-Gurion comes across as an able politician but militarily illiterate, demanding retention of every single Jewish settlement even in untenable defensive positions and believing that the Arabs could be forced to surrender by bombing their cities (at a time when the Israeli Air Force consisted of four B-17s, a few C-46s converted to bombers by rolling bombs out the cargo doors, miscellaneous WWII surplus fighters and some civilian light aircraft, including Piper Cubs that bombed by throwing grenades out the windows). Ben-Gurion halted a number of promising military offensives, including an Israeli drive on el-Arish that would have encircled the entire Egyptian expeditionary force, out of fear of international repercussions (which, of course, could well have been the correct decision).


* Conventional mythology also has a heavily outnumbered IDF achieving quasi-miraculous against massive invading Arab armies. In fact, the IDF outnumbered the combined Arab military forces. The invading Arab countries were all only recently independent and hadn’t had much time to develop native military strength; plus most of them had to commit considerable forces to rear areas to keep down unrest. In terms of officer quality, the IDF was orders of magnitude ahead, with many of its officers experienced WWII veterans (including non-Jews). A few British deserters joined the Arab forces (and participated in a car bombing during the Civil War period, using stolen British vehicles); however, there were also some deserters to the IDF including some who managed to steal a Cromwell tank. Morris claims there were a handful of ex-Wehrmacht officers in Arab service, plus some Bosnians, but provides no details; if there were they certainly didn’t help much.


* The Communist bloc supported Israel at its founding; it was seen as a nascent Socialist state (and, in fact, the first Israeli political parties were characterized as “leftist” versus “extremely leftist”) opposed to reactionary Arab monarchies and the imperialist British empire. This lead to considerable unease in the Truman administration, which waffled over its support of the Israeli state. The IDF was essentially saved by arms imports from Czechoslovakia (violating the arms embargo imposed by the US and Britain); ironically, the Czechs provided the Israelis with masses of Kar98s, MG38s and 42s, and Messerschmitt fighters to pit against Arab Lee-Enfields, Brens, and Spitfires. (the Messerschmitts were technically Avia S-199s, which coupled an Me-109 airframe with a Junkers Jumo 211-F bomber engine that made for a contender for the world’s worst handling aircraft; the low revs of the bomber engine were compensated by an enormous propeller which in turn made torque characteristics almost unmanageable). It’s again an article of mythology that the Israelis were denied weapons while the Arabs were not; however, the Israelis had an extensive network of illicit arms suppliers (in addition to the Czech supplies the Israelis got numerous American halftracks as “agricultural equipment”; this isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds – when I was doing geology in upstate New York in the 1970s I heard of a farmer who was using an M3 to plow). The Arabs had no clandestine supply network and failed to build up stocks of arms and spare parts before the embargo was enforced. The Egyptians eventually acquired some Macchi and Fiat fighters to replace lost Spitfires, which must have made air-to-air combats even more surreal.


Once you get over the disturbing surprises, 1948 is a well done military/political history. There are a lot of maps of the various military operations, although they suffer slightly from poor terrain depiction. The infighting among the various Arab factions (and, to a much lesser extent, the Jewish ones) illustrates that you have to win the war before you can divide up the spoils; this might make a terrific military/political war game in the old SPI style. Morris’ understanding of contemporary military technology and effectiveness is sometimes a little suspect; he describes the Bren carrier as an “armored car” (a more correct description might be “self-propelled death trap”) and seems to think that the 2-pounder and 6-pounder guns on some of the Arab armored cars were artillery weapons. There are extensive references. I expect the book is probably pretty controversial in Israel; It was sadly disillusioning for me – although I reflect that as I sit here in a Starbucks I don’t see any Arapahoe around. ( )
  setnahkt | Dec 1, 2017 |
Morris does a good job of exploring the various battles of the 1948 war in minute detail including excellent maps which make the troop movements, take overs and losses easy to follow, even for someone who is unfamiliar with the terrain.

He explores the reasons for the defeat of the armies of the surrounding Arab states, which include poor preparation, a lack of coherent ideology and lack of arms as opposed to the Yishuv which was literally fighting for its life.

It is clear that Morris is approaching the subject through the Israeli lens but there does seem to be a paucity of information from the side of the Arab states and armies meaning any scholarly attempt at covering this subject will be necessarily limited. In fact one cannot help but admire the tenacity and perseverance of the Israelis when they were underdogs, whatever one's current view of the situation in the Middle East.

For all this Morris is honest about atrocities committed by both sides in the course of the war and tries to hide nothing. It was a bloody, brutal conflict but likely no more so than the birth of any state. It is certainly worth a read for anyone interested in the issue, international politics or history. ( )
1 vota twp77 | Jun 26, 2012 |
ספר מרתק ומרשים ביותר על תקופה שאני יודע עליה מעט מאוד. מעניין עד כמה מוצלחים היינו בגיוס המשאבים הלאומיים שלנו באותם ימים ובמקביל עד כמה אכזרים היינו. הסיום של הספר פסימי למדי לגבי הסיכוי להגיע להסכם. ( )
1 vota amoskovacs | Oct 1, 2011 |
Now Morris has directed his energy to writing the fullest and best narrative history of the independence war: 1948. Until such time as Arab archives are opened, assuming they exist, this is likely to be the definitive history we shall ever have. . . .

The rise of Israel since 1948 has been the most astonishing act of state-building of the 20th century. For 60 years, we have heard that time was not on Israel’s side. But those who wait for “time” to win their battles for them will discover how very, very, very long “time” can take.

Someday, probably, some kind of negotiated peace will come to Israel. When it does, it will confirm the result won in 1948. Till then, Morris’ authoritative history will stand as a indispensable guide not only to what happened then, but why - and, by inference, why all subsequent attempts to overturn the verdict have so ignominiously failed.
aggiunto da TomVeal | modificaNew Majority, David Frum (Feb 19, 2009)
 

Premi e riconoscimenti

Devi effettuare l'accesso per contribuire alle Informazioni generali.
Per maggiori spiegazioni, vedi la pagina di aiuto delle informazioni generali.
Titolo canonico
Titolo originale
Titoli alternativi
Data della prima edizione
Personaggi
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
Luoghi significativi
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
Eventi significativi
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
Film correlati
Epigrafe
Dedica
Incipit
Citazioni
Ultime parole
Nota di disambiguazione
Redattore editoriale
Elogi
Lingua originale
DDC/MDS Canonico
LCC canonico
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.?

Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche

Descrizione del libro
Riassunto haiku

Discussioni correnti

Nessuno

Copertine popolari

Link rapidi

Voto

Media: (4.03)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2
2.5 1
3 2
3.5 2
4 17
4.5 1
5 8

Sei tu?

Diventa un autore di LibraryThing.

Yale University Press

2 edizioni di questo libro sono state pubblicate da Yale University Press.

Edizioni: 0300126964, 0300151128

 

A proposito di | Contatto | LibraryThing.com | Privacy/Condizioni d'uso | Guida/FAQ | Blog | Negozio | APIs | TinyCat | Biblioteche di personaggi celebri | Recensori in anteprima | Informazioni generali | 203,217,846 libri! | Barra superiore: Sempre visibile