Will I love 1948?

History is often in the eye of the beholder. There are many histories, not just one. This is true in general and this statement is particularly apt when we discuss the first Arab-Israeli war. When I teach about the conflict, students ask me for an objective account of the war. My answer is that none is in existence but the closest to the truth, in my opinion, is Morris’ account. It is the best book about the war, based on maticulate survey of documents. It provides a thorough explanation of the war in each and every stage.

Morris paid a… show more.

Morris’s 1948 is regarded by leading scholars in the field as the leading work on the subject. It offers a clear chronology and astute assessment of the intersection of the war’s military and political developments. Of particular importance for Israel’s Moment is Morris’s examination of the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan as a form of Jihad inspired by religious fundamentalism, and his understanding of the interaction between the debates at the United Nations in New York and the events on the battlefield in 1947 and 1948 in Palestine and then Israel.