their preface, this was precisely their debate on this issue does emerge in purpose in writing the book: “To pro- Israel, then Gavison, Kremnitzer, and vide a basis for public debate on Dotan will deserve a healthy share of the role of the High Court of Justice the credit. in Israeli society.” One can only hope that this excellent book accomplishes Evelyn Gordon is a journalist, and a its goal. And if a genuine public Contributing Editor of Azure.

War and Remembrance

Eugene L. Rogan the record by obscuring the “crimes” and Avi Shlaim, eds. perpetrated by the Zionists against the The War for Palestine: Palestinian Arabs during fighting that Rewriting the History of 1948 lasted from late 1947 until early 1949. Cambridge, 234 pages. This war, known to Palestinians as “the Catastrophe,” resulted in both the establishment of the State of Israel Reviewed by Yehoshua Porath and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, and therefore both ver the past decade, Israel’s self- Israelis and Palestinians see it as the O styled “new historians” and beginning of their respective national their allies around the academic world narratives. have fiercely debated more traditional Most of the research being done by scholars over the nature of Israel’s War the new historians tends to focus pri- of Independence. According to the re- marily on Jewish conduct during the visionists, the classical historical re- war: How did the nascent State of search was little more than propaganda Israel manage to defeat the Arab ar- for the Zionist narrative, distorting mies? Did the Zionists deliberately set

summer 5762 / 2002 • 201 out to expel Palestinian Arabs from In building their case, the contribu- their homes? Were they really weaker tors to The War for Palestine draw and outnumbered, an Israeli David to upon the wealth of archival records the Arab Goliath? that have been released in Israel and These questions lie at the heart of other Western countries over the past The War for Palestine: Rewriting the fifteen years. One might hope that History of 1948, edited by two Oxford such a trove of new data would result University scholars, Eugene Rogan and in a more penetrating, nuanced un- Avi Shlaim. The Israeli-born Shlaim derstanding of the war. Most of the is one of the best-known representa- contributors, however, seem to have tives of the revisionist school; his first had a different aim in mind: To dis- book, Collusion Across the Jordan: King credit the standard historiography and Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and establish themselves as the sole keep- the Partition of Palestine (1987), helped ers of historical truth by selectively launch the new history a decade and a highlighting only those new revela- half ago, while his The Iron Wall: Is- tions that advance their own ideologi- rael and the Arab World (2000), cov- cal agenda. As a result, they succeed ering the entire period since Israel’s only in repeating the disservice done founding, has already gained canoni- by some of their predecessors, substi- cal status among the new historians. tuting one set of distortions for an- Rogan is a relative newcomer to Zion- other: If some of the traditional histo- ist history, although he has written rians militated the facts to serve the extensively on the modern Middle Zionist cause, this time around it is East. The new collection of essays— the Palestinian “truth” that is the ben- which includes contributions by eficiary. This book’s most significant prominent scholars such as Benny contribution, unfortunately, is that it Morris, Rashid Khalidi, and Edward exposes its authors’ shoddy research Said—attempts to debunk many of and tendentious analysis. the traditional Zionist “myths” sur- rounding the most fateful of Arab- he War for Palestine opens with Israeli wars by exposing the truth about T an introduction by the editors, Israel’s actions during the conflict—a which asks a sensible question: Why truth which, the authors claim, Isra- has a revisionist historiography arisen el’s political, academic, and educa- in Israel to challenge the prevailing tional establishments have done eve- account of the war, while no similar rything in their power to cover up. school has emerged on the Arab side?

202 • Azure Of course, this question also has a But where there is no free access to sensible answer, which may be found archival data, there can never emerge by looking no further than the list of a revisionist historiography, which institutions and archives that appears is always based on, or at least pur- in the book’s opening pages. The great ports to be based on, new archival majority of the materials researched discoveries. by all historians of the period, both The editors are aware of this imbal- traditional and revisionist, comes from ance, but they dismiss it as irrelevant. archives in the Western countries in- Israel, they argue, can afford to be volved in the affairs of Palestine dur- open, for like all victorious nations, it ing the years from 1947 to 1949, and has had the luxury of dominating the from Israeli archives. The Israeli State historical discourse with its version of Archives, the Archives of the Israel events: “The critical revision of a na- Defense Forces (IDF), and the Zion- tion’s history,” they write, “is a vic- ist Archives are open to all scholars, tor’s privilege.” This is not much of regardless of ideology or affiliation. an answer. Israel made its decisions Researchers can scour the materials about archival access against the back- undisturbed and use whatever they drop of a struggle for national inde- find to support their claims. Anyone pendence that in many respects is still intending to minimize the accomplish- unfinished. Israel opened its archives ments of the Israelis in the 1948 war, not because it was victorious, but be- or even to make outrageously false cause it sought to follow the tradition claims—for instance, that the Israeli of democratic, Western countries in victory was the result of an imperialist allowing free access to information, conspiracy or an overwhelming ad- even information that could be used vantage in manpower and arms—will to harm it in the long run. Shlaim and always be able to find plenty of mar- Rogan, however, give Israel no credit ginal facts in the Israeli archives on for its enlightened approach. which to build his case. Nor do they have any apprecia- By contrast, no Arab state has yet tion for the significant research that opened its archives to researchers was done before the debut of the re- studying these or any other important visionists in the late 1980s. Before historical events after World War I; then, they seem to believe, all writ- in only a few instances have specially ing on Zionist history was tenden- authorized historians been granted tious, every historian falling into line access to official archival material. to help create and propagate the myths

summer 5762 / 2002 • 203 underpinning Zionism. Remarkably, legitimacy” than by an honest reck- they see no substantive difference be- oning with the past. tween historical research on the War Anyone familiar with the way things of Independence that was conducted work in Israel cannot but read these in Israel, and that conducted on the words in utter astonishment. In Is- Arab side. Scholars on both sides, they rael, private citizens write the school say, have equally ignored the histori- textbooks, and in most cases they do cal truth because on both sides, the it for private publishing houses. Last academy has subordinated itself to the year, the Ministry of Education found dictates of the state: itself embroiled in a public scandal Governments in the region enjoy after releasing a history textbook which many direct and indirect powers over was skewed toward the Arab side of the writing of history. Elementary and the conflict. In the end, the ministry secondary school texts in history are withdrew the textbook, but only after the preserve of the state. Most univer- an intensive public campaign, a thor- sities in the Middle East are state-run and their faculty members are state ough investigation by a panel of schol- employees. National historical asso- ars representing a wide range of views, ciations and government printing and a change of government. Israeli presses serve as filters to weed out universities are not state institutions, unauthorized histories and to dissemi- nor are their faculty members civil nate state-sanctioned truths. As pro- servants. Anyone with even a passing motion within the historical estab- lishment is closely linked to adherence acquaintance with Israeli academia is to the official line, historians have had familiar with the wide range of politi- little incentive to engage in critical cal opinions existing in the country’s history writing. Instead, most Arab universities—and with the dispropor- and Israeli historians have written in tionate support that the views repre- an uncritically nationalist vein. In sented in The War for Palestine have Israel, nationalist historians reflected the collective memory of the Israeli enjoyed there for some time now. A public in depicting the Palestine War considerable number of revisionist as a desperate fight for survival and historians and “post-Zionist” sociolo- an almost miraculous victory. In the gists, whose criticism touches every Arab world, histories of the Palestine aspect of Israel’s history and society, War have been marked by apologet- currently hold posts at prominent Is- ics, self-justification, onus-shifting, and conspiracy theories. Both the raeli academic institutions. Many have Arab and the Israeli nationalist histo- reached positions of influence and high ries are guided more by a “quest for honor.

204 • Azure Rather than acknowledge the sharp volume of the monumental work The asymmetry in freedom of research and History of the Hagana was published expression between Israel and the Arab in 1973, the book’s editors, led by the world, Shlaim and Rogan try to per- prominent defense-establishment offi- suade the reader that Israeli historical cial Shaul Avigur, took the bold step writing is in its essence no different of including the Dalet Plan’s full text, from the narratives produced in Arab including the section that provided a states—a version of history that at- justification for the expulsion of Pal- tributes the 1948 defeat to a conspiracy estinian Arabs. However painful this of imperialist powers, or to a vast web step was for the Israeli historians, they of international Jewish power, com- nevertheless understood it to be a land- bining corrupt Jewish money, decep- mark in the history of research on the tion, and such devilish tactics as poi- War of Independence. But this epi- soning the wells in Arab villages. sode, which flies in the face of the In this spirit, the editors overlook claim that no scholarship of substance even the most striking examples of was done on the war before the new integrity by traditional Israeli histori- historians came along, does not suit ans. For example, it was the “official” the authors of The War for Palestine; Israeli historiography that was the first indeed, they do not give it so much as to report on the existence of the Dalet a mention. Plan, a controversial Israeli military What is true for the Dalet Plan is strategy during the War of Independ- doubly true for a whole string of “dis- ence which called for the expulsion of coveries” that the new historians have Arabs from demographically mixed claimed for themselves, but which were areas that endangered transportation in fact well documented in the tradi- lines or that could function as guer- tional historiography. Among these rilla bases. It was Yigael Alon and Is- claims: That the Arabs failed in part rael Galili’s analysis of this plan in the because they lacked a unified com- early 1950s, published in The Book of mand with the allegiance of all the the Palmah, that allowed Harvard different Arab forces; that sharp dis- historian Walid Khalidi to argue fa- putes and conflicting interests drove mously in 1959 that the Dalet Plan apart the various Arab states; and that was none other than the master plan the Arab regimes, wary of leaving of the Zionists for the wholesale ex- themselves vulnerable to conspiracies pulsion of Palestinians from their back home, hesitated to send large homes. Furthermore, when the last armies to the front. No one familiar

summer 5762 / 2002 • 205 with the traditional literature will find list, April 9, 1948 appears as the date anything new in these claims. Nor of “the massacre of Deir Yassin,” in will the new historians’ depiction of which Jewish fighters killed some 100 the internal weakness of Palestinian Arab civilians. Other massacres dur- society, which further increased the ing the period in question—such as Israelis’ prospects for victory, come as the murder of about fifty Jewish work- news: The Palestinians’ lack of resolve ers in the refineries in Haifa by their during the war and the breakdown of Arab co-workers on December 30, society resulting from a lack of effec- 1947, or the massacre of more than tive wartime leadership and organiza- eighty doctors, nurses, and Hebrew tion have received extensive attention University workers in a convoy to Je- in many studies over the years. Suffice rusalem’s Mount Scopus on April 13, it to name, in this regard, Nathaniel 1948—merit not a word, neither in Lorch’s History of the War of Inde- the chronology nor in the text of the pendence, the concluding volume of book. The impression created, of The History of the Hagana, the various course, is that Deir Yassin was the works of Meir Pa’il, and numerous only massacre worth mentioning dur- articles published over the years by ing the course of the war. the Defense Ministry’s journal of mili- tary affairs, Ma’arachot. he bias of The War for Palestine But beyond their unfair depiction T is not limited to the editors’ of the traditional historiography, the contribution. The entire collection revisionists introduce a degree of bias shows a clear tendency to emphasize which is at least as severe as the school certain points while ignoring others, they seek to replace, albeit in a differ- leading to severe distortions in the ent direction. This is evident already historical record. Of course, special in the first few pages of The War for attention is paid to the question of Palestine, where a chronology lists how many Palestinian Arabs were for- November 30, 1947 as “outbreak of cibly expelled by Israel. Benny Mor- civil war in Palestine.” Outbreak of ris’ essay “Revisiting the Palestinian civil war? This “civil war” was an as- Exodus of 1948,” for example, re- sault upon the Jewish civilian popula- examines the thesis of his seminal tion undertaken by the Palestinian work, The Birth of the Palestinian Refu- Arabs following the Jews’ acceptance, gee Problem 1947-1949, and claims and the Arab states’ rejection, of the that the Israelis intentionally expelled UN Partition Plan that had been ap- large numbers of Palestinians in 1948. proved the day before. In the same To his credit, Morris rejects the more

206 • Azure extreme charge that these expulsions the Nazis and the Holocaust. The day were part of a larger, premeditated after Hitler’s rise to power in January plan—though this argument appears 1933, Husseini went to the German elsewhere in the collection, in Laila consul in Jerusalem to convey his bless- Parsons’ “The Druze and the Birth of ings in the name of “three hundred Israel.” Although Morris is normally million Muslims,” along with his wishes a more careful historian than most that “the Nazi regime should spread to of those appearing in The War for the entire world.” He spent much of Palestine, and his factual findings are the war in the company of the senior credible, here he ignores the broader staff of the SS and Heinrich Himmler, context, without which it is impossi- the man in charge of implementing the ble to draw any conclusions about the Final Solution. By all reports, the Muf- creation of the refugee problem: Left ti’s aim was to lobby Himmler to stay out of Morris’ analysis is any discus- the course in carrying out the program; sion of the specific nature of the war when, in 1943 and 1944, Himmler that the Arabs had declared upon the was considering trading the lives of a Jews of Palestine and upon the State certain number of Jews for millions of of Israel. dollars and military hardware needed To understand the character of this for the Nazi war effort, the Mufti war, one need only examine the story pressed Himmler not to allow any Jews of the Palestinians’ most important spir- to escape their fate. He even tried to itual and political leader of the time, extract a promise from the Nazis that Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of they would apply their genocidal tech- Jerusalem. The Mufti puts in an ap- niques to the Jews of Palestine. pearance in The War for Palestine in The Jews of Palestine were fully Rashid Khalidi’s analysis of the Arab aware of Husseini’s activities during defeat, “The Palestinians and 1948: The the world war, and as the 1948 war Underlying Causes of Failure,” which approached, the knowledge that this is not overly kind to Husseini. Yet even man was now the principal leader of Khalidi makes no mention of the Muf- their assailants contributed greatly to ti’s activities before and during World the belief that the Arabs’ ultimate aims War II, just a few years earlier. Con- were not so different from those of the temporary readers looking for an hon- Nazis. The threat of genocide was real: est picture of events could certainly At the end of 1947, the Palestinian have benefited from the knowledge that Arab leadership declared that their war this revered Palestinian leader was also against the Jews of Palestine and an ardent and influential supporter of against the UN Partition Plan was

summer 5762 / 2002 • 207 absolute. Their express goals included of the Old City of Jerusalem surren- the total physical destruction of the dered to the Jordanian forces on May yishuv. And once war had begun, the 28, 1948, the Jordanians, in addition Palestinians did everything in their to evacuating the surrendering soldiers power to convince the Jews of the to Mafraq, also undertook to forcibly sincerity of their intentions. expel the elderly, pious residents of One gruesome example from the Jewish Quarter, who had not par- among many: In the middle of May ticipated in the fighting. It seems not 1948, the defenders of the four Jewish to have entered the mind of the Jorda- settlements of the Etzion Bloc, south nian commanders that they might of Jerusalem, surrendered to the Arab leave the non-belligerent Jewish popu- forces besieging them. The force that lation in its place. In light of these accepted their surrender included a facts, can one seriously examine the Palestinian unit, arrayed against Kibutz war of 1948 without noticing that Kfar Etzion, and a unit of the Arab while a significant Arab minority re- Legion of the Kingdom of Trans- mained in that part of Palestine that jordan, which had fought against the became the State of Israel, the Arab other three towns. The Jordanian unit parts of the country—whether under behaved like a disciplined army sub- Jordanian or Egyptian rule—became ject to the rules of war: They took Judenrein? The Jews had every reason those who surrendered as prisoners of to believe that the Arabs’ war was ab- war and brought them to POW camps solute, aiming at nothing less than the in Jordan, at Mafraq; the prisoners mass expulsion or slaughter of the Jew- remained in the camp until the sign- ish community in Palestine. ing of the armistice agreement. Those The contributors to The War for who surrendered to the Palestinian Palestine do not even mention these force, however, were murdered almost events, much less allow them to miti- to the last man. Out of some 131 gate their harsh conclusions. Only people, only two survived to recount Rashid Khalidi comes close, when he what they had witnessed. concedes that “some Jews in Palestine Even so, the behavior of the Jorda- perceived themselves as facing an up- nians is hardly more inspiring, since hill fight against the Arabs” because they were no more willing than the they understood, as did the Palestin- Palestinians to consider the possibility ians themselves, that the neighboring that Jews might continue living under Arab states would not stand aside Arab rule in any part of Palestine. For indefinitely, and that the Arabs’ fight- example, when the Jewish defenders ing capability would ultimately grow

208 • Azure dramatically. Yet Khalidi’s nod to Jew- Israel’s Jewish population numbered ish fears is a far cry from facing up to no more than 750,000, whereas the the reality of Arab aims and resources seven Arab nations at war with the in the broader context of the war. Jewish state had a combined popula- tion of fifty million. By the war’s end, ndeed, the most significant effort the yishuv had reached the limits of its I in The War for Palestine to ad- ability to draft soldiers, and its dress the question of the relative economy, with the exception of a small strengths of the Jewish and Arab forces number of vital industries such as elec- is steeped in anti-Zionist bias. One of tricity, water, and food production, the “myths” which the new historians had ground to a complete halt. The are most fond of smashing is that the Arab states, by comparison, could have Israelis faced an enemy that was far fought the war indefinitely without greater in numbers and strength. In seriously affecting their citizens’ way his essay, “Israel and the Arab Coali- of life. tion in 1948,” Avi Shlaim discusses To think that the question of “the the issue of relative manpower, offer- few against the many” can be answered ing a remarkable study in scholarly by merely counting heads of soldiers distortion. True, his figures are tech- on the battlefield, as Shlaim does, is nically accurate: The yishuv, pushing simplistic at best. Not just available its resources to the absolute limit, manpower, but the presence of a gov- managed to field 35,000 soldiers by ernmental mechanism capable of lead- mid-May 1948, against 25,000 Arab ing and organizing it, the capacity for fighters; by the war’s end it had in- industrial production, and the ability creased its forces to more than 95,000. to enlist help from outside all play Nevertheless, Shlaim’s assertion that important roles in determining the “at each stage of the war, the IDF strength and durability of warring outnumbered all the Arab forces ar- nations, and any serious comparison rayed against it” is absurd. Shlaim must take all these into account. himself admits that the Arab states Shlaim undoubtedly sees himself in sent only a small portion of their ar- the vanguard of the iconoclasts, but in mies to fight in Palestine, and that this case—as in his earlier theory that they could have sent additional divi- a “collusion” between Israel and Jor- sions if they had wished. Furthermore, dan’s King Abdullah was the real cause he ignores the huge difference in man- of the Palestinians’ defeat—all he has power reserves available to each side: succeeded in damaging is his own cred- In early 1949, at the end of the war, ibility as a historian.

summer 5762 / 2002 • 209 he climax of The War for Pales- departure from Palestine in 1948. It T tine, and the most eloquent ex- was always a claim of the traditional pression of its guiding spirit, is its Israeli historiography that during the closing essay, “The Consequences of winter of 1948, the urban Palestinian 1948,” by Edward Said, the respected elite grew weary of the difficulties professor of comparative literature at of war, and many chose to abandon Columbia University. His essay is not their homes until the crisis passed, meant as an academic contribution, traveling to distant cities—to stay with but is rather a personal account incor- relatives, in rented houses, or even in porating passages from the author’s hotels—far from the scene of battle. memoirs. Said tells, for example, of The memoirs of Palestinian educator the winter of 1948, when conditions Khalil al-Sakakini contain one of the forced his family to leave their home best-known accounts of this volun- in Jerusalem’s Talbieh neighborhood tary exodus. He describes his family’s and relocate to their second home, in departure from their home in the Cairo. With all due respect to the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, travails of a family forced to flee one first to eastern Jerusalem and then to home for another in time of war, this Egypt. Israeli and British sources of story loses much of its impact when the period note that the flight of the seen against the backdrop of the fate upper classes had a disastrous impact of refugees throughout Europe only a on the morale of Palestinian society, few years earlier. The Polish Jews who and served as a model for the lower fled the German occupation to Sibe- classes to emulate. Though Palestin- ria or to Soviet Central Asia, or the ian historiography has preferred to ig- millions of Germans who fled from nore this episode in their history, Said’s East Prussia to Germany in the heart account matches the testimonies of of the winter of 1945, fled on foot or Sakakini and many others like him, in wagons, with no clear refuge await- and serves therefore to confirm fur- ing them at the other end. In the best ther the traditional account. case, they made their journey in un- After discussing his own past, Said heated railway cars, constantly harried sets out his vision for the future. Per- by Soviet, British, or American bomb- haps the most articulate spokesman ers. They had no second home in for the Arab-Palestinian cause in the Cairo. English language, Said ostensibly seeks That being said, Said’s story does to remodel Israel and Palestine along make a useful, if unintended, con- American lines. He envisions a single tribution to the history of the Arab state, formed among citizens who share

210 • Azure no common ethnic origins or political part of the Egyptian people, yet many or cultural traditions. According to of them suffer from persecution at Said, only a new political commu- the hands of radical Muslims, and nity—egalitarian, secular, and toler- many have fled Egypt. A similar fate ant—in which “citizenship should be has befallen Palestinian Christians, based on the just solidarities of coex- who have lived in perpetual fear of the istence and the gradual dissolving of Palestinian security forces and the ethnic lines,” can end the Israeli-Arab armed groups in the areas under their conflict. But Said never ventures a control. Christians have emigrated in guess at what kind of identity his ideal large numbers, and the relative pro- community would have, or what sort portion of Christians within the Pal- of relations it would have with neigh- estinian Authority has steadily declined boring Arab states; nor does he ad- since its establishment in 1994. At dress the feasibility of creating such a least ten thousand Christian Arabs community. Apparently, he assumes have fled, including some three thou- that secular liberal democracy—which sand since the outbreak of hostilities has not been particularly successful in in September 2000. In the final analy- the Arab world—would flourish in sis, Said’s humanistic and superficially Palestine, of all places. With a wave of liberal vision is just another enlight- Said’s hand, official secularism would ened attempt to justify abolishing the overcome a century of deep antago- State of Israel, and replace it with a nism between the two communities, multi-national, democratic, secular and the Palestinians would adopt a state—all without recourse to violence, form of government that is more tol- of course. erant than any other in the Arab world. Among other problems with his he War for Palestine is not com- approach, Said seems unaware of the T pletely without scholarly merit; bitter experience of non-Muslim com- it does provide some valuable infor- munities in Arab countries—like the mation about the events of 1948, es- fate of Arab Christians, the Muslims’ pecially for those unfamiliar with the supposed partners in Arab national- extensive research that has already been ism. What return should Israelis ex- published in the field. Readers not pect for abandoning their national versed in the history of the Middle sovereignty, when Coptic Christian East are likely to learn of many things churches in Egypt are burned, and here for the first time—such as the Coptic priests and laymen physically disunity among the Arab forces; the assaulted? The Copts are an integral conflicting motives of the Jordanians,

summer 5762 / 2002 • 211 the Syrians, and the Egyptians; and and systematic expulsion of the Pales- how the infighting and organizational tinian Arabs. Neither of these claims ineffectiveness of Palestinian society is remotely substantiated by the ex- facilitated the Israeli victory. They will tensive research that has been carried learn about the yishuv’s massive re- out in the last few decades. Rather, cruitment efforts, through which the both are the product of an ongoing Jews managed to field a dispropor- effort among a small yet vocal group tionately large army relative to its of academics who are willing to go a population. And yes, they will dis- great distance—including at times the cover that the Israeli victory did not abandonment of their own scholarly come without the expulsion of more integrity—to prove, once and for all, than a few Palestinians. that Israel has no place among the None of this, however, is new. community of enlightened, liberal There are only two genuinely innova- nations. tive claims in this collection: The equivalence it draws between the tra- Yehoshua Porath is Professor Emeritus of ditional Israeli historiography and Middle East History at the Hebrew Uni- its Arab counterpart, and its accusa- versity in Jerusalem, and a Contributing tion that Israel carried out a deliberate Editor of Azure.

212 • Azure