First blood

The initial Arab-Israeli struggles and their troublesome legacy

Israeli soldiers during the 1948-49 conflict. The Israelis enjoyed a decisive edge in military power and organization. (Associated Press)

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
By Benny Morris
Yale University, 524 pp., illustrated, $32.50
When it comes to interpreting the history they shared in 1947-49, Arabs and Israelis subscribe to two radically different narratives. Arabs, and especially Palestinians, remember that period as "The Catastrophe." Israelis have enshrined the same period as their war of independence. One of the many achievements of this admirable book is to help readers understand why each narrative commands such authority and why they remain so stubbornly irreconcilable.

The issue is of more than academic interest, as Benny Morris, one of Israel's most prominent revisionist historians, fully understands. In the Middle East, memory shapes politics and pervades the most fundamental questions: What is justice and to whom is it owed? One purpose of "1948" is to expose the untruths that the competing Arab and Israeli narratives perpetuate while also insisting that the contradictory claims advanced by both sides deserve recognition.

Although political and strategic considerations hover in the immediate background, "1948" is first and foremost an operational history, thick with details of campaigns and battles. It recounts not one but two distinct yet intimately related conflicts. The first, occurring between November 1947 and May 1948, was a civil war between Jews and Arabs living within the confines of British-controlled Palestine. The second, beginning hard on the heels of the first and extending into early 1949, was an armed struggle pitting the newly created state of Israel against several Arab nations that vowed to destroy it.

Morris offers an evenhanded if somewhat unbalanced rendering of these events. He goes out of his way to be fair to both sides, neither demonizing the Arabs nor letting Israelis off the hook, especially when confronting evidence of looting, rape, murder, and other atrocities. Yet whereas Morris draws on an array of Israeli archival material, he enjoyed limited access to Arab sources. As a consequence, he tells his story from a largely Israeli perspective. The intentions or calculations of Arab leaders, not to mention the experiences of Arab fighters, tend to get short shrift.

In each of the two conflicts that Morris describes, Israel emerged triumphant, first crushing the Palestinian resistance while shattering Palestinian society and then decisively defeating the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan. Morris offers a simple explanation for this outcome: From the outset the Zionists knew what they wanted and demonstrated a remarkable single-mindedness in pursuing their goals; in contrast, the Arabs struggled to define their purpose and struggled even more to organize themselves.

What the Zionists wanted above all was land. If, for Israelis, the twin conflicts of 1947-49 were wars of survival, they were also wars of conquest. Even before serious fighting had begun, Moshe Shertok, soon to become Israel's first foreign minister, made plain the Zionists' intentions: "We will get hold of as much of Palestine as we would think we can hold." The creation of a viable Jewish state required not only expansion but also expulsion - seizing territory to acquire strategic depth and facilitate national development while removing as many Palestinians as possible to make room for Jewish immigrants and prevent the emergence of a potential fifth column.

Arab leaders also coveted territory. Yet they never came close to forging a workable plan to achieve their aims. Even as they declared their common enmity for the Jews, they warily eyed one another as rivals. Absent trust, unity of effort remained elusive.

Yet the Arabs had a further problem: They never possessed anything like adequate military means. From Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad came blustery promises to drive the Jews into the sea. In private, however, Arab politicians and generals lamented the weakness of their armies.

In contrast, the leadership of the Jewish Agency (as of May 14, 1948, the government of Israel) displayed a clear sense of purpose, augmented by flexibility and considerable ruthlessness. The Zionist security apparatus, the Haganah and the Palmah (as of June 1, 1948, the Israel Defense Forces), initially complemented by Jewish terrorist organizations such as Irgun and the Stern Gang, almost immediately gained the initiative. The Israelis acted; the Arabs reacted, usually ineffectually. It's not that Arab soldiers were cowardly or unwilling to fight. They simply lacked functioning equipment, adequate training, and above all competent leaders.

When it came to generating effective military power, the Zionists enjoyed a decisive edge. God sided with the bigger battalions. Apart perhaps from the earliest phases of the civil war, the Israelis fought from a position of relative strength, mobilizing a far greater proportion of their population. They also raised lots of cash (much of it from American Jews), which they used to acquire an impressive arsenal.

In the end, however, this aptitude for improvising fighting power fostered unrealistic expectations. The IDF's prowess convinced Israeli leaders that they could simply coerce their neighbors into accepting the Jewish state. As David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, put it: "The war must end with such a bombing of Damascus, Beirut, and Cairo, that they will no longer have a desire to fight us, and will make peace with us" -- succinctly summarizing a strategic principle to which Israel would return time and again.

In point of fact, coercion did not hold the key to peace. Instead, humiliated by defeat, the Arabs refused to negotiate. For their part, intoxicated by victory, Israelis felt little need to do so. Each side embraced its own mythic version of what had occurred in this first Arab-Israeli war - thereby laying the foundation for more wars to come.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book, "The Limits of Power," will be published later this year.