The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited: 18 (Cambridge Middle East Studies, Series Number 18)

Morris became a leading "new historian" when he first published this book (c.1988?) but other Israelis were tolerant of what he'd done. Other historians followed and got themselves into really hot water, one of them being forced to leave the country. Still, Morris bravely updated this book in 2004 and I'd recommend everyone buy a copy while they're available. Under a barrage of criticism (and probably threats), Morris hastily re-invented himself as a hard-core, right-wing Zionist, fully supportive of transfer, There are some flaws, he never mentions the "Village Files" or the planning of the ethnic cleansing. Of the 400 towns and villages he names, he can't account for about 40 of them, but almost every one of the rest were evacuated by violence or the threat of violence. Morris claims that 5 villages and part of Haifa were emptied by the "orders of Arab leaders" (the Zionists used to make the ridiculous claim for the whole country). Nevertheless, Morris's claim for at least one of them (Sirin) is probably untrue - the villages may have left briefly in fear of an Arab "army" (band of robbers) but it was Israelis who destroyed this once beautiful village, which they've never re-settled.

lots of real facts and figures a bit too much for me quite a lot of information but very detailed especially showing the destruction of Palestinins before israel officially got the keys to its new land , but great insight into what happened to cause all the refugees

Benny Morris's aim was to find out exactly what caused the departure of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from areas of British Mandate Palestine and subsequently the State of Israel in the years 1947-9. By dint of painstaking, detailed research he has made as good an effort as anyone is likely to achieve. The years in question saw the British mandate draw to a close as the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Jews intensified into low-scale civil war. In May 1948 the British departed, the State of Israel was declared and it was immediately invaded its Arab neighbours. Israel won its War of Independence at great cost, but many Palestinian Arabs abandoned or were forced to abandon their homes and they refer to this period as `al-Nakba' or `catastrophe'. The author's sources were primarily the archives of the pre-State Yishuv, the Israeli, British, American governments and the UN. The expanded 2004 edition makes use of newly released information from Israeli cabinet protocols and Haganah / IDF archives. Documentation held by Arab states was not used as it's kept under lock and key due to the humiliating nature of their military defeat. Morris decided against using interview evidence from Jewish and Arab witnesses as decades had elapsed since the events and memories are often selected or distorted to fit a political narrative. The plentiful documentary evidence was deemed more reliable for the purpose of `establishing facts' and indeed this book is packed with detail. The book is not a comprehensive history of Israel's War of Independence and you'll have to refer elsewhere if you're interested in the military operations. Also, the important historical context leading up to the events of 1947-49 is not covered. The focus is very much on the national and local decisions, operations and circumstances that led to the exodus of Arab town dwellers and villagers. Ideally readers should be familiar with the geography of Palestine / Israel, because there are only three maps at the beginning of the book and it's difficult constantly to cross-refer to them from the text. Finding the location of an abandoned village involves searching through a long index in an untidy geographical order. This is the only practical weakness of the book. Small local maps should have been interspersed in the main body of text. As someone from the pro-Israel side of the fence, this book often made uncomfortable reading, but it's better to know the truth about what happened than be ignorant. Collective self-delusion in politics means people fail to understand the other side. I for one now better understand Palestinian historical grievances. Interestingly, much Western anti-Israel sentiment relates to the military takeover of the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967. But it's abundantly clear that in Palestinian minds, the events of 1947-9 are what really hurt, hence their long-term and probably unrealistic insistence on the `right of return'. For me, the biggest source of dismay was to read about the excesses of Jewish and Israeli forces during the war. Several small-scale atrocities and many other acts of brutality did occur in the course of the conflict. Sometimes the intention was to intimidate local Arabs into flight and sometimes revenge was the motive. There were also atrocities in the other direction, but generally the Israelis had the upper hand militarily and were in a position to expel Arab inhabitants from villages seen as a threat to Israeli forces and supply lines. Israel is a small country with long borders and few main roads so many villages fell into this category. That said, villages in areas away from the front lines, such as the western and central Galilee, were mostly left untouched. Often it depended whether a village was deemed hostile (usually, but not always Muslim) or friendly (often Christian, Druze or Circassian). For example, Nazareth back then was a Christian Arab town and was relatively unaffected by hostilities. Overall, Morris concludes that the reasons for Arab flight were mixed. There were many instances of Arabs leaving their homes following orders from the Arab Higher Committee or local Arab commanders. In towns such as Haifa, wealthy Arab families left early in the conflict, followed by community leaders and this weakened and demoralised the remaining population. Economic hardship and food shortages were a contributing factor. Many fled following word of real or alleged massacres by Jewish / Israeli forces. And many fled simply to escape fighting as Israeli forces clashed with the invading Arab armies and bands of local and foreign irregulars. A key question that Morris addresses is whether there was a `master plan' to expel Arabs from the territory of the future Jewish State. He concludes from the evidence that there definitely wasn't, but amongst most Israelis, including leaders such as Ben-Gurion, there was a tacit understanding that it was desirable not to have too large and threatening an Arab minority within the future state. Influential individuals such as Yosef Weitz, director of the JNF's Lands Department, argued for population transfer, but the final word usually rested with Ben-Gurion, who took a pragmatic line. He was mindful of world opinion and Israel's need for good relationships with the United States and other powers. Sometimes he gave verbal agreement to clearance operations like those at the strategic towns of Lydda and Ramle, but at other times he voiced restraint. When it came to decisions at the field command level, inconsistency ruled. There was no single, clear policy. Readers should bear in mind that the Palestinian Arab leadership and Arab League rejected the UN Partition Plan of November 1947, so they bear primary responsibility for the war and subsequent dislocation. For Israel this was a war of survival in which one out of every hundred Jews was killed. It took place just three years after the end of the Holocaust and many of its participants had been traumatised by their harsh experiences in Europe. Some, particularly in the Irgun and IZL saw this war as an extension of the struggle against the Nazis. The fact that the leader of the Palestinians, the Mufti of Jerusalem, had been an active supporter of Hitler and the Nazis didn't help their cause. If you're interested in this topic and are prepared for a long slog through detailed accounts of events, then this book is as thorough and authoritative as you can get.

This is a landmark study which killed off the old Zionist propaganda that the Palestinian refugee problem resulted from them following orders from their leaders to flee. No serious student of the Israel-Palestine conflict should ignore this work. What Morris proved is that for a variety of reasons but mainly because they were under military assault or otherwise in fear of their lives, over half the Palestinian Arab population fled (726,000 according to the UN). They had good reason to flee: where they attempted to stay they were often slaughtered and rape, torture and looting were widespread (Morris recounts the grisly case of an Arab who was required to clean the house in which Zionist soldiers had based themselves; when she had finished they shot her and her baby). However Morris claims that “The Palestinian refugee problem was born of war, not by design”. In other words there was no Jewish masterplan to expel the majority Arab population. What’s odd about this claim is that his book appears to prove the opposite. There’s little doubt the Jews wished to get rid of the Arabs. Ten years before the fighting started David Ben Gurion said "I support compulsory transfer. I don't see in it anything immoral." When he was told how many had remained in Nazareth he asked "Why did you not expel them?” and promised that Galilee would be “clean, empty of Arabs”. As Morris says “It was understood by all concerned that … the less Arabs remaining in the Jewish State, the better”. So they wished for it and they had a plan to do it (called Plan Dalet) and they did it. Again Morris tells us that no town was abandoned by its residents until it was attacked and that "it was standard Haganah and IDF policy to round up and expel the remaining villagers (usually old people, widows, cripples) from sites already evacuated by most of their inhabitants”. The brigade which attacked Haifa was ordered to “kill all males”. The town was shelled by mortars, even though there were no fighters in the town and the Jews knew this to be the case. David Ben Gurion on seeing the civilian population fleeing under shell fire said “What a beautiful sight”. Morris records all of this and yet concludes it was all a bit of a muddle in the heat of battle and no plan to expel Arabs ever existed. But those who left their homes were not permitted to return – surely expulsion by another name. A senior Mapam official wrote that "a deliberate eviction [of the Arabs] is taking place. . . out of certain political goals and not only out of military necessity”. A valuable book but one in which the author appears to (deliberately?) misinterpret his own evidence.

the reviews of 'Danny the Arabian' hits the mark, but i will add just a few additional remarks. While, Benny Morris maintains the was no systematic plan to expel all the Palestinians, he does acknowledge some villages were razed and Palestinians expelled, while other villages left intact and others fled in fear after hearing about Deir Yassin. However, Morris tries to attribute some of these atrocities to 'rogue elements' and responses to 'Arab attacks' that he claims were not dictated policy from the top. A major criticism of Benny Morris is his sole reliance upon Israeli archive sources, in the last few years he has publicly justified this by claiming oral testimonies are unreliable. As such, he tends to take Israeli archives at face value, and in this sense 'Jewish studies' remains light years behind other areas of serious historical enquiry. Would we accept only German archives to document the Holocaust and deny the importance of oral testimonies from survivors? i hope not, granted there are little or no official 'Arab' - that is Palestinian documents available, but oral testimonies from Palestinians have been increasingly documented and should be used to cross reference Israeli state archives, to gain a fuller picture of events. see for example, Susan Slymovic 'the object of memory' and Ahmad H. Sa'di & Lila Abu-Lughod (eds) 'Nakba: Palestine, 1948 and the claims of memory'

Review of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, by Benny Morris Israeli historian Benny Morris largely succeeds in his intention to present a "complex and nuanced" history of the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. His extensive research, which led to the first version of this work published in 1988, was derived from archived records in Israel, England, the United States and the United Nations. Given the lapse of time since 1948 he found oral recollections inadequate and of dubious reliability. There is a torrent of detail in the book and there are hundreds of endnotes following each chapter. Many readers will be shocked by the numerous detailed descriptions of the violence exercised on Palestinian non-combatants by Zionist forces. Even the most pro-Zionist readers will no longer be able to deny that a massive ethnic cleansing occurred in 1948. In fact, there are repeated references to "cleansing" in orders given to Haganah units, sometimes explicitly giving instructions to kill adult males, expel the women and children and destroy their homes to prevent return. Often units were not faced with the onerous task of killing and expelling because the Arabs had fled in anticipation of violence. The infamous massacre at Deir Yassin was not unique; Morris states that there were some 20 massacres, two of which were revealed for the first time in the 1988 version of this book. About 700,000 persons (Morris's estimate) were displaced beyond the boundary of the part of Palestine allotted to the new state of Israel and beyond the additional area taken by Zionist arms. Figure 2 in the book is a map with some 392 numbered dots representing the Palestinian villages evacuated and destroyed. The legend to the map gives the Arab names of these former villages with estimates of the motivation for their abandonment. Morris recognizes that the motivation for Arab flight varied among different segments of the Palestinian population. In December 1947 and early 1948 the exodus began when those of the upper classes who had resources fled to safety in Arab cities outside Palestine. The loss of actual and potential leaders undermined Palestinian morale, already suffering deep divisions from the 1936-39 revolt against British rule. In spring 1948, Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang operations began to terrorize the Arab population, and the massive outflow of all classes began. (Menachem Begin boasts in his book, Revolt, that without the instructive example of the Deir Yassin massacre by his Irgun boys there would be no Israel.) Murder, raping and looting by Jewish combatants shocked both Arabs and many Jews who witnessed it. Morris could find no evidence for the often-repeated claim that Arab leaders broadcast appeals to Palestinians to leave their homes to expedite the killing of Jews by Arab forces. The appeals from the largely feckless Arab leaders were contradictory and had little effect. Morris that argues that forced expulsion and destruction of homes and villages was not pre-planned by Zionist leaders, saying that Plan D of the Haganah, which prescribed exactly such measures, was not implemented until April 1948 in anticipation of attack by surrounding Arab states after the British leaving on May 15. He believes that it was opportunism driven by events, the seizing of a one-time chance to cleanse the new state of Arabs. Arabs, and some other Israeli historians, believe it was pre-planned. I'm not sure that there is an ethical difference whether ethnic cleansing was pre-planned or improvised. Certainly the idea of transfer of Arabs from Palestine was rife in Zionist circles before partition and Morris includes a chapter documenting this thinking. On the Zionist left voices were raised against the policy and there are diary entries of horrified Jewish observers, one of whom concluded, " I hide my face in shame." However, David Ben-Gurion kept national unity intact by being careful not to expose in writing any draconian intentions and by telling different things to different people. In the case of the violent wholesale expulsions from Lydda and Ramle, a hand gesture to his staff conveyed his real intention. The Israelis were so taken with the success of Arab removal that they adopted a resolute policy of no return of the refugees. United Nations Moderator Count Folke Bernadotte was dismayed that Jews with their history of persecution would themselves act so unjustly. Morris reports a conversation in which Bernadotte was trying to persuade Moshe Sharett, then Israel's Foreign Minister, to make at least a gesture of conciliation by allowing a partial return. Sharett replied that such idealism had no place in a world dominated by men of action (such as himself, presumably), and that Israel would be regarded as foolish by such men if it discarded the favorable situation created by war. A day after the release of Bernadotte's report on refugees, men of action from the Stern Gang murdered him. This is not a history of the 1948 war, but Morris in summary blames the victims for their disastrous fate because, "They started the war", certainly a contentious conclusion considering that the refugees were mostly non-combatants, and furthermore had no voice in the partitioning of their country. It appears to this reader that Morris makes a strong case that the refugees were victims of Zionist drives for exclusivity and expansion of territory. As an historian Morris deserves great credit for his diligence in bringing light to this dark event whose legacy still troubles the region. An IDF intelligence officer observing the pathetic stream of refugees fleeing Lydda wrote, Occasionally you encountered a piercing look from one of the youngsters in the column, and the look said, "We have not surrendered. We shall return to fight you."

This seminal book, an updated version of the original published in 1988, might have been better edited. It contains several repetitions, plus, weighs down the casual reader with far too many examples and details. Much better would have been to give the essential story, and to have added an appendix containing all additional examples and details that the more avid history buffs would indeed want included. That said, the importance of this book simply cannot be overstated. It documents, with crystal-clear and unassailable clarity, what caused 700,000 Palestinians to be displaced in 1947-48. And no honest observer, after reading this volume, could deny the bone-fide case Palestinians have against Israel - even though, as the book also constantly points out, the fledgling Jewish state was emotionally and materially unable to carry out a more just policy. This has much bearing on the political situation today. For one, it means it is totally unrealistic to look for a peace solution where Palestine formally recognizes Israel - a different model (perhaps along the lines of the Bermigo Plan) will need to be found. And second, the historical record, which this book so ably sets out, shames the kneejerk, self-righteous rightwing and center-right Jewish organizations who present the conflict as a tug of war between the eminently reasonable (the Israelis) and totally unreasonable (the Palestinians). The truth is far, far more complex. Finally, let readers differentiate between this completely apolitical and superbly researched historical volume, and Professor Benny Morris's personal political views - some of which are quite whacky. He is certainly not the first professor or top-rank researcher to present his findings - and then advise on a policy that his own findings scoff at.

The strength of this book lies in its meticulous detail and the thorough research of its author. Even after two decades this work still stands as one of the most important books to cover the beginnings of the refugee problem. It is authoritative and very detailed. Whether you agree with Mr. Morris or not, his book is a must read for any serious student of Israel, the conflict or the Middle East in general. I also feel that it is a testament to the evenhandedness of the author that the work has been derided by both camps. Only an honest attempt at analysis could make both sides so unhappy. The book starts out with a brief history of the region before partition, and then moves along chronologically from the early ideas of population transfer through the war and ends with the last cease fire and the following negotiations. The main chapters are based chronologically, but within the chapters they are broken up geographically. This allows the author to focus in on each location the experienced a demographic change. With great detail the author explains each transfer, and gives the reader a detailed analysis of why these people left. This is one of the big problems in trying to understand the birth of the refugee problem. There was a great variety of reasons why these people left their villages and cities. Some were told to leave by the authorities, some were explicitly forced out by the IDF, others left out of fear, and others left due to stories of atrocities and rumors of atrocities. This is the crux of the problem that was tackled by the author in this work, why each group of refugees left. The author structured his book perfectly to give readers the most detailed analysis of why each group left each specific area. He gives the Israeli response to each exodus, and gives an account of Israeli actions that may have precipitated that flight out of design and sometimes as an unintended consequence. Whether pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian or just someone trying to make sense out of this complicated area, Mr Morris' work is essential reading. It is a definitive work on the refugee problem. If you are interested in this topic you can't skip on this work. With that said I did have some major problems with the book. The way it was structured had some major benefits, but also some major drawbacks as well. The problem with structuring the work around each geographic location rather than using chronology is that it creates only isolated pictures of each location. Instead of understanding each exodus on the macro level the reader sees only the micro. This allows the author to go into great detail, but it also minimizes what was happening all over the country, and how those happenings affected the other areas. The author had to make a decision of how to structure this book, and he was going to encounter problems however he went about it so I don't take off for that, but I feel it incumbent to air my problems. Next I have never in my life encountered a work with so many brackets. They were everywhere. It seemed that almost every quote of any appreciable length would invariably contain at least one change made by the author. I can certainly see how Mr. Morris has opened himself up to charges of misquoting and taking things out of context. On page 558 Morris quotes Ethridge's view that Israel was "unwilling to negotiate", but Mr. Morris inserts that they were "unwilling to [meaningfully] negotiate". This simple addition by Morris changes the context of the quote quite a bit. I feel that the author used his discretion in good faith, and I don't feel that he knowingly attempted to mislead anywhere in his book, but the practice lends itself to criticism. The book would have been much better if this practice had not been so pervasive. Lastly the author's strength lies in his ability to research, but not so much in his writing style. The book is very dry which makes the length demonstrably harder to cope with. With that said, the book is a labor of love. If you are a history person then you have coped with dry reads before. If you are generally interested in the area then you have come across plenty of agenda driven works so that this one will be a breath of fresh air. While this book may be criticized by the extreme pro-Israel crowd that refuse to accept responsibility for even one refugee, and it may be criticized by the extreme pro-Palestinian crowd who want to see the Israelis as merciless, monsters killing all they could lay their hands, if you are a neutral observer just trying to understand this topic then this is the book for you. It isn't an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book.

A must read to know the facts.

perfect packing