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The War for Palestine
Rewriting the History of 1948
The 1948 War led to the creation of the state of Israel, the fragmentation
of Palestine, and to a conflict which has raged across the intervening
sixty years. The historical debate also continues, and these debates are
encapsulated in the essays contained in a second edition of The War for
Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, updated to include chapters on
Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. In a preface to the new edition, the editors
survey the state of scholarship in this contested field. The fragmentation
of the Israeli “new historians” and the continued unwillingness of Arab
societies to engage critically with their own past constrain the field, while
new research opportunities are opened through private papers and oral
history. The impact of these debates goes well beyond academia. There
is an important link between the state of Arab–Israeli relations and
popular attitudes toward the past. A more complex and fair-minded
understanding of that past is essential for preserving at least the prospect
of reconciliation between Arabs and Israel in the future. The rewriting of
the history of 1948 thus remains a practical as well as an academic
imperative.
. is University Lecturer in the Modern History of the
Middle East and a Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.
He is the author of Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire
(1999) and editor of Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East
(2002). He is editor of The Contemporary Middle East series published
by Cambridge.
is Professor of International Relations and a Fellow of St.
Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He was a British Academy
Research Professor in 2003–6 and he was elected Fellow of the British
Academy in 2006. His previous publications include War and Peace in the
Middle East: A Concise History(1995) and The Iron Wall: Israel and the
Arab World (2000). His biography of King Hussein of Jordan will be
published in 2007.
Cambridge Middle East Studies 15
Editorial Board
Charles Tripp (general editor)
Julia Clancy-Smith, F. Gregory Gause, Yezid Sayigh,
AviShlaim, JudithTucker
Cambridge Middle East Studieshas been established to publish
books on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East and
North Africa. The aim of the series is to provide new and original
interpretations of aspects of Middle Eastern societies and their
histories. To achieve disciplinary diversity, books will be solicited from
authors writing in a wide range of fields including history, sociology,
anthropology, political science and political economy. The emphasis
will be on producing books offering an original approach along
theoretical and empirical lines. The series is intended for students and
academics, but the more accessible and wide-ranging studies will also
appeal to the interested general reader.
A list of books in the series can be found after the index
The War for Palestine
Rewriting the History of 1948
SECOND EDITION
Edited by
Eugene L. Rogan
University of Oxford
and
Avi Shlaim
University of Oxford
CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521875981
© Cambridge University Press 2001, 2007
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-36987-2 eBook (ebrary)
ISBN-10 0-511-36987-5 eBook (ebrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-87598-1 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-87598-6 hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Chronology ix
List of abbreviations xi
Maps xiii
Preface to the second edition xvii
Introduction 1
1 The Palestinians and 1948: the underlying causes of
failure 12
2 Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948 37
3 The Druze and the birth of Israel 60
4 Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948 79
5 Jordan and 1948: the persistence of an official history 104
.
6 Iraq and the 1948 War: mirror of Iraq’s disorder 125
7 Egypt and the 1948 War: internal conflict and regional
ambition 150
.
8 Syria and the Palestine War: fighting King (cid:2)Abdullah’s
“Greater Syria Plan” 176
v
vi Contents
9 Collusion across the Litani? Lebanon and the 1948 War 204
10 Saudi Arabia and the 1948 Palestine War: beyond
official history 228
-
11 Afterword: the consequences of 1948 248
.
Bibliography 262
Index 272
Contributors
. holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in international
affairs and Middle East Studies at Sarah Lawrence College.
is Reader in History at Brunel University.
is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and
Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
is Co-Director of the Centre for Peace Studies and
Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of
Oklahoma.
is Professor of Middle East History at the Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev.
is an Assistant Professor at McGill University. She
holds a joint position in the Department of History and the Institute for
Islamic Studies.
- is Professor of Social Anthropology in the
Department of Sociology and Religious Studies, King’s College London.
is a Fellow of St. Antony’s College and lectures in the
modern history of the Middle East at the University of Oxford.
The late . was University Professor at Columbia
University.
is a Fellow of St. Antony’s College and Professor of
International Relations at the University of Oxford.
is Professor in Politics with reference to the Near and
Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London.
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