1948 and After Israel and the Palestinians [Paperback]

These essays by a leading Israeli historian focus on Israeli decisions and the reasons behind the mass Arab exile from Palestine in 1948. Benny Morris addresses the transfer of Majdal's Arabs to Gaza in 1950, the initial absorption of the Palestinian refugees in Arab host countries in 1948-9, and why some Arabs remained in their villages. He then explores attitudes toward the Palestinian Arabs from the 1948 war to the differing perspectives of Israel's two main parties. By examining past and present Israeli historiography, Morris identifies and analyzes the major points of controversy between the old official Israeli histories and the new histories of the 1980s and beyond.

For scholars interested in the Palestine of this period, this book should be considered must reading. --American Historical Review

This is an impressive....sequel to Morris' earlier work, as its title indicates, but it is also much more. Every Israeli and every self-proclaimed Zionist should dare to read this book, and so should anyone concerned with how one human community can displace another or be displaced by it while the rest of the world looks on, or away. --Journal of Refugee Studies

An excellent and highly recommendable work. --Middle East Studies Bulletin

Morris not only writes history but makes it. --Orbis

Benny Morris continues to enrich the field of knowledge encompassing Israel's violent origins....Readers...will welcome this additional opportunity to study the authoritative and richly detailed analysis and description from the pen of the pre-eminent researcher in the field. --PoliticalStudies