|
|
|
Jewish World Review May 8, 2008 / 3 Iyar 5768 Still Fighting the Same War By Jonathan Tobin
'Revisionist' historian's '1948' places current and past conflicts in perspective
Mudeiris summed up the current standoff between Israel and the Hamas
movement which currently runs Gaza by saying, "It does not matter what
the Jews do. We will not let them have peace."
He went on to describe the futility with which generations of Israelis
have sought to deal with the Palestinians succinctly: "They can be nice
to us or they can kill us, it doesn't matter. If we have a cease-fire
with the Jews, it is only so that we can prepare ourselves for the
final battle."
What can the Israelis do when faced with such intransigence?
ARE THEY FINISHED?
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert comes across in Goldberg's story as a
petulant, defensive figure who is clearly uncomfortable being in the
cross-hairs of vocal critics like novelist David Grossman, who lost a
son during the prime minister's disastrous Lebanon war. It is also hard
to argue with Goldberg's contention that "he is not Israel's deepest
thinker."
But you have to sympathize with Olmert during the course of his
interview when he expresses impatience with Goldberg's focus on the
"flaws in the execution of the Zionist program." Speaking of Israel's
many achievements, he begs for a bit of historical perspective.
And for that, readers can do no better than to go to a new
authoritative source about the beginnings of the Israeli state, Benny
Morris' "1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli Wars." Those who do
will be left with the inescapable conclusion that there is nothing new
about Olmert's dilemma.
Morris is the most famous and certainly the best of the so-called "new
historians," who rose up in the 1980s to question the romantic view of
Zionism that had heretofore prevailed in Jewish history writing.
The author's diligent digging in the state's archives has resulted in
some work that has outraged many Israelis. But no nation's history is
that one-sided.
Some Jews speak as if Israel's right to exist is called into question
unless all Israelis were and are without a blemish, though that is a
notion that is nonsensical in itself and a reflection of a legacy of
anti-Semitic delegimitization of Jews.
As such, there will be readers of 1948 who will howl with outrage at
Morris' acknowledgement of the fact that there were some atrocities
committed by Israelis during the course of their bloody War of
Independence.
Others will be uncomfortable with his presentation of the fact that, at
certain points of the conflict, the Israelis outgunned the Arabs, even
though the few hundred thousand Jews in the country were outnumbered by
the tens of millions of Arabs and Muslims in the region who opposed
them.
But the general thrust of the narrative is inescapable.
War was inevitable, not because the Zionists were imperfect or wanted
of a larger Jewish state than the truncated province offered them in
the various partition plans, but because the Arabs never once
considered making peace with the Jews on any terms.
"The 1948 war, from the Arabs' perspective, was a war of religion as
much as, if not more than a nationalist war over territory," Morris
writes. "Put another way, the territory was sacred its violation by
infidels [Jews] was sufficient grounds for launching a holy war and its
conquest or reconquest, a divinely ordained necessity … The evidence is
abundant and clear that many, if not most, in the Arab world viewed the
war essentially as a holy war."
Unlike popular historians such as Larry Collins and Dominique
Lapierre's O Jerusalem!, so familiar to readers on the subject, there
is no escape from the general into the particular and personal via
anecdotes. Without the human interest angles, all we are left with are
the results of Morris' unforgiving scholarship in this clearly written
and exhaustive volume.
Morris once refused service in the Israel Defense Force because of his
opposition to Israel's presence in the territories, and is still
reviled by many on the right. But in recent years, he has spoken of the
need for Israel to act to stop the threat of nuclear attack from Iran.
He has also ruminated publicly that Israel's first prime minister,
David Ben-Gurion, may have erred by not doing what the Jewish state's
opponents accused him of having done: actively seeking to push all the
Arabs out of the country.
There is nothing about that in 1948, but what does come through is a
lack of illusions about Arab war aims, notwithstanding the intentions
of the Jews.
If the number of Arab atrocities against Jews were few (though
terrible), he notes, it is only because they lost most of the battles
and thus had fewer chances to commit crimes.
As for the tragedy of Palestinian refugees, though he has no illusions
about the desirability for many Israelis of having fewer Arabs in the
territory under their control, Morris comes straight to the point about
the responsibility for their suffering.
"The refugee problem was created by the war — which the Arabs had
launched," he asserts.
And, for all of his reputation as a critic of Israel, Morris also
points out something in his conclusion that even the Israeli government
is often reluctant to say: that there were two sets of refugees created
by the war since nearly as many Jews were forced to flee from Arab
countries as Arabs who fled from Israel.
HAUNTED BY DEFEAT
"1948 has haunted, and still haunts, the Arab world on the deepest
levels of the collective identity, ego and pride. The war was a
humiliation from which that world has yet to recover," Morris writes.
Despite peace process and some treaties, he understands that still "the
Arab world — the man in the street, the intellectual in his perch, the
soldier in his dugout — refused to recognize or accept what had come to
pass. It was a cosmic injustice."
The "jihadi impulse" is, more than ever, the dominant motive in Islamic
life and nothing the Israelis can do or say will change that. All they
can do is what they did in 1948, win and survive, and hope that their
enemies will eventually have a change of heart.
But, as Morris notes in his final paragraph, the challenge from Iran
and its terrorist allies leaves us still understanding that "whether
1948 was a passing fancy or has permanently etched the region remains
to be seen."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2007, Jonathan Tobin
| ||||||||||
