Avi Shlaim's The Debate Of 1948

They deserved this land since Europe had killed millions of their people. This was the Jewish people’s rightful land. The narrator comes to this idea because of zionism, the dream of returning to the Holy Land. Never explicitly using the term “zionism” the narrator and those around him are driven to this extreme because of the belief. When the novel finally concludes the narrator understands he followed the ignorance of the masses and the hate this movement inspired against the Arabs.

The Middle East has been a conflict ridden area due to clashing religions, and political and territorial disputes for centuries. Although deep-seated religious and political differences can easily cause violent rivalry, territorial dispute frequently causes long lasting tension and fighting between those involved. Specifically the area occupied by modern day Israel and Palestine and due to the area being a hub for religious pilgrims of Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic faith there has been controversy for centuries. Most importantly though, is the presence of Britain having control of the land beginning in 1917 due to the growth of Zionism. Eventually the United Nations created their partition plan as a way to try to have peace between the Arabs and Jews but as time went on it seemed less and less likely for peace to prevail (Fisher 5). Similarly, this view of the conflict being impossible to solve is present in Yasmina Khadra’s writings. Khadra in his novel, The Attack, suggests that a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is not possible through the extremist behavior of Sihem which correctly reflects that of the actual hatred of Israelis found in current

Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” Humans are so consumed with what is spoken, written, or otherwise presented of themselves; who presents it however, controls how the situation is perceived. From ancient Rome to modern America, countries of great power have perfected the art of telling stories from one side, the winners view.

History is one subject that most people choose to believe blindly and not question. We learn from textbooks the proclaimed “truth” of the whole world. As said by Winston Churchill, a British politician and Prime Minister who led Britain to victory during WW2, “History is written by the victors” (“Winston Churchill Quotes”). He is suggesting that history is not always exact and that it is possible that history cannot be necessarily trusted. The novels The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas use their essential episodes, dialogue, and characters to epitomize the theme that history is written by the victors.

Avi Schlaim traces the debate between new and old historians of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, by identifying six contentions apparent on both sides. He sorts through and debunks several myths that have become natural to the history of the founding of the State of Israel. Although many of these myths are not new, Schlaim argues access to archival documents, beginning in 1978, now provides the new historiography a backing by hard documentary evidence. On top of this new hard evidence, Israel’s political climate also changed with the shocking invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which ended the image of Israel as “peace lovers.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin admitted the invasion was a “war of choice,” resulting in the downfall of the national consensus

“The Zionists came and destroyed a sovereign Palestinian State and then kicked out all of its inhabitants forcing them to be perennial refugees. Just as bad the Zionists then erased all vestiges of this ancient Palestinian State and built their Imperialistic Racist State on the ruins of Palestine. This all happened in 1948 – 1949. There will never peace in the Middle East until the Zionist entity is destroyed and the indigenous Palestinian people are allowed to reestablish their state of

Before anyone can comprehend the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand the theory of Zionism. Theodor Herzl was the first Jew to have the idea of creating Israel. He was a witness of the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish officer was accused of treason, solely because he was Jewish. Herzl also witnessed mobs of people shouting “Death to the Jews”. This was the last straw for Herzl. Herzl decided that there needed to be a change so he made it one of his life goals to create a successful movement in which Jews founded a Jewish state. One of his main arguments was that discrimination against Jews could be eliminated if they had their own Jewish State, and so modern Zionism was formed. The idea of modern Zionism is so pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because much of the reason for Israel becoming a Jewish state is behind the fact that Jews were perpetrated throughout the years before Zionism even came into play of the situation.

History is written by the victors. Bringing my middle school history lesson on the American Revolution to the dinner table, my brother snarked that I was a sheep for believing that our founding fathers were the most noble and perfect men simply fighting tyranny. A bit embarrassed, but more driven to eventually upstage him, I began questioning every rendition of the facts. I started seeing a clear bias everywhere from CNN to my history textbook. People like packaging the truth into tidy schemes splitting the world into black and white to best serve their interests.

One particularly interesting perspective is his opinion on how the conflict has somewhat freed the identity of Palestinians from a shared land, and that for some Palestinians that can escape the occupation, there is a the creation of a transnational, transgressive life. (Suleiman, 2003, 73) Thus exists multiple outcomes from one identity. He further supports this by commenting that Palestine does not have borders, does not actually exist in the sense of geography, but it still has a sense of space. The Palestinian people are this space, and the people are how we define what is, and what is not Palestine. People are separated geographically, but defined by identity and community, and this creates a unique sense of freedom outside of a defined nation-state. (Suleiman, 2000, 96) This lets the definition of this identity be more fluid. He says that in his work he purposefully moves away from a centralized view of Palestinian identity and uses cinema to present the differences in viewpoint, perception, and narration that exist within this conflict. Not only between Israelis and Palestinian's but between all Palestinian's. (Suleiman, 2000, 97) He purposefully moves away from a singular form of Palestinian identity and states “My films are Palestinian because I am Palestinian.” (Suleiman, 2000, 99) This movement from a

The graphic novel Palestine, published by Maltan journalist Joe Sacco in the early ‘90s, is a journalistic piece that represents his recollections of two months spent talking to and living with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The casual narrative style, which some might say is too shallow for such heavy subject matter, in fact allows Sacco to avoid many of the pit falls that have made Western reporting on non-Western conflicts unhelpful at the very least and more often incredibly damaging.

Oren uses Arab resources to bring together discussions about the war that had been declassified prior to the 2000’s. Many and diverse sources were employed in the writing of this book. The bulk of the research is based on diplomatic papers from archives in North America, Britain and Israel, observing the thirty-year declassification rule. The protocols of Israeli Cabinet meeting remain for the most part classified, however, as do all but a segment of Israel Defense Forces papers. Archives in the Arab world are closed to researchers, though several private collection—Cairo Dar al-Khayyal, for example are accessible. Also, a significant number of Arabic documents fell into Israeli hands during the war, and can be viewed at the Israel Intelligence Library. From these resources, Oren hopes to answer several questions that have been posed about the war especially those by revisionist

It begins by explaining conditions in Palestine at the end of World War 2 and the crisis

Any reference to conflict turns history into a reservoir of blame. In the presence of conflict, narratives differ and multiply to delegitimize the opponent and to justify one’s own action. Narratives shape social knowledge. The Israeli Palestinian conflict, both Jews and Muslims, view the importance of holding the territories through religious, ideological, and security lenses, based on belief that Palestine was given by divine providence and that the land belongs to either the Israelis or Palestinian’s ancestral home. Understanding these perspectives is required for understanding Palestinians’ and especially Israel’s strategy and role in entering the Oslo peace process. Despite

The Palestinian principal motif in most of the narratives seems to have rotated around the need to rebuild their national identity. By reconstructing their collective national memory, many Palestinian story tellers share a similar apprehension of the human experience irrespective of the fictional mode adopted. Their narratives also introduce the Israeli Jew to the untold side of their own story; that is, the side of the defeated whose tale of suffering, no matter how told and retold, has been deliberately denied and erased from the official annals.(80)

May 15 was rapidly approaching, the day chosen for the British armed forces to vacate Palestine. Many thought, along with the British troops departure, went Israel’s only hope of survival; for 5 Arab nations were prepared to attack the defenseless state. On the other hand, there were those who refused to go down without a fight. Among them the few brave souls willing to risk everything to ensure our survival; to ensure there would never be another Holocaust. These heroic men created the first Israeli Air Force, an asset that played an essential role in the War of 1948. The five attacking Arab nations were about to be taken by surprise, as the fledgling state began to take flight.