Book Review: Righteous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict

post by Yair Halberstadt (yair-halberstadt) · 2024-06-24T11:02:03.490Z · LW · GW · 8 comments

Contents

  Bias
  Style
  Synopsis
    From the Birth of Zionism till the War of Independence (1881 - 1949)
      Setting the Scene
      Pre State Zionism
      Relations with Arabs
      Partitioning Palestine
      The War Of Independence
    From the Armistice to the Six Day War (1949-1967)
      Peace?
      Border Infiltrations and Reprisals[8]
      Suez Crisis
      The Road to War
      The 6 Day War
    From the War of Attrition to Peace with Egypt (1967 - 1982)
      The War of Attrition
      The Yom Kippur War
      Peace, Somehow
    Israel and Lebanon (1978-2001)
      The Invasion of Lebanon
      The Slow Retreat
    The Occupation (1967-2001)
      Israeli Governance
      Settlements
      The Rebirth of Palestinian Nationalism
      The First Intifada
      Oslo
      The second Intifada
    Morris’s conclusions
  What Came Next?
  My Thoughts
    Israel
    Palestine
    Going Forward
  Should I Read This Book?
  Conclusion
None
9 comments

I originally entered this to the ACX Book Review competition. Since it has not been selected as a finalist I'm now free to post it here. In truth it's a followup to my review of Morris's history of Israel's War of Independence. [LW · GW]

In the wake of the October 7th attack on Israel and Israel’s response, everyone seemed to agree that one side of the conflict was the epitome of evil, the reincarnation of the Nazis, with warfare in their blood and a pure unfiltered hatred of the enemy in their minds. The other side was a force for good, who just wanted peace and was doing the best they could in a difficult situation. The only problem is no one could agree which side was which.

This is unfair. While the loudest voices may paint the world in black and white, as soon as you ignore them, you begin to encounter a whole range of more nuanced views - yet still find yourself no less confused.

Now for the most part my view is that unless you’re willing to put in the effort to deeply understand conflicts in far off lands, you’re best off not having an opinion on them, and definitely not one fed to you by the twitter or tiktok feed.  Expressing loud, confident opinions on unfamiliar conflicts often does more harm than good.

Alas this conflict is not in a far away land. I live 20km from the border with Gaza. Most of my friends were called up to do reserve duty in the IDF. My children almost certainly will have to do the same once they grow up. Far too much of my income goes towards military spending rather than my bank account. I can’t take the easy way out, so I have to do things the hard way. So I bought a copy of Benny Morris’s Righteous Victims at exorbitant cost^[1], and plowed through it. And I thought I’d share with you what I learned, so that if you do decide to opine on the Israel Palestine conflict, your opinion will hopefully be more educated.

Righteous Victims is a history of the Arab Zionist conflict from 1881 till 2001, written by one of the most respected historians of this conflict.

Bias

Morris is a liberal Zionist, but one whose aim in studying history was to strip back the comforting lies he'd been taught as a child, and find out the actual truth.

None of his (serious) critics accuse him of lying, and his mastery of the primary sources is undisputed. Instead there are two main accusations leveled against him.

The first he readily admits himself in the introduction. Almost all sources about this conflict come from British or Israeli archives. Arab literacy was far lower, Arab historiography of this conflict is a relatively new and small field, and Arab documents have for the most part not been made publicly available even when they exist. Meanwhile a wealth of Zionist material has been released to the public, and we have plenty of contemporary documents to rely on. While he tries to decipher the Arab perspective from the Zionist one, and relies on Arab documents when they are available, this is naturally going to be both a blindspot and a source of systematic bias.

The second is in choosing which events to highlight and which to ignore. This is an impossible task - over 120 years the amount of relevant information is going to outweigh by many orders of magnitude the amount of space you have in your book, and by carefully selecting which facts to tell you can paint any story you like without ever actually lying. In practice you deal with this by covering the most important^[2] events in plenty of detail, picking representative examples of other events, and giving aggregate statistics^[3] to place the representative sample in context.  However hard one tries here, it's always possible to accuse the author of favoring facts which paint one side or the other in a better or worse light. Indeed I often found myself flip-flopping which side I supported as the narrative changed focus from one perspective to another.

With that in mind, I think that Morris probably strikes the best balance for a beginner to the field, but for a more nuanced view it would be worth looking at other authors - and making sure to cross reference their claims where possible as many will deliberately lie or distort the facts to suit their political agendas^[4].

Style

This is not a particularly readable book, but it is definitely not the worst history book I've ever read in that regard^[5]. It's long, but focuses on a long period of time. It chooses to resolve that by covering a lot of events in low detail, rather than a few in higher detail. Morris is a historian’s historian, rather than a popular one. He doesn't bother trying to paint a picture of recent immigrant soldiers carrying a rifle into their first battle under a blazing hot sun, or Arab villagers fleeing from their home with only a few belongings, unsure if they'll ever return. He just tells you the raw facts, and focuses almost exclusively on events directly relevant to the conflict.

While the chapters are (mostly) linear, they are subdivided into sections, which often are not. A number of sections will regularly cover the same period or overlapping periods of time, but from different perspectives. So first he'll have a section on the course of World War 1 in the Middle East, then another on Life in Palestine during World War 1, and then yet another on Arab and Zionist nationalism in this period, all covering 1914-1920. This can be somewhat frustrating when it feels like you're not making progress, or when some information is inevitably repeated since it has to appear in both sections.

Synopsis

From the Birth of Zionism till the War of Independence (1881 - 1949)

Setting the Scene

In 1881 the lands that today constitute Israel and Palestine were just parts of the vast ottoman empire. There were various subdivisions, but none that corresponded to anything we would recognise today.

The majority of the populace were Muslim, along with small Christian and Jewish minorities. Jews had always lived in Palestine, and throughout the 2000 years of their exile some had always made the treacherous journey to Israel out of religious sentiments. But the region was poor, and minorities were often persecuted. They had never amounted to a significant proportion of the population.

None of these groups had much in the way of nationalist feelings. The Jews were religious, believing that the exile would last until the coming of the Messiah, and until then their lot was to be ruled by the oppressor. The Arabs identified first with their clan, second with their village, and if pressed, maybe as citizens of the Ottoman empire. When nationalism first started to arise amongst the elite urban effendis, it was pan-arab nationalism. Palestinian national consciousness was a long way away.

As a result of Ottoman land reform and taxes the last century had seen the concentration of land in the hands of the wealthy. Most Arabs were serfs, paying rent on lands their parents had owned for generations. There was little industry anywhere, and the area was decidedly third world (even by the standards of the time).

Pre State Zionism

Persecution in Europe and Russia combined with the rise of Nationalist philosophy to kindle a desire among European Jews to create a state of their own. Descended culturally, and in large part genetically, from Jews exiled from Biblical Israel in the first century, having prayed three times a day for 2000 years to return to Jerusalem, and having no other possible focal point for a state, Palestine was the obvious place in which to do so.

Slowly but surely European Jews began to emigrate to Israel. There they bought land, settled it, built industry, educational institutions, hospitals, etc.

At that time the aims of Zionism were still unclear. Some hoped to achieve a completely independent sovereign state, realists worked towards some level of autonomy. Some hoped to achieve a state throughout biblical Israel - on both sides of the Jordan. Realists worked towards expanding the settlements one by one, buying more tracts of land, and effectively creating facts on the ground.

They were peaceful, but that reflected their situation at the time rather than their ethos - they fully expected a time would come when they would have to revolt against the ruling Ottomans to achieve independence.

And so, over the years the Yishuv, as the Jewish settlement was known, grew until it was a full third of the population of Palestine.

Relations with Arabs

The Zionist settlers did not do very much to ingratiate themselves with the native Arabs:

• They didn't culturally integrate with the Arabs. Very few learned Arabic. They set up their own schools, a healthcare provider, and economic institutions, which for the most part Arabs couldn't use.
• They claimed Jewish driven development would be good for everyone, but they preferentially hired Jewish workers. Although a lot of Arabs were hired as farmhands or guards, these were menial low pay jobs, and over time they were increasingly displaced by Jews.
• Zionists bought land fair and square from their owners, but these owners were wealthy urban effendis, not those who actually lived on the land. They usually then forced the tenant farmers off the land for little or no compensation.
• Many settlers wished to remake themselves as 'new Jews', ones who would not be oppressed in 'their' land. They had a habit of overreacting to what they perceived as slights against them or their property, such as cruelly beating trespassers. This especially caused problems when there were differences between local Ottoman customs and European ones as to public rights to land.

The British defeated the Ottomans in the first World War and established the British Mandate for Palestine in the territory that is today Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Part of the mandate was to implement the Balfour declaration which called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine^[6].

The combination of ill treatment and looming fear of dispossession resulted in increasing Arab antagonism towards the Yishuv. Accelerating during the British mandate, there were a number of pogroms in which in total hundreds of Jews were murdered. Between 1936-9 this turned into a full on war between the Arabs and the ruling British. The British responded both with a brutal crackdown, but also by limiting Jewish immigration, alas damning hundreds of thousands of European Jews to their fate at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Partitioning Palestine

Britain had made seemingly incompatible promises to both Zionists and Arabs during the first world war, and were loath to disappoint either. Jews were more powerful in the USA, while Britain needed friendly relations with the Arab proto-states for their oil. Attempting to maintain an uneasy status quo satisfies neither side, and both Jewish and Arab terrorist groups targeted each other as well as the British. By the end of the mandate some 100,000 soldiers were keeping the peace in Palestine, a huge expenditure given the dying empire. Meanwhile mainstream Jewish groups put enormous political pressure on Britain to declare a Jewish state in all or some of Mandatory Palestine.

The British fumbled with the problem for some time, but post WW2, facing increasing pressure to allow Holocaust survivors into Palestine, they punted the problem to the UN. The Arabs mostly denounced the UN Special Committee on Palestine as an attempt to colonize their land, whereas the Zionists proactively engaged with it. They persuaded the committee to recommend partition Palestine, which the UN accepted with a two thirds majority.

The War Of Independence

For a fuller treatment of the War of Independence, see my book review of Benny Morris's 1948 [LW · GW].

The UN resolution was immediately followed by an outbreak of violence. Arabs attacked Jewish villages and traffic, and various Jewish groups responded in kind.

While the Arabs were a significant majority of the population of Mandatory Palestine, they were disorganized, and each Arab cared mostly about their own village/town, not so much about the fate of the country as a whole. They tended to fight in ragtag bands, and didn’t concentrate their forces to achieve strategic aims. The Yishuv meanwhile was well organized with its own independent tax collection, command, and paramilitary (the Haganah). Arab attacks on Jewish villages were pushed back with losses, but ambushes on Jewish convoys were much harder to defend against, and threatened to starve the Yishuv.

The British had no interest in implementing the terms of the UN partition, and instead started to pull their troops out of Palestine, aiming to leave by May 1948. They mostly stopped the conflict spiraling out of control while they were there, but failed to clamp down on the fighting. Under British pressure neighboring Arab states were unable to support the Palestinians, and the Haganah was limited in what it could to alleviate pressure on Jewish traffic. A UN arms embargo hurt all sides.

However by April the equation had changed. The Haganah had received their first large shipment of smuggled weapons. The British were almost gone, and didn’t have the firepower needed to intervene directly. To secure Jewish traffic they invaded all Arab villages and towns close to the core Jewish settlements and expelled their inhabitants, creating a Jewish controlled strip along the length of the coast and into the lower Galilee.

The British fully pulled out on the 15th of May, and the state of Israel declared independence. Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt invaded, but their armies were small and weak, suffering from corruption, poor training, and the arms embargo. They were also disunited, and had no centrality of command. Jordan had secretly been negotiating with the Yishuv and hoped to merely occupy the West Bank without a fuss, which they easily achieved. This forced Egypt to split their forces, using one arm to head up the coast towards Tel Aviv, and another to maintain some influence in the southern West Bank against Jordanian interests.

Over the next month the Egyptians and Jordanians between them occupied most of the Palestinian populated areas in Central and southern Israel, but the Israelis narrowly held off any significant incursions into Jewish areas. Finally the UN imposed a one month truce on the 11th of June. The Yishuv had held, but was under pressure on all sides, and the settlements in the southern Negev desert  were completely cut off by the Egyptians.

The Haganah (now reconstituted as the IDF) used that month well, rearming, and training its many new recruits as refugees started to pour into Israel. The Arabs wasted it. Once the truce was over the IDF went on the attack, taking large swathes of land, but unable to break the sieges on the Negev or Jerusalem. After only 10 days the UN reimposed the truce.

While Israel was relatively secure it was forced to maintain full mobilization, while the Arab countries only had to maintain a small standing army. They couldn’t afford to maintain the truce long term without bankrupting the country. Hoping to relieve the Negev they pushed a convoy though Egyptian lines. When it was attacked - contrary to the terms of the truce - they used it as a casus belli for a major operation to push back the Egyptians along the entire front, occupying numerous Palestinian villages and towns in the process. A Palestinian attack in the north provided an excuse for a similar operation there which captured the entire area up to the Lebanese border. The truce was quickly reimposed.

Negotiations remained deadlocked. Hoping for a breakthrough, the IDF once again attacked the Egyptians, pushing into the Sinai and almost encircling the entire Egyptian forces^[7]. The Egyptians agreed to an armistice in principle, and an agreement was soon signed. The Egyptians pulled back to Gaza and the Sinai.

With the taboo against negotiation broken, the other Arab countries soon followed. With the IDF clearly dominant Israel secured most of its demands, including concessions on territory and demilitarized areas along the Egyptian and Syrian border.

During the war the IDF had maintained a non-official, patchily implemented policy of expelling Arab populations from their villages. This, combined with reports of a number of massacres, caused hundreds of thousand more Palestinians to flee. Israel refused to let them return after the war, as doing otherwise would have jeopardized Israel’s Jewish majority. They fled to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, and throughout the Arab world. Except for Jordan, the majority were not offered citizenship by their host countries, and the problem was allowed to fester.

Arabs forces massacred some 200 Jewish civilians/POWs while Jewish forces massacred closer to 800. However this disparity mostly reflects their greater success in the conflict - Arab armies only captured a handful of Jewish villages so had fewer opportunities for atrocities.

In the wake of the war hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled or otherwise driven out of Arab countries. Most emigrated to Israel.

From the Armistice to the Six Day War (1949-1967)

Peace?

By the end of 1949 things were looking good for the fledgling state. It had an armistice agreement with all the neighboring states, it had carved out a reasonably sized territory for itself, it had by far the strongest army in the region, it had expelled most of the potentially subversive Arabs from its territory and it's population was buoyed by an influx of hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi Jews. If things had stayed like that we might never hear about Israel or Palestine in the news today. So what went wrong?

There was a potential for genuine peace, rather than mere armistice agreements in the early years of the state. Israel received feelers from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. But neither side pursued these seriously.

The Arab states had suffered a huge embarrassment in the 1948 War, and were going through turbulent times. Syria went through a series of coups, Nasser eventually took over Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951. Their precarious governments could not be seen to make peace with Israel without concessions, primarily land for peace. In the meantime they refused to recognise Israel, and imposed an economic blockade, preventing Israeli shipping passing through the Suez canal or the gulf of Aqaba, effectively blockading Eilat.

Israel meanwhile was satisfied with its situation. It had soundly trounced the Arab states in war, and saw no reason to give up any land for peace. Peace would come when their neighbors were ready for it, they thought. In the meantime there was work to be done settling hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and building up the fledgling economy.

And so this chance at peace came and went, as many others would...

Border Infiltrations and Reprisals^[8]

There were over 700,000 Palestinian refugees scattered across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Many tried to infiltrate back over the border, either to return to their villages and towns, or to retrieve their property. Many also stole from the newly settled Israeli villages, which seemed perfectly justified to them - especially on occasions when the Israelis were living in their old village.

Initially, most infiltrators - who included children, women, and unarmed men - did not seek violence or revenge. However, their actions frequently led to clashes with security forces, resulting in occasional injuries and deaths among the guards and troops, as well as hundreds of thousands of Shekel in damages.

The IDF responded by mining the borders, and shooting any infiltrator on sight. Thousands were killed, often even if they were just close to the border. The IDF also rounded up suspected infiltrators from Arab villages (which were under martial law until 1966), often beat them cruelly, and shipped them back across the border.

Over time the infiltrations turned from petty theft to terrorism, partly in revenge for the IDF's cruel treatment to the earlier infiltrators. The IDF responded by raiding the infiltrator's villages in reprisal attacks, although these were not particularly targeted and often killed civilians instead of the perpetrators^[9].

At first the neighboring Arab states attempted to stop the infiltrators as they feared war with Israel, but given that those police officers who were meant to be guarding the border generally hated Israel, this was not very successful. Once Israel started raiding over the border the policy switched, and Egypt started arming and coordinating Fedayeen attacks from the Gaza Strip and Egypt into Israel.

Altogether more than 200 Israeli civilians and scores of soldiers were killed in this period, and thousands of Palestinians.

Suez Crisis

The Egyptian support for the Fedayeen, and Israeli reprisals against Egyptian military targets spiraled out of control. Border skirmishes became larger scale and deadlier and the Egyptians tightened their blockade of Eilat.

The mood in Israel was that something had to be done. The IDF had to make a demonstration of one of the Arab states to encourage them to actually stop the insurgency. When Nasser attempted to wrest control of the Suez Canal from Britain and France, Israel saw the perfect opportunity. Israel conspired with France and Britain; it would take control of the Sinai peninsula, while they would (ostensibly under a peace operation), take control of the Suez Canal.

The IDF easily conquered the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, but the French and British were too slow to move into the Suez canal. By the time they did, Israel had been forced to accept a UN brokered ceasefire, leaving no justification for an Anglo-French peace keeping operation.

The IDF suffered 190 soldiers killed, while the Egyptians lost thousands. Some 500 Palestinians civilians were massacred in Gaza when the IDF attempted to root out the Fedayeen.

While a military triumph, the war was a political disaster. Israel was soon forced to withdraw under American pressure, although they did eke out concessions ending the blockade of Eilat, demilitarizing the Sinai, and establishing a United Nations peacekeeping force on the border.

It also persuaded Jordan and Egypt to keep a tighter lid on the insurgency, and infiltrations mostly ended.

On the other hand it radicalized the Arab world against Israel. The earlier chances of peace had now entirely disappeared, and there was open talk of the need to destroy Israel.

The Road to War

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was established in 1964 and armed by Syria, though they carried out attacks from Jordan and Lebanon to avoid retaliation against Syria. Syria also attempted to divert water from the sources of the Jordan river after Israel's national water carrier started drawing water from the sea of Galilee (which is fed by the Jordan). Israel prevented this by repeated air and artillery strikes on the works.

Israel also attempted to assert civilian control over the Israeli/Syrian demilitarized zone by farming the land. Syrians would shell the farmers, and then Israel would retaliate against the Syrians.

Things spiraled and Israel came to believe a war against Syria would be necessary, although nothing concrete was planned. Syria had a peace treaty with Egypt, and when the Soviets falsely reported to Egypt that Israel had built up forces on the Syrian border, Egypt decided to remilitarize the Sinai, expel the UN peacekeepers and renew the blockade on Eilat.

In response Israel was forced to call up its reserves to defend the Egyptian border. It was a tricky situation, as Egypt with its huge population could maintain a war footing indefinitely, while Israel relying on reserves could not. But it was also seen as an opportunity by some in Israel to improve on their strategic situation.

After negotiations didn't seem to be progressing quickly, Israel quietly planned an attack on the Sinai. They also told their populace that the Arab armies were massing to destroy Israel, although that seems to be mostly false: while the Jordanians signed a defense pact with Egypt, both Jordan and Syria had no significant call up and maintained defensive positions. The Egyptians did have a large build up in the Sinai, but they were also defensively positioned and their main aim was probably to defend against an Israeli attack to reopen the Gulf of Aqaba^[10].

The 6 Day War

The Israelis opened the war on the 5th June 1967 with a devastating air offensive which completely destroyed the Egyptian air force. When the Jordanians, Syrians and Iraqis later joined in the war they did the same to them.

On the ground the Egyptians stood no chance. They were a poorly trained, armed, and motivated force practicing static warfare and with little ability to innovate, facing a highly trained, armed and motivated force, given a huge amount of independence, and with absolute air superiority. Within 4 days the IDF had reached the Suez canal.

The Jordanians, fooled by Egyptian claims of initial success, opened fire from the West Bank on Israeli targets. Though the IDF troops on the Jordanian border were defensive territorial brigades, they counterattacked and made tactical gains in the Jordanian held West Bank. There doesn't seem to ever have been a concrete decision to fully occupy the West bank, but troops responded to local situations and exploited successes, till the entire West Bank was conquered.

Syria only carried out ineffectual attacks from the Golan heights^[11] on IDF positions below, but on the 9th of June the decision was made to exploit the war to deliver the long sought blow to Syria. Though the fighting was tough and uphill, within two days the heights were conquered. The local population was later expelled (except for some Druze who were allowed to remain).

The UN security council imposed a ceasefire on June 10th, and Israel suddenly found itself in occupation of territories over three times larger than Israel itself, and about a million Palestinians. What to do with these territories?

An offer was quietly made to return the Sinai and the Golan heights in return for peace (rather than armistice) with Egypt and Syria respectively, but this offer was rejected. There was never any consensus regarding Gaza, the West Bank, and especially East Jerusalem. Some were prepared to return all or parts in exchange for peace, others viewed them as necessary for military^[12] or cultural^[13] reasons. East Jerusalem, home to the Temple Mount, was formally annexed^[14]. Either way, none of the Arab countries opened negotiations, so the situation was allowed to fester.

A minority of ideological Israelis were committed to keeping all the captured territories forever, and set up settlements in the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan heights. With a Government that was unsure of its aims for these territories there was no real opposition, and so without ever making any decision to do so Israel was suddenly settling the occupied territories.

From the War of Attrition to Peace with Egypt (1967 - 1982)

The War of Attrition

Israel and Egypt's new border was along the Suez canal (which was shut to all traffic during this period). Egypt hoped to restore its land and its pride but without provoking a full out war. To do so, they started a war of attrition, hoping to ground Israeli will down with sporadic artillery bombardments and commando raids. Egyptian capacity for casualties among a professional army in a huge country was far higher than that of Israel's conscript army drawn from a tiny population.

Israel responded with air strikes against Egyptian targets. These were crippling, but failed to stop the artillery duels. Egypt decided to ask for Soviet help to push SAM^[15] sites closer to the frontline. Israel's attempts to destroy these sites were only partially successful and numerous planes were shot down.

Eventually Israel and Egypt agreed to a ceasefire^[16], and the artillery duels and infiltrations ended. However Egypt continued to prepare air defenses along the Suez, and by 1973 their coverage extended 6 miles into the Sinai.

The Yom Kippur War

By 1973 Egypt and Syria had prepared their forces, established effective air defenses, and were ready to strike. For whatever reasons Israel had failed to pick up on anything and the attack, when it came, was a complete surprise.

The Egyptians had trained extensively for their tasks and every unit knew exactly what they were doing. The Syrians had concentrated extensive forces around the Golan. They knew they had no hope of defeating the IDF if Israel maintained air supremacy so their aims were limited to whatever could be achieved without leaving the protection of their SAM sites. For Syria that was recapturing the Golan heights, for Egypt crossing the Suez and advancing past Israel's defensive lines.

The attack was launched on Yom Kippur^[17] when most soldiers were off duty. In the north the Syrians quickly made inroads, but the defenders were just about able to hold on, and eventually counterattack. The IDF hoped to reach Damascus to put pressure on Syria to surrender, but Syrian defenses proved too strong. Instead they reached within artillery distance, putting the Syrian capital at threat, but unable to advance any further.

The Egyptians crossed along the entire length of the Suez, and were able to cross all their forces before the IDF had mobilized and was ready to do anything about it. The IAF's attempts to use air power to change the situation in the north or south failed, and 100 planes were shot down. Israel was desperate, and there was even some talk of using nuclear weapons. It was then the Egyptians made a fatal mistake - they tried to press their gains out of range of their air defenses and into the now mobilized and far better trained Israeli divisions. They were routed with heavy losses, and the IDF used the opportunity to establish a bridgehead across the Suez, then turn south and trap half of the Egyptian army on the wrong side of the canal.

By then an armistice had been imposed and agreed upon by both sides, but the situation was unstable. Israel was within striking distance of Damascus, and Egypt had an entire Army trapped. Meanwhile Israel had huge forces in Egypt proper, connected to the Sinai by only a thin bridgehead. Something would have to change.

Peace, Somehow

The situation on the Egyptian front was so untenable that some immediate agreements were made. At first for a prisoner exchange, and the entry of non-military supplies to Egypt's trapped 3rd Army. Then for the retreat of all Israeli forces to 10-15 miles east of the Suez in exchange for partial Egyptian demilitarization of the east bank of the Suez and the reestablishment of the UN peacekeepers in the buffer zone between them. The Suez was reopened for the first time in 8 years, and Israeli goods (but not ships) were allowed to flow through it.

While limited, these agreements laid the framework for a certain amount of goodwill. Egypt was forced to accept that it would not be able to achieve its aims militarily and Israel had realized that not all wars would be won so easily as the Six Day war.

Syria proved far trickier, and continued to wage low level conflict with Israel, hoping to push them out via a slow trickle of casualties. But under intense American pressure an agreement was eventually signed and Israel retreated from the recently captured Syrian territory and a thin strip of the Golan. In exchange a UN peacekeeping force was established to guard the border, and a demilitarized zone was created.^[18]

In 1975 Israel and Egypt took a step closer to peace, with Israel withdrawing further east (expanding the UN buffer zone) in exchange for an agreement not to use threats of force against each other and a commitment to work towards a lasting peace.

And there things stood for a while, as changes of administration in both the USA and Israel delayed things. In Israel the new PM, Menachem Begin, was a devout right winger^[19]. He wanted peace with Egypt, but was not willing to give up any territory to do so. Negotiations dragged out without any breakthroughs.

In an effort to kick things forward, the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, flew to Jerusalem in 1977, implicitly recognising Israel and indicating his sincere desire for peace. He was warmly received, but still Begin was intransigent. Sadat wanted a complete withdrawal from the Sinai and the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Begin wasn't prepared to do either. Eventually Carter invited both Begin and Sadat to a retreat at Camp David to try and hammer things out. Negotiations were tough, but ultimately the mediators realized that Sadat was far more determined to restore lost Egyptian territory than he was to establish a Palestinian state, and Begin cared far more about settlements in Gaza and the West Bank than he did about those in the Sinai. Israel agreed to completely retreat from the Sinai in exchange for full peace and diplomatic relations with Egypt, and also committed to negotiations with Palestinians with a view to establishing an independent state. Both sides kept the letter of the agreement but Israel deliberately tanked the Palestinian negotiations and the peace with Egypt has always been relatively cold with very little economic integration.

Israel and Lebanon (1978-2001)

The Invasion of Lebanon

Lebanon's population is split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims. Most Christians viewed Israel positively as an anti-Muslim bastion in the region, but were hesitant to officially support it as it risked their status with their Muslim neighbours. The Muslim population were averse to starting any conflict with Israel as it risked upsetting the delicate balance between them and the Christians. Lebanon had mostly stayed out of the 1948 war.

In 1970 the PLO attempted an insurrection against the Jordanian Monarchy and were ultimately driven out of the country. The leadership fled to Lebanon where they recruited heavily in the Palestinian refugee camps, which they soon effectively ruled. From there they carried out an insurgency against Israel, infiltrating the border and carrying out numerous terrorist attacks.

The Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, and Israel provided military aid and training to the Christians, hoping to counter the PLO. In response to continued incursions, in 1978 Israel invaded Lebanon up to the Litani river, driving out the PLO and propping up the SLA^[20] in their place.

But Syria had entered the civil war, and the Christians were steadily being pushed back. Begin harbored secret dreams of saving the Lebanese Christians where the Christian West would not, and plans were drawn up to invade Lebanon, and create a Christian dominated buffer state to the north of Israel. But Israel also had more direct concerns - the PLO was still able to shell Israel with rockets and artillery, and carry out terrorist attacks. Less ambitious plans were also drawn up to push the PLO slightly further back.

Realizing where things were headed the PLO avoided provoking Israel for a while, but in Israel June 1978 found a casus belli^[21] and geared for war. Ariel Sharon (the defense minister) deliberately misled the cabinet into thinking only the smaller, more limited invasion would go ahead, while secretly ordering troops to carry out the larger invasion. By the time the cabinet realized what had happened they were represented by a fait accompli. Israel had pushed back the Syrians and reached the Beirut-Damascus highway, cutting the PLO off from Syrian support. There they were forced to stop due to a US imposed ceasefire with Syria.

Instead their attention turned to the PLO held West Beirut. In an extremely bloody 9 week siege they eventually convinced the PLO to abandon Beirut^[22]. Thousands of Lebanese civilians were killed.

The Slow Retreat

While Israel's military accomplishments were significant, their efforts at nation building fell flat. They attempted to set up the leader of the Christian Phalangist organization as the President of Lebanon, hoping to create a Christian puppet state. But when he was assassinated^[23] his replacement was far less friendly to Israel.

The Christians were thankful to Israel for saving them, but now wanted Israel to withdraw and respect their sovereignty. Israel first wanted a formal peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel first, and a full Syrian withdrawal. Neither were on the cards.

Both Israel and Syria regularly violated the ceasefire, but Israel had far less stomach for a war of attrition, especially for an occupation which was not actually at all necessary from a military standpoint. They slowly retreated, and as they did so the Christians fell to Syrian funded groups. The Phalangists blamed Israel and the Israel-Phalangist alliance fell apart.

As the occupation dragged on Shiites in southern Lebanon grew increasingly disillusioned with it. Hizballah led a guerilla campaign against the occupying forces which killed many IDF soldiers. The IDF's heavy handed response only served to drive more recruits into their arms.

By June 1985 Israel retreated back to the security zone in southern Lebanon - the same one  it had started from in June 1982. But this time Hizballah continued the attacks even there. Finally in 2000 Israel fully retreated from Lebanon. Hezbollah took up positions opposite the Israeli border, and after a long and bloody war Israel had only succeeded in replacing one enemy with another, and alienated most of Lebanon's population in the process.

The Occupation (1967-2001)

Israeli Governance

In 1967 Israel suddenly found itself in occupation of the Sinai, Gaza, the Golan heights and the West Bank. The Sinai had at most a few 10s of thousands of natives, mostly Bedouin. The Golan heights were ethnically cleansed apart from a few thousand Druze who were offered Israeli citizenship or residency. But Gaza and the West Bank were both densely populated with over a million Palestinians all told.

Israel was divided as to what to do with the newly occupied territories. Some hoped to return all or part in exchange for peace. Others viewed this land as historically Jewish and hoped to incorporate it into Israel. But peace never came, and so the occupation was allowed to drag on without anyone actually making a concrete decision on this critical issue.

Israel immediately imposed a military government. While it did a lot of ordinary government style stuff (and generally took a pragmatic approach to governance) it also had various more nefarious aims. The defense minister indicated that if Palestinians chose to leave the occupied territories that would be a good thing. This was partially achieved by limiting Palestinian economic development:

Israel prevented palestinian industrial development, forcing Palestinians to buy Israeli goods. They advised Palestinian farmers on how to grow staple Israeli crops, freeing Israeli farmers to grow more lucrative crops for export. Israel took over all state land, and for the most part didn’t free it for Palestinian usage.

On the other hand Israel did not ignore Palestinian needs entirely - they built hospitals, universities and other services. Palestinians worked in Israel for much higher wages than they could earn domestically^[24]. During the early part of the occupation Palestinian welfare did increase, partly thanks to Israel.

Settlements

At least to start with, there was never any government decision to build settlements in the occupied territories. Instead a messianic religious movement developed around the idea that the incredible victories of the 6 day war were part of the end of the exile and the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. They built settlements in the west bank, with or without IDF protection, and then placed political pressure on the authorities to avoid them being evicted. With a population that was mostly ambivalent towards the settlements, but a vocal movement that heavily supported them, it was always easier to let them be than to try and fight against them - especially as many MKs were not unsympathetic towards the movement.

And so, slowly at first, but accelerating after Begin came to power in 1977 and actively supported the movement, more and more Jews moved into Gaza, the West bank, the Sinai, and the Golan heights. As of today more than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank. While the largest settlements stick close to Israel proper, dozens more dot the entire West Bank. This leads to de facto annexation of areas bordering Israel, and means that a Palestinian state in the remainder would be broken up by numerous enclaves. Slowly but surely, such a state is becoming unviable.

The Rebirth of Palestinian Nationalism

The Palestinian Nationalist movement had mostly died post 1948. While the PLA was founded in 1964 it was a fringe movement mostly occupied by idealists of some stripe or other. The average palestinian just got on with his life wherever he had ended up.

The occupation changed all that - Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza had a good reason to fight for independence now that their rulers were not the Arab Jordanians or Egyptians, but the Jewish Israelis. Civil disobedience swept the occupied territories in 1968, but this was brutally suppressed. Instead Palestinian nationalism was forced to find another outlet - and that outlet was inevitably militant in nature, with both secular and Islamist Palestinian terror groups becoming increasingly popular as the occupation wore on.

And no matter how justified their cause was, these organizations were indeed terror groups, with numerous attacks targeting civilians in Israel and abroad, including numerous bombings and plane hijackings (both before and after 1967).

Israel responded with all the apparatus a security state eventually develops: censorship, spies, monitoring, blackmail, arrests in the night, torture, banning political groups, imprisonment, exile, checkpoints etc. These were effective in crushing organized resistance within the occupied territories themselves, but also pushed more and more Palestinians into the arms of the terror groups. And this was of course of very limited impact on terror activity coordinated from outside Israel.

This terror activity was completely unsuccessful in changing Israeli policy - until the first intifada there was no point where the government considered withdrawing from the occupied territories in response. If anything it highlighted the need to maintain the occupation in order to clamp down on the terror groups in the occupied territories.

The First Intifada

In 1987, partly driven by Hezbollah's success in driving Israel out of south Lebanon, partly by economic hardships and unemployment in the occupied territories, the Palestinian street erupted in spontaneous rioting. The rioters threw stones and molotov cocktails at IDF troops, making their operations in Palestinian towns dangerous and difficult.

Israel was at a loss as to how to respond to huge crowds of civilians setting up roadblocks and throwing stones. Live fire led to high casualties, international condemnation, and further stoked tension. But without responding it was impossible for the IDF to do its job maintaining the apparatus of occupation. Both were tried, and found wanting.

Over the months and years the IDF adapted - using less lethal rubber and plastic ammunition, equipping the soldiers with riot shields and sticks, and training them in crowd control. Huge numbers of “troublemakers” were arrested, and villages were sealed off from the outside world and their electricity cut off for weeks on end.

The intifada took its toll on both Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians were brutalized by Israeli forces, and their economy tanked. The Palestinian question rose to the top of both the international and the Israeli agenda. Among ordinary Israelis there was a desire to leave the territories, while right wingers called for mass expulsion.

Ultimately it was the peace process that brought the intifada to a close. Arafat (the leader of the PLO) officially called for an end to violence when Oslo (see below) was signed, but it had already waned when the first peace talks kicked off in 1991.

Oslo

Facing increasing US pressure, Israel was forced to the negotiating table in Madrid in 1991. The peace talks dragged out for years, but ultimately Israel was playing for time, and the process was futile. Rabin was elected prime minister of Israel on a pro peace agenda in 1992, but failed to translate that into concrete concessions at the negotiating table.

 But meanwhile unlikely things were happening where no one was looking. An Israeli academic and a Labour party backbencher decided to clandestinely meet with a PLO official. Without any real authority they negotiated anyway, and through months of work were able to hammer together enough areas of agreement to form a basis for further talks. The negotiators were switched out for actual ministers, and the process became official.

What emerged from these Oslo accords was not so much a full disengagement agreement, but an agreement to pursue further steps and talks towards ending the occupation. Israel recognized the PLO, the PLO recognized Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established and Israel agreed to slowly devolve civil and military power to the PA in more and more areas in return for continued peace.

Both sides more or less kept to the letter of the agreement over the next two to three years, but with plenty of badwill. Israel continued building settlements in Israeli controlled areas. The PLA failed to clamp down with sufficient force on Palestinian terror, and when there were terror attacks Israel would delay withdrawing from a town. This reduced the legitimacy of the PLA, forcing them to partially support Hamas in the hopes of borrowing some of its popularity, causing Israel to delay the withdrawal further.

Driving this process was Hamas: They realized that a settlement based on the 1948 borders would end all hope for a unified Palestinian state throughout mandatory Palestine and so sought to kill the peace process. To do so they carried out numerous terror attacks in Israel proper, killing hundreds of civilians and soldiers. This successfully turned Israeli popular opinion against Oslo: they had given the Palestinians the West Bank, and in return they were threatened in their homes! Clearly giving up land only encouraged the terrorists!

Rabin was assassinated in 1996 by an extremist settler. His replacement, Peres, didn’t have the charisma Rabin had, and facing mounting public opinion against the peace process he lost the elections that year to Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s first stint as PM was a shambles. He attempted to slow down Oslo as much as possible, but was forced into further withdrawals by the USA. The right wing no longer trusted him, and the left wing was unprepared to work with him. He was forced to call early elections, which Ehud Barak won.

The second Intifada

Ehud Barak won the premiership on a platform of final peace with the Palestinians and Syria, and ending the occupation of Lebanon. But his coalition was too divided for him to make good on his promises. The peace talks with Syria went nowhere, and he was forced to withdraw from Lebanon unilaterally and in far more of a hurry than originally planned. He tried to continue implementing Oslo, but was not able to do so at the pace the Palestinians desired, and settlement building continued apace, as did Palestinian terrorism.

Clinton, hoping to knock out a diplomatic triumph in his final year as president, called Arafat and Barak to camp David hoping to hammer out a full agreement for a two state solution. Alas the two sides were too far apart, and the talks ended in failure^[25].

Shortly after, frustrated by a stalled peace process and triggered by Ariel Sharon’s visit to the temple mount, spontaneous rioting broke out among the Palestinians which quickly turned into a full-blown uprising. But unlike the previous intifada the Palestinians regularly used guns and light bombs against Israeli troops and civilians. Israel responded in kind, and the situation became far more lethal for both sides. The Israeli Arab street, frustrated by years of discrimination, also joined in with the rioting (but less so with the shooting). Arafat denied involvement with the violence, but continuously stirred it up, and definitely directed it to some extent. Barak was forced to resign and the hardliner Ariel Sharon, who had taken over from Netanyahu as head of Likud, won the elections.

Morris’s conclusions

Morris ends the book with a short essay in which he lays out his thoughts on the development of Israeli and Palestinian ideology, their impacts on war and peace, and the impacts that war and peace have had on them. It stands alone, and is well worth the read if you have half an hour, even if you don’t read the whole book.

What Came Next?

And that is where the book ends, on a cliffhanger in the middle of the intifada. I’ve read no history books that go much beyond that point, so I’ll just list a brief summary of the major events that occurred since then.

The second intifada continued till 2004. It killed over 1000 Israelis and 3000 Palestinians.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, which was taken over by Hamas. Since then there have been continuous flare ups between Hamas and Israel, occasionally leading to limited invasions, and finally culminating in the current full blown war triggered by Hamas invading Israel, killing over a thousand people and kidnapping 200. Israel’s response so far has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, a majority of whom are civilians.

Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in 2006, kicking off the second Israel-Lebanon war, which ended in stalemate. Since then both sides have preferred to avoid things blowing out of control, and have settled into a routine - Israel occasionally bombs Hezbollah targets, and Hezbollah occasionally snipes at Israel, sneaks through the border, or fires rockets at Israeli army bases or towns. The current Gaza war has triggered the biggest flare up between Israel and Hezbollah in years, but for now both sides seem not to want it to turn into a full blown war.

Israel signed further peace agreements with a number of Arab countries (UAE, Bahrain, Morocco) under the Trump presidency, and is hoping to continue that process, currently setting its sights on Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile it’s been engaged in a cold war with Iran for the last 40 years, aiming to weaken Iran’s proxy forces in the area and prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Since the start of the second intifada all progress on Oslo has stopped, and settlement construction has continued apace. The PA has been hollowed out and now barely controls the West Bank. A peace settlement with the Palestinians seems further than ever before.

My Thoughts

What conclusions you take from a book will depend on why you read it. If you were just interested in which side to blame then you could spend your entire life debating the ins and outs of every event Morris describes. If you’re purely a history buff Righteous Victims gives you plenty of material to work with.

Personally, I was hoping to understand the current situation better and take forward some concrete ideas for how we, or at least I, could act to help make the future better rather than worse. At this point we’re moving from semi objective history to my completely subjective ideas on the hottest topic in international politics. Reader beware!

Israel

If you go into this book believing standard Hasbara talking points about how the IDF is the most moral army on earth, Israel only wants peace, the Palestinians only want war, and Israel has simply no choice in what it does, you’re likely to find it makes for very uncomfortable reading.

On the other hand I don’t think it would be wise to update too far in the other direction.

It is true that Israel’s founding involved large scale ethnic cleansing - but unfortunately it is far too common for the creation of states to involve forced migrations and massacres, in both modern and ancient times^[26]. Neither was the desire for ethnic cleansing one sided - the Arabs made no bones of their intentions to push the Jews into the sea.

It is also true that Israel has often been more aggressive and warmongering than it needs to be, but alas the same could be said for most countries. Let’s take Israel’s most pointless and least justified war, the Lebanon war. Has the USA ever invaded a foreign country because it provided a safe haven for terrorist attacks against them? Yes - Afghanistan. Has it ever invaded a country for what turns out to be spurious reasons while lying to its populace about the necessity? Yes - Iraq in 2003. Has it ever then abandoned its allies once the toll of the war becomes too high, leaving them to be massacred by a foe only emboldened by the intervention? Yes - Afghanistan again. Has it ever jumped into a conflict without considering its long term aims and whether intervening might actually just make everyone worse off? Oh boy Yes!

This is not to say that Israel wasn’t wrong for starting the Lebanon war, or that America is excessively evil. It’s that these things are hard to get right, most countries get wrong, and the consequences of being too peaceful are usually worse than for being too belligerent^[27]. Focussing on almost any country’s military history would make them look bad.

For the most part Israel is a normal country trying to protect its interests in a difficult political situation. In doing so it has caused a huge amount of misery, much of which is not its fault, and much of which is. The solution to that is not to blame Zionism as the source of all evil in the Middle East, but to try and fix the situation.

Where this viewpoint breaks down is the occupation. Israel had very limited justification for occupying the West Bank in 1967, and missed a number of opportunities to return it to Jordan or establish a Palestinian state. In 1967 Palestinian terrorism was limited - the occupation was the main driver of the mainstreaming of terrorism among the Palestinians. There was simply no need for Israel to occupy the West Bank.

The lack of any solutions here was driven by the growth of an expansionist nationalist movement which saw the entirety of mandate Palestine as rightly Israeli. Although not a huge percentage of the country^[28], the general ambivalence of the Israeli populace towards the Palestinians allowed this minority to drive Israel’s policies in the territories.

The nationalist movement inherently requires either apartheid, genocide, or mass ethnic cleansing. Since 5 million Palestinians do live in the occupied territories, and they are unprepared to grant them either their own state or citizenship in a Jewish one, the only possible solutions are a permanent lack of citizenship in a greater Israel, the destruction of the Palestinian people, or their mass expulsion.

Palestine

Much the same could be said on the Palestinian side of things. The Palestinians have very legitimate complaints, and have without doubt been maltreated by Israel. They have also done plenty of maltreatment in return and can reasonably be blamed for making their own situation worse on a number of occasions. But that does not make them the sole source of evil either. It means they are in a shitty situation where the natural thing for people to do is to further alienate the exact group of people who need to be prepared to make peace with them. The solution is to fix the situation.

Again this viewpoint breaks down once you consider Hamas. They have had numerous opportunities to make life better for themselves and Palestinians in general, but have instead decided to risk it all in a delusional attempt to establish a Palestinian state from the river to the sea. Whether by sabotaging Oslo, turning Gaza into a garrison of terror, or attacking Israel on October 7th, they have brought only pain and misery to the region because their ideology rests on the impossible assumption that they will somehow manage to utterly defeat Israel.

Going Forward

While the occupation might have started out as mostly unnecessary, Israelis have a reasonable case after October 7th that establishing a Palestinian state there now would only provide a further base for Hamas to attack Israel. They might well be wrong, but so long as they have that attitude they will not unilaterally agree to a two state solution. Only external pressure can force them to do so.

However at the moment Israel doesn’t actually have a partner to work with. The PA is widely hated and barely holds power in the West Bank. Hamas is not a viable negotiation partner for Israel unless it radically changes its attitudes.

The USA does have a reasonable amount of leverage over Israel - they are for all intents and purposes the only possible supplier of the advanced fighter jets Israel needs to maintain its military edge. However it has to be careful not to force Israel into a corner where it feels it has no good options - doing so could backfire dramatically: if Israel believed it risked losing its dominance long term it might seek to preemptively start a war while it still has the advantage. Instead the USA has to make sure it addresses Israel’s security concerns, while working to change the situation on the ground to one where peace might be possible.

Under those constraints, here are some concrete steps the USA can take in that direction:

1. End settlement construction. Full stop. There is literally no security need for them at all, most Israelis do not support them, and they are hugely destructive to any future Palestinian state. If given the choice between f-35s or expanding the settlements the Israeli government will be forced to pick the f-35s. Even better, the pro settlement parties will be forced out of government as this is a red line for them.
2. Prop up the PA and push out Hamas. This is a much more difficult thing to do, and I’ll leave it to the experts in the relevant fields to suggest how. But definitely the USA could put serious pressure on Israel to stop doing the things they are actively doing to delegitimize the PA, such as holding back taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the PA.

Beyond that, the ability for the rest of the world to influence events is limited. History shows that while the foreign powers can put their foot down and force Israel to stop doing something they don’t like, they can’t very easily force it to do what they want. Even when they forced both sides to the negotiating table, often one side or the other was just trying to drag things out. Only once both sides are genuinely ready for peace is there a chance that external pressure can force them to make the concessions necessary to realize a solution.

Should I Read This Book?

Probably not? It’s a long, dry, expensivish book on history! Why would you read it?

On the other hand, the fact that you’ve read this review so far implies that you’re actually interested in the Zionist-Arab conflict. And given that, please don’t trust me! For a start I’ve compressed a 700 page book into a longish book review. There’s tons of super important info I’m missing! Secondly, I’ve definitely made mistakes along the way. And thirdly, like everyone else, I have an agenda. Make sure to follow up with the primary source!

So buy or borrow the book, and plough your way through it. And if you do, I promise you there’s a ton of exciting stuff I’ve missed out. While it’s not game of thrones, there’s still plenty of snippets that are sure to pique your interest!

Conclusion

That’s actually it folks, I just feel that a book review ought to end in a conclusion. Thanks for reading!

1. ^{^}

    £22.52, which isn't that much, but more than I usually spend on books.

2. ^{^}

    Subjective!

3. ^{^}

    Which are often misleading without understanding the details, how they were defined/collected, potential biases, etc.

4. ^{^}

    For example, Morris dismisses Ilan Pappe as the world's sloppiest historian. He recommends Avi Shlaim as a historian who he disagrees with, but is factually accurate.

5. ^{^}

    That prize goes to Sacred Causes which basically listed off reams of events without ever tying them together or putting it into a wider narrative.

6. ^{^}

    Interestingly, the Balfour declaration was driven partly because the British, based on anti-semitic tropes, assumed the Jews were far more powerful than they were and could decide the fate of the war.

7. ^{^}

    And almost provoking a war with the British who had a strong interest in the Sinai, given it bordered on the Suez.

8. ^{^}

    For more on this period, read Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956.

9. ^{^}

    Partly because the aim was to be seen to be doing something, to reassure the border settlers that the government was looking out for their welfare, rather than to actually prevent the terrorism.

10. ^{^}

     This is a contentious point, as there were contradictory things said by Nasser and various Egyptian higher ups. There definitely was some talk of attacking the Negev desert to meet up with Jordan, but it's difficult to judge how fanciful it was - certainly the Egyptian positions did not reflect any such plans.

11. ^{^}

     The Golan heights is a plateau dominating the sea of Galilee and the Hula valley, and so was a tactically difficult border to defend against as the Syrians had a strong height advantage, and could easily see and shell Israeli positions below. Israel had long coveted the heights to solve this issue.

12. ^{^}

     The West Bank is much higher than the plains to the west, and overlooks Israel's narrow waist, just 15km wide at its thinnest. It would be easy for a well armed opponent to cut Israel in two from the West Bank, and all of Israel's most important cities are within easy artillery range of the West Bank. Meanwhile the border with Jordan reached by occupying the West Bank is along a major valley and so easy to defend.

13. ^{^}

     The biblical territory of the Israelites is mostly in the West Bank, whereas the territory of modern day Israel was mostly Pagan (with lots of exceptions both spatially and temporally).  The Temple Mount, the most (arguably - only) important site in Judaism is located in East Jerusalem, as is the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb.

14. ^{^}

     The residents were offered citizenship, though most refused and received permanent residency instead. Since then very few have received citizenship, and there's some debate to what extent that's their decision vs Israel placing bureaucratic hurdles in their path. Anyway, none of this is discussed in Righteous Victims so I shouldn't really be telling you about it.

15. ^{^}

     Surface to Air missiles.

16. ^{^}

     Israel had suffered some 360 deaths by then, almost all soldiers. Egyptian losses are impossible to know, but Morris gives a ballpark estimate of 10,000 military + civilians killed.

17. ^{^}

     The day of atonement. Almost all Jewish Israelis stay at home or go to the synagogue. The roads are so empty that children call it the bicycle festival, as they can safely cycle on even the busiest highways.

18. ^{^}

     This force remains there to this day, and the border has been mostly quiet, excepting for some flare ups when Syria was fighting Islamic militants in the demilitarized zone during the ongoing civil war.

19. ^{^}

     He was the ex head of the Irgun terror group.

20. ^{^}

     South Lebanese Army, a Christian/Shiite/Druze force.

21. ^{^}

     A different Palestinian terrorist organization shot the Israeli ambassador in London, likely to provoke exactly this war.

22. ^{^}

     They were protected by an international force to safeguard their retreat.

23. ^{^}

     The IDF knowingly let the Phalangists take revenge for his assassination, massacring hundreds of Palestinians.

24. ^{^}

     They generally earned less than Israelis could for the same work, and didn’t receive the standard protections and benefits Israeli workers did.

25. ^{^}

     Clinton blamed the failure of the talks on Arafat, who he says failed to make any significant concessions. Alas the details of the talks are private, and Israeli and Palestinian claims as to what Israel offered differ wildly. Either way the talks were kind of moot, since by that stage Barak’s government was dead in the water, and basically had no chance of pushing through any sort of contentious peace deal.

26. ^{^}

     Israel was founded in May 1948. India and Pakistan split in August 1947, which led to the massacres of hundreds of thousands of people, and the mass migration of millions of Muslims from India to Pakistan and millions of Hindus from Pakistan to India.

27. ^{^}

     Ask WW2 Britain, which could have easily defeated Nazi Germany if it hadn’t handed over the Sudetenland without a fight.

28. ^{^}

     They currently control about 10 percent of the Knesset, but this is likely an underestimate.

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