reed writes

Benny Morris, a professor at Ben Gurion University, is an Israeli historian and scholar. This month will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of the Israeli state and Morris marks it with a new book called 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War That was the year of Israel’s birth.

It’s a definitive and heavily documented account of the circumstances around Israel’s "War of Independence", something that Palestinians refer to as "Al Nakba" or "The Catastrophe".

The book is a detailed look at a historic event that has been mythologised by those who wish that Israel had been born only in purity and beauty. The hard facts are that the country was born out of a bitter and cruel war, which Morris strongly implies accounts for the continuing violent resistance by Palestinian Arabs 60 years on.

Morris documents massacres of defenceless or lightly-armed Arabs and pulls no punches when it comes to demolishing the myth that  European Jews had come to "a land without people for a people without land". Following the defeat of the Arabs, there was a truce, during which Israeli soldiers carried out what was euphemistically called Operation Cleaning. On one occasion, an Israeli patrol discovered that a large group of Arabs had returned home to their village, to tend their animals and harvest their crops. The soldiers killed the Arab civilians and burned their homes. In all, approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes or were forcibly expelled during and after the fighting. Most of them – their children and grand-children remain refugees today.

Professor Morris is not optimistic about the future. Near the close of the book he says this: “Whether 1948 was a passing fancy or has permanently etched the region remains to be seen”.

It’s clear from the book however, that the war, which resulted in the formation of a European-style state in The Middle East is not over yet. The echoes can be heard in every Muslim State in the region. As Aaron Miller, a former senior U.S. government official puts it…”In a hopelessly divided and largely dysfunctional Arab world, no single issue still resonates everywhere more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is the fact that it was written by an Israeli, proving one thing beyond any doubt: authors, critics, politicians and scholars in Israel can be far more blunt, realistic and critical than their counterparts on the outside.

I give this book Five Stars.

Other writings by Professor Morris

The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949

There are some bargains in this list of books by Proffesor Morris

In his new book, "Human Smoke", Nicholson Baker taps into letters, diaries, conversations and newspaper clippings to paint a portrait of war as the ultimate human calamity.

Its extraordinariness is in its ordinariness; its lack of pretense, so common amongst mainstream historians and pundits.

In plain-spoken, straight-forward language, Baker paints a portrait of power-mongering political leaders that is unequaled by anything on today’s bookshelves.

I know this is fulsome praise, but when it comes to books, which give the reader a sense of "being there", Human Smoke is unparalleled.

Here’s a short excerpt:

"Ezra Kraus, a botanist from the University of Chicago, had an idea for how to win the war with japan. It was December 18th, 1941.

Spraying rice fields with toxic levels of growth hormones, Kraus thought, "would be a feasible and comparatively simple means of destruction of rice crops, the staple food of the Japanese."

  Krause’s work led him to experiment with two synthetic hormones – 2,4-D   and 2,4,5 -T – components of a defoliant that would later come to be called Agent Orange".

Baker reveals facts that many of us have either forgotten or have treated with a sense of denial. He shows us the anti-Semitism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the cynical warmongering of Winston Churchill. He also shows us the pathetic reality of pseudo men like Himmler, Goebbels and Hitler.

Most of all, he gives the reader a deep and abiding insight into the true madness of war.

His finished work is a source of light in a darkening world.

I refuse to be caught up in the details of history and prefer to dwell on the truths that are revealed. In some ways, we have been continuing on the path of the autocrats, the dictators and the warmongers. The wish to impose our will on others and bring them to emulate our philosophy and way of life seems overwhelming.

The truth that Baker underlines so effectively and so clearly, leads me to a tentative grasp of the repetition of patterns that were set in those years following WW1 and including WW2. We have had cleverly managed coups, like the one in 2002, when George W. Bush used the U.S, Supreme Court to gain power.

We have seen the horrors of Vietnam.

And also, we have seen the militaristic overthrow of democracies in Latin America and the Middle East and many others over the decades.

The immutable truth is that in all of these instances, military power has never worked for ordinary people. It has only worked for those who derive profit and enjoyment from the practice of war and the violence and destruction that attends it.   

Baker shows that leaders who win wars, win them by slaughtering innocents. He shows too that leaders who lose wars, lose them by slaughtering innocents.

You can order Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization from Amazon by clicking on the title.

"There’s no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel’s right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," - Former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter.

”In a hopelessly divided and largely dysfunctional Arab world, no single issue still resonates everywhere more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
-Aaron Miller, former senior State Department negotiator. 

Maybe There Is A Way Out

Most of the books about The Middle East – those published in America at least, are brimful of hackneyed phrases and irrelevant detail about all the mistakes that have been made in the past They tell about how the Palestinians are always "missing opportunities" and praise the "painful concessions" Israel has offered.

Few if any – other than those by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter – offer a realistic picture of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Carter has been labelled an anti-Semite for his efforts. In fact that label is applied to most people who criticise Israeli policy or question how that country behaves.

James Baker III, George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State is disliked by many pro-Israel North Americans, because of his hard-nosed approach to negotiations in the past. Baker developed a reputation for not caving in to the usual American sentimentality around issues concerning Israel. Like Carter, Baker was always a realist.

The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron Miller.

Now, an American expert on the subject has come along, who happens to be Jewish and who has picked up that ball of realism. He takes a tougher and more rational stance than any American politician – other than Carter and Baker – ever has. But if the pro-Israeli lobby dislikes his work enough he will also be labeled – but not as anti-Semitic, since, after all, he is Jewish; Jews who are out of favour with the pro-Israel lobby are sometimes called "Self-Haters"…a category the famed American linguist Noam Chomsky finds himself in.

The name of this new realist is Aaron Miller – an American with impeccable credentials and close Republican ties. He is someone who knows and understands the background of Mideast politics better than most. Mr. Miller has been a senior advisor to 6 U.S.

Secretaries of State, including both Republicans and Democrats. He was president of "Seeds for Peace", a non-profit organization dedicated to finding solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He’s highly respected in the highest circles.

So Mr. Miller’s book is a refreshing change of approach. He tosses out many of the myths American politicians have about Israel. He argues that George W. Bush will be no more successful at bringing peace, than were previous U.S. Presidents. The problem, Miller points out, is they have mostly approached the problem in the same way, have offered nothing new and invariably portray Israel as "the good guy". He says, for example, that "the United States has given Israel too much leeway and failed to push it to live up to commitments and make painful choices".

This is, of course, the central problem with the vast majority of North American writing about Palestinians and Israelis. Americans and Canadians have a great deal more sympathy for Israel because our populations in both countries are almost always pro-Israel; they are also well-informed and keen participants in our democratic institutions; their electoral support is important to any political candidate’s chances of success. That means accepting just about everything that Israeli authorities say and do, even if it’s patently wrong.

Mr. Miller says that what Israel needs is a strong dose of "tough love" and American officials must resist American partisan pressure to give in always to Israeli demands.

Here is his advice for the next American president contemplating Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy: “If you’re not prepared to reassure the locals (ordinary Israelis and Palestinians), while cracking heads as needed (and both will be needed), don’t bother.”

You can order The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron Miller from Amazon by clicking on the title.