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Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 By Benny Morris ( Vintage )
Release Date: 2001-08
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Product Description
At a time when the Middle East has come closer to achieving peace than ever before, eminent Israeli historian Benny Morris explodes the myths cherished by both sides to present an epic history of Zionist-Arab relations over the past 120 years.
Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but it also shattered Palestinian Arab society and gave rise to a massive refugee problem. Morris offers distinctive accounts of each of the subsequent Israeli-Arab wars and details the sporadic peace efforts in between, culminating in the peace process initiated by the Rabin Government. In a new afterword to the Vintage edition, he examines Ehud Barak’s leadership, the death of President Assad of Syria, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recent renewed conflict with the Palestinians. Studded with illuminating portraits of the major protagonists, Righteous Victims provides an authoritative record of the middle east and its continuing struggle toward peace.
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Amazon.com Review
Making sense of any particular episode in the long and convoluted conflict between Arabs and Israelis can seem a Sisyphean task--engineering peace in the Middle East has become nearly clichéd in its complexity, with each individual dispute traceable back to years of anger, mistrust, and mutual misunderstanding fueled by cycles of violence and revenge. To add to this confusion, the historical record has been colored by "emphatic partisanship by commentators and historians from both sides, as well as by foreign observers," adds Middle East historian Benny Morris. So what Morris has undertaken in this volume--an inclusive, dispassionate, and rigorous history of the conflict, from Zionism's birth in the wake of the Russian pogroms through to the uncertain prospects for peace in 1999--is no mean feat. A calm, balanced voice (although a controversial one among some who fear revisionism), Morris has previously proven his scholarship with such definitive titles as Israel's Border Wars and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Righteous Victims likewise doesn't waver in its task, methodically unearthing the political and military roots of the struggle, from early friction between Zionist "colonizers" and native Arabs slowly through to the establishment of Israel and the bloody wars and terrorism that followed. --Paul Hughes
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 An Excellent, Detailed History ( lightbearerusa )
An excellent, detailed history. After reading this book of 700 pages, I have compared it to Dershowitz, Finkelstein, Neumann and others, and have perceived this detailed account to be rather objective in this revisionist history in both sides of the issues where the conflict exists today. I found this book very helpful in understanding the early pre-state intentions and the 1948, 1967, attrition and 1973 wars. It would be hard to simply follow the status quo and deny the deplorable conditions of the Palestinians and Israeli treatment in human rights, economic, social and cultural controls, which includes the occupied territories, new settlements, appropriations of water and resources with its determined discriminations.
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An objective history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Benny Morris, the author of "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001," has been counted as one of the Israeli "revisionist" historians, that group of Israelis that have debunked some of the myths that have surrounded the birth of Israel. In an earlier book, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949," Morris examined one such myth: that Palestinian Arabs left the nascent Israeli state in 1948 of their own volition or under the direction of their own leaders. Although that occurred in a small number of instances, there were many more cases in which the Israeli army drove Arabs out at gunpoint. Such revelations have not endeared him to many of his countrymen. In "Righteous Victims," first published in 1999, Morris also describes many instances of Arab antisemitism, venality, and brutality directed against Jewish settlements in Palestine. He provides many fascinating details in the early years of the interaction of the Zionist organization in Europe, British and French colonial policy, and the moribund Ottoman empire. For example, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which Great Britain promised the Jews of Palestine a national homeland was seen to be a completely self serving act by Britain to further its own military-political aims in World War I. This nearly 700 page book, as its title indicates, covers the entire history of the conflict from the origins of the Zionist movement including the birth of Israel and all of the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars as well as political considerations and attempts by Arab and Israeli leaders at achieving peace. Objectivity is Morris's aim, and he achieves it quite well.
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 Broad, excellent overview, but will not please everyone ( theheavyreader )
Like every treatment of the Arab Israeli conflict, this book will not please everyone (or anyone?). The book is brisk. Fortunately, Morris has an even tone throughout and does not remain fixed on any one subject for too long. As anyone knows who has written on a broad topic, this is an exceptional accomplishment. Even at 600 plus pages, this book could have easily gotten bogged along the way on the wealth of detail about this well researched conflict. And this book shows that despite some of Morris' more inflammatory interviews recently, he can still present a work of historical research that is even handed and fair.
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Remarkable work of history ( karlm23 )
Benny Morris rose to the forefront of Israel's 'New Historians' in the 1980's with the publication of 'Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,' which provided radically new evidence which altered modern perceptions of the region forever. Morris retains his important findings in Righteous Victims and expands on them, covering virtually the entire history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I found the earlier chapters leading up to the creation of the State of Israel on the earliest Zionist settlers to be particularly interesting; Morris presents a picture which indicates that the current bloodshed is by no means a product of natural necessity. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine and subsequent military occupation is the cause. However, Morris becomes overly ideological in the concluding sections of the book, allowing his harsh realist politics to creep in. Nevertheless, this is arguably the most comprehensive single volume about the history of the conflict.
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Best overall history of the conflict in one tome ( oboogie2 )
I have read several works on the historical roots of the conflict, but this book is probably the best overall history in one work. Morris does pretty well at taking an even hand with his writing; although he probably could have shortened it by a couple hundred pages by leaving out some of the "breathless" play-by-play commentary of battle tactics in the various wars. Overall, it is well worth the time invested if you want a better understanding of the subject.
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