This page intentionally left blank The War for Palestine Rewriting the History of 1948 The 1948 War led to the creation of the state of Israel, the fragmentation of Palestine, and to a conflict which has raged across the intervening sixty years. The historical debate also continues, and these debates are encapsulated in the essays contained in a second edition of The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, updated to include chapters on Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. In a preface to the new edition, the editors survey the state of scholarship in this contested field. The fragmentation of the Israeli “new historians” and the continued unwillingness of Arab societies to engage critically with their own past constrain the field, while new research opportunities are opened through private papers and oral history. The impact of these debates goes well beyond academia. There is an important link between the state of Arab–Israeli relations and popular attitudes toward the past. A more complex and fair-minded understanding of that past is essential for preserving at least the prospect of reconciliation between Arabs and Israel in the future. The rewriting of the history of 1948 thus remains a practical as well as an academic imperative.  . is University Lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East and a Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is the author of Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire (1999) and editor of Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East (2002). He is editor of The Contemporary Middle East series published by Cambridge.   is Professor of International Relations and a Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He was a British Academy Research Professor in 2003–6 and he was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2006. His previous publications include War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History(1995) and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000). His biography of King Hussein of Jordan will be published in 2007. Cambridge Middle East Studies 15 Editorial Board Charles Tripp (general editor) Julia Clancy-Smith, F. Gregory Gause, Yezid Sayigh, AviShlaim, JudithTucker Cambridge Middle East Studieshas been established to publish books on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East and North Africa. The aim of the series is to provide new and original interpretations of aspects of Middle Eastern societies and their histories. To achieve disciplinary diversity, books will be solicited from authors writing in a wide range of fields including history, sociology, anthropology, political science and political economy. The emphasis will be on producing books offering an original approach along theoretical and empirical lines. The series is intended for students and academics, but the more accessible and wide-ranging studies will also appeal to the interested general reader. A list of books in the series can be found after the index The War for Palestine Rewriting the History of 1948 SECOND EDITION Edited by Eugene L. Rogan University of Oxford and Avi Shlaim University of Oxford CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521875981 © Cambridge University Press 2001, 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-511-37135-6 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-10 0-511-37135-7 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-87598-1 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-87598-6 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Notes on contributors vii Chronology ix List of abbreviations xi Maps xiii Preface to the second edition xvii Introduction 1 1 The Palestinians and 1948: the underlying causes of failure 12   2 Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948 37   3 The Druze and the birth of Israel 60   4 Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948 79   5 Jordan and 1948: the persistence of an official history 104  .  6 Iraq and the 1948 War: mirror of Iraq’s disorder 125   7 Egypt and the 1948 War: internal conflict and regional ambition 150  .  8 Syria and the Palestine War: fighting King (cid:2)Abdullah’s “Greater Syria Plan” 176   v vi Contents 9 Collusion across the Litani? Lebanon and the 1948 War 204   10 Saudi Arabia and the 1948 Palestine War: beyond official history 228  - 11 Afterword: the consequences of 1948 248  .  Bibliography 262 Index 272 Contributors  .  holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in international affairs and Middle East Studies at Sarah Lawrence College.   is Reader in History at Brunel University.   is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.   is Co-Director of the Centre for Peace Studies and Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma.   is Professor of Middle East History at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.   is an Assistant Professor at McGill University. She holds a joint position in the Department of History and the Institute for Islamic Studies.  - is Professor of Social Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Religious Studies, King’s College London.   is a Fellow of St. Antony’s College and lectures in the modern history of the Middle East at the University of Oxford. The late  .  was University Professor at Columbia University.   is a Fellow of St. Antony’s College and Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford.   is Professor in Politics with reference to the Near and Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. vii