The 1948 War and the Palestinian Exodus

Understanding the events of the 1948 war is essential to understanding today's conflict. The war led to the destruction of Palestinian society, the creation of the still-unresolved Palestinian refugee problem, and the establishment of the state of Israel. The following articles explore the 1948 war in detail, drawing heavily on the latest Israeli scholarship.

• Dominique Vidal, "The Expulsion of the Palestinians Re-Examined," Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1997
  "What lessons have the revisionist Israeli historians drawn from their diligent working-through of the archives? Their results contradict the generally-held picture of a weak and poorly armed Jewish community in Palestine threatened with extermination by a highly armed and united Arab world."
• Ilan Pappe, "Demons of the Nakbah," Al-Ahram Weekly Online, No. 586, May 16-22, 2002
  "The Nakbah had been so efficiently kept off the agenda of the peace process that when it suddenly appeared on it, the Israelis felt as if a Pandora's box had been opened. The worst fear of the Israeli negotiators was that there was a possibility that Israel's responsibility for the 1948 catastrophe would now become a negotiable issue."
• Simha Flapan, "The Palestinian Exodus of 1948," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4. (Summer, 1987), pp. 3-26
  "During the exodus, between 600,000 and 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were evicted or fled. Every effort was made -- from the razing of villages to the promulgation of laws -- to prevent their return. The magnitude of the flight took many Jewish leaders by surprise, but the flight itself was not entirely unexpected."
• Norman Finkelstein, "Myths, Old and New," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1991), pp. 66-89
  "Historian Benny Morris' study of the Palestinian refugee problem was near-universally acclaimed as a classic. But his central thesis -- that the Arab refugee problem was 'born of war, not by design' -- is belied by his own evidence, which shows that Palestine's Arabs were systematically expelled."
• Avi Shlaim, "The Debate About 1948," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3. (Aug., 1995), pp. 287-304
  "The traditional Zionist version of the first Arab-Israeli war is deeply flawed and needs to be radically revised in the light of the new information that is now available. To put it bluntly, this version is little more than the propaganda of the victors. It cuts to the very core of Israel's image of herself."