This post-Zionist drivel will confirm the delusions of lefties and arabists who don't want to learn anything about the actual history.

Study the author for insights into the masochistic omnipotence that plagues Jewish leftists and gives so much encouragement to those who want to destroy Israel.

This post-Zionist drivel will confirm the delusions of lefties and arabists who don't want to learn anything about the actual history.

Study the author for insights into the masochistic omnipotence that plagues Jewish leftists and gives so much encouragement to those who want to destroy Israel.

As one would expect from a radical revisionist historian Shlaim has reputation to make by subverting the orthodox. Many of his observations are detailed and interesting - and purport to show how many opportunities Israel has missed to negotiate with its neighbours. Since the author was present in 1967, and plainly has an intimate familiarity with his source documents - his writing naturally therefore seems authoritative.
Nevertheless, I had a constant sense of hearing only half the narrative whilst reading the book. As though his determination to revise the history he was determined to change had blinkered him to the realities of the amply documented Arab intent to utterly annihilate Israel, in 67 particularly.

His leading participation in the 2005 Oxford Union debate 'Is Zionism today the real enemy of the Jews?' marks him out as a vocal and active anti-Zionist - and therefore hardly well qualified to write an objective history.

The appraisal is fair.
The Author was not fooling with the Lavon affair. He decided, with more discretion and valor, to attribute it all to Ben-Gurion's machinations.

The hawkish branch of the Israeli leadership has always had to compensate for its political defeat at home through finding the deficiencies of others as cover up.
Ben-Gurion believed that his superficial knowledge of Egypt in general, and of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular would lend him credence to any action he took to convince `The West' that terrorism works were being masterminded by the fundamentalist Muslims against the Jews and Christian minorities.

Greater only than his aversion to the Palestinians was Ben-Gurion aversion to Nasser who was a newcomer junior lieutenant and represented the reforming tendencies in Egypt and the Arab world. Ben-Gurion was afraid of those reforming tendencies lest Egypt would be `extravagantly' feted so much for her magnificent influence, which seemed a reassuring symbol of her leadership.
When Sharett refused him permission to resort to force, etiquette did not give way to the natural quality of that oriental Jew whose expression so often succeed to endear him to the Arabs. Egyptian Jewish minorities were the unfortunate victims of Ben-Gurion's political intransigence and military adventurism, and the Lavon affair was its apex.

In his mid thirties the tall and heavily built Nasser, with `oval' face, protruded lower jaws, a `fellah' haircut shaved so close to the scalp it made him look older. His expression was serious and gave the misleading impression he was uncompromising. Nasser was equally aware of his political inexperience but proud of Egypt as a cohesive nation always ready to assume the leadership role of the Arabs.
To Nasser no tragedy could be greater than military defeat between the `great and proud' Egypt and the `tiny' Israel. When the reformist Nasser spoke of Israel he was speaking more from instinct than from reason, whereas the expansionist Ben-Gurion had more reason for being intransigent.

Ben-Gurion must have been vindicated when King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated. His demise was indeed the beginning of the end of moderation.
Hosni el Zaeem of Syria (1949), King Abdullah of Jordan (1951), Naguib and Nasser of Egypt (1953-1955) all advocated moderation and sought `settlement' of the Arab-Israeli debacle, whereas the Hawkish Leadership in Israel was only looking for `solutions' - Temporary solutions!!

Perhaps the most moderate era was the one during the Egyptian Royal Court. King Farouk regarded `his' defeat in 1948 as a personal insult. His caustic manner and tendency to bad temper and impolite language began when his overtures to find a viable `settlement' with the Israelis was also declined. Farouk was no more pleased to the new `neighbor' than his colleagues (and Israel) were to have him as the Arab Leader.

The cult of arrogance practiced by the Israeli leadership after its short-term military successes affected, in the long run, no one painfully than itself.
Israel, though admittedly intelligent and hard working, is described by its neighbors as rude, tactless, disputatious and given to domineering and expansionist manners.
But once divinity of Israel's doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith. The impression they transpired to everyone is one of uncertainties and emotions, tormented by indecisiveness whenever a decision for `peaceful settlement' was required.

On the other hand, aggravated by their bitterness and despair - not a pleasing prospect for a vigorous Arab world with an appetite for `a fair settlement' and whose excessive passions for progress had caused one regime to be deposed and another to take its place, the Arabs continue to give the false impression of intransigence, for uncompromising Israel to look moderate.

Pity that little thought is given to what wars did to the minds and to the national psyche of all the peoples living in this beautiful and fruitful part of the world.

This book contains correct information presented from a viewpoint that may undermine rather than contribute to real efforts for a piece in the Middle East.

This book contains correct information presented from a viewpoint that may undermine rather than contribute to real efforts for a piece in the Middle East.

Avi Shlaim is a rare authority of the kind who honestly portrays the truth. He meticulously unravelled the knots in history and came out with the true events that shaped Israel and its relation towards Arabs since 1948. He deconstructed the history by analyzing many documents and showed how the and why the Israeli leaders behaved and reacted to scenarios, how was their interrelation, how they perceived the security facts and what was their relation to the military commanders. I was looking for this kind of book for long and finally found it in Tanya Reinhert's book (see my review on this book). He showed that how true is Kissinger's aphorism about Israel is true: "Israel has no foreign policy, it has only domestic politics." It was so true. Although he showed that USA has rather balanced policy toward Israel, at least till the 1990s, but from a lay person's perspective thats hardly the case. How come Israel has so many F16s and Pakistan had to burgain for years to buy F16s ! Anyway this book was very educative for me, it helped me to learn objectively about the Arab-Israel conflict, and thus to counter the stereotypes of many of my Egyptian friends, for example.

While the pro-zionist lobby (I know them well, being a Sabra) will attempt to shred any book that doesn't present Israel as an angel and the Arab world as devils, this is a fair book and will fill a good chunk of the white space in anyone's knowledge of the region. The author attempts to explain how one founding principle determined the behavior of Israel's dominant leaders over the decades, and he succeeds. The author's conclusion is that Jabotinsky had a workable and realistic theory (build the figurative iron wall, then negotiate for peace), but that many of Israel's leaders did not have the qualities necessary to complete the second part of that theory. The author does a good job of examining these leaders, delving into what made them tick and how that affected policy. Rabin was one leader who might have made Jabotinsky's theory work, as the author shows, but he did not survive the Jewish right wing.

Avi Shlaim has done an outstanding job of presenting the brief history of Zionism and the formation of the State of Israel. Although he tends to editorialize his own perception of history, Dr. Shlaim, nevertheless, remains true to the facts.

The subtext of this book is that Israel is an imperial power that has historically orchestrated its foreign and domestic policies to subjugate the Arab 'nations' on its borders. If one agrees with this thesis uncritically then the book will be a satisfying self-indulgent read. However, to be fair, even you dismiss this oversimplified analysis, the book is still worth reading to gather an insight into revisionist thinking.

For me at least, the thesis above is the fundamental fault running through the text. Each twist and turn in the tale of modern Israel, from the early Zionists onwards, is nuanced by its alleged negative impact on the surrounding Arab populations. The text never gets to grip with the profound cultural and intellectual gap between the indigenous hodge podge of Arab village cultures and the organised civil government model promoted by the Zionists and early kibbutzim. The unpalatable reality, as the late Moshe Dayan pointed out, was that the threat to settlers from the Arab populations was much greater than any threat they posed. Under the Ottomans, Arab cultures had stagnated from the Gulf to Palestine and beyond. Civil oppression, corruption, slavery and judicial practices hardly worthy of the that name were endemic in the regions controlled by Arab rulers. Consequently, is it any wonder that the Arabs were resistant to forms of representation and dialogue that were extinct for centuries in their own region? Nowhere in this text is the point made that from the outset the settlers, and later Israeli leaders, were dealing with regimes that were fundamentally opposed to the intellectual culture and political institutions inherent in Judaic life and history. There is a nontrivial point in appreciating the tensions, violence and indeed occassional excesses, the confrontations that have dogged Israel's attempt to establish itself.

There is indeed a mountain of scholarship in this book, but historiograpy is neither neutral nor value free. In my opinion, the text tends to divide the cast in the Middle East too conveniently into white hats, the Arab regimes, and black hats, the Israeli political establishment. It goes without saying that such texts will evoke passions and partisanship in colourful measures. Benny Morris, in Righteous Victims (also available on Amazon) raised a point that readers of Shlaim should ponder upon. When he, Morris,was assembling his materials and sources, he was struck by the cornucopia of material available from the Israelis but the paucity available from Arab sources. Now I ask you, on which side does the Iron Wall really exist?

Shlaim tries to tell the truth about the conflict that is being inflicted in Palestine and the Isralei territories. He identifies the faults in Israel's policies and points out Israel's stubborness at achieving peace. He enlightens readers and angers Zionists, who are self-deluded by a belief that there cause is just. He uncovers the horrorific circumstances inflicted on Palestinians, some which match that of South Africa's former Apartheid. Shlaim has the courage and strength to produce the truth in a conflict that is riddled with so many lies.

Avi Shlaim is in the school of what are called "The New Historians" on the Arab-Israeli conflict, along with Benny Morris who broke new ground in historical analysis with the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. This text by Shlaim is a great single volume overview of the history of the conflict, from 1948 and the war of independence leading all the way up to 1999. The thesis of his book is that the Zionist movement eventually adopted the political philosophy of Ze'ev Jabotinksy with his ideas on revisionist Zionism, his argument being that the Zionists must build up and Iron Wall in the Middle East to create the State of Israel, with the intention of allowing the Arabs in after they give up the fight. Essentially it's an ideology that breaks down as: the best defense is a good offense. And Shlaim makes a compelling case in his book, doing so as objectively as he can. He traces the origins of the first Arab war, the Suez War, the June 1967 war, the Yom Kippur war, and so on, leading up to the collision with the Palestinians and the still going occupation. The flaw in this text is that while Shlaim is able to draw on a wealth of primary Israeli sources (providing an excellent bibliography), he is unable to reveal Arab planning as he cites very few Arab sources. I don't pretend to know the truth about this conflict; there probably will not be an objective account on this for another 100 years for all I know. However, I think Shlaim is done an excellent job reviewing Israel's history and political policies in the Arab world, and anyone who is new to this topic should start here.

Some reviews of Shlaim's "Iron Wall" suggest incorrectly that it explains the roots of Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine. In fact the book offers only a 27-page "prologue," insightful and well written but largely based on secondary and tertiary sources and far too limited in scope. So far the best work on this topic remains the somewhat formal and pedantic first 129 pages of Kimmerling's and Migdal's "Palestinian People." Shlaim's book provides notably concise summaries, so effective that the first one or two pages of each chapter provide enough information for a first reading of the book.

Let me start by advising that this is a dry book to read, so it is not for the average reader of narrative history. But its meticulous scholarship makes it an indispensable book about affairs in the Middle East.

People sometimes use the phrase "meticulous scholarship" to send up a warning flag that you had better not argue with what follows. But that is not so here. This book represents genuine scholarship, serving neither the purpose of public relations for Israel nor an attack upon it.

After offering some background on the origins of Zionism, Mr. Shlaim's theme is a review of the first half-century of Israeli policy. The title, an expression coined by an early Zionist, aptly sums up the thrust of that policy.

The author goes where scholarship leads, and he does not flinch from including less-than-heroic episodes that many contemporary books and news sources ignore.

Of course, in some matters of extreme sensitivity, there are still no adequate official documents available to scholars. In such cases, Mr. Schlaim tells us what he knows and goes no farther, leaving us with full confidence in his integrity.

I do not see how anyone can consider him- or herself well-informed on the Middle East without having read this book. It truly is that important.

If you want a biased and misleading account of the Arab war against Israel, this ought to satisfy you.

Shlaim tells us that Jabotinsky, in discussing Zionism explained that "if the cause is just, justice must triumph."

I think Jabotinsky made a very good point here. You see, human beings will, if given the chance, tend to buy land in the places they wish to live in. The ones who can make best use of the land and wish to do so will be the high bidders for the land. If injustice consists of stealing that land from them and justice consists of letting them buy the land and keep it (which they will wish to do if they are offered only low prices for it), then it is easy to see what the triumph of justice would mean here. In particular, it would mean a prosperous Israel and a triumph for Zionism.

Shlaim appears to have missed all this. To him, Zionism is unjust. And to him, the triumph of terror and theft is both forthcoming and desirable. He tells us that a new independent Levantine Arab state "is inevitable." I disagree. It may be likely. But it would serve no purpose. It would not help Jews, Arabs, or others. Its only purpose would be to damage Israel. The people of such a state do not as yet have an independent language, religion, culture, cuisine, or foreign policy. So I think there is still hope that sanity may prevail here.

Shlaim also tells us that this new Arab state will be "weak, demilitarized, and territorially divided." Is it just possible that this, if true, provides even more reasons why neither side might want to create it at all? And could that make the appearance of this state even less inevitable? Or at least less desirable?

And the author also explains that both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict will have to make "painful compromises," and that Jerusalem will have to be "the subject of hard bargaining."

Really?

Is having peace and prosperity with reasonable borders a painful compromise? For either side? Of course not. Shlaim is kidding us if he expects us to believe that war, poverty, and destruction are somehow less painful.

Had Shlaim been writing about France and Germany, we'd have seen at once that the whole viewpoint is nonsense. He'd have been telling us that the German National Socialists needed an independent state in France, either to replace all of France or part of it. He would have laughingly dismissed French claims on the basis of the entire idea of France being unjust! He'd have sternly explained that a German National Socialist state in France was both desirable and inevitable. And he would have discussed the necessary "painful compromises" for both sides and the "hard bargaining" about Paris.

There are plenty of reasonable books about the Arab war against Israel. This isn't one of them.

In this excellent book, Shlaim brought up to the spotlight what has been one of the most confusing, disputed history of any country of the world, that of Israel.
The State of Israel was born officially in 1948, but its modern ideological seeds grew out of mid-late century European zionism amid the rising anti-semitism of western Europe in the same period. Shlaim relates that a Zionist Congress convened in Viennna in the early 1900s to analyze a report of a fact-finding mission in the land of Palestine by two organization members. "The bride is beautiful," the envoyers stated, "but is taken."
This admission is crucial to understand the logic of the Iron Wall as championed by leading Zionist Ze'ev Javotinsky. Pretty much every Zionist acknowledged that Jews were not the majority in British-occupied Palestine, thus they had to broker a deal that would leave them in charge and in power to submit the natives against their will into accepting a Jewish state in their land.
What's stunning, as Schlaim writes, is that the Zionists knew what they were doing was indisputably inmoral, if not criminal, so Jabotinsky argued to his comrades that regardless of the inmoral implications of displacing the local population of their land, it was the prospect of a Jewish what was at stake all along in the end.
Unsurprisingly, the spate of immigrants arriving into Palestine after the 1917 Balfour declaration gave the tacit go ahead to the Zionists about their Jewish state in historical Palestine did not sit well with the local Arabs, who rightly feared the new wave of immigration as a effort to take their lands and to create an outpost for imperialism against Arab self-determination and rising nationalism. Hence the seeds of the 1948 war that saw the creation of a Jewish Nation and the displacement of millions of Arab Palestines into sour nation, land-less dispair.
Schlaim also asserts the Arab armies entering Palestine did not amount to an organized effort at crushing the Jewish state, as is often described in official Israel history. Rather, the different Arab armies had entered the war independent of the other, without even the slightest pretension of winning it or for that matter fighting it in behalf of their fellow Palestine Arabs. There were driven more by self-interest and by failure to ensure accommodation with the Zionists in the pre-war period than by altruistic motives of helping their Palestinian brethen retake their land.

Just read this fascinating book and find out the rest to this unusual account of the history of Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors,

I read this book at the end of 2001, when I was pretty ignorant of the details of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This book was a great introduction to the conflict. It provides just enough pre-1947 background to understand the framework in which the events since the 1947 establishment of Israel have unfolded. (If you're interested in a more detailed pre-1947 history, I suggest two books by Benny Morris: "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem", and "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict".) It also casts an appropriately critical eye on the actions of both Israel and Arab parties. No nationalistic rhetoric here.

The major criticism I've seen leveled at this book is also somewhat justified: it is more critical of the political realism behind Israeli policy and actions than it is of the Arab side. However, most of this criticism seems to come from fiercely Zionist parties who brook no criticism whatsoever of Israeli hawks.

My own feeling is that there is a bit too much of an underlying assumption in the book that blame needs to be laid somewhere; Shlaim generally comes down on the side of laying blame at the feet of Israeli leaders. It's not clear to me that the exercise of saying who's at fault will contribute at all to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The most important thing is to come to a detailed understanding of WHAT happened over the last half century, and WHY, without fingering a subset of the parties for blame. Fortunately, this book does help a lot in providing that understanding.

After reading about a quarter of this book you get the impression the Shlaim had access to notes from the principles for each day that passed from 1948 through this book's publication. I found the research extensive and its presentation fair. More fair than other books whose authors wish to blame one party or the other for the state of affairs in the Middle East. Shlaim points out there have been missed opportunities for peace on both sides. I don't think he blames one side more than the other (except for Netanyahu), but it is a new concept to hold Israel partially responsible for these events for the casual American reader of Middle Eastern events (of which I am one). (Immediately, after finishing this book I coincidentally read Mort Zuckerman's article on Israel in the Nov 3, 2003 US News and World Report, seek that out for a different view, one that points out what others might say Shlaim left out of his book).
I've yet to find a historian not accused of bias, especially with regard to such a heated and contemporary topic as Israel and its Arab neighbors. I've seen Shlaim accused of the same. The point being, if you're trying to understand the Middle East, "The Iron Wall" would be a good book to add to your list. But seek out others as well, because no one author is ever going to own the truth.