1948: The First Arab-Israeli War Benny Morris Yale University Press 2008 544 Pages $32.50 ISBN: 978-0300151121

All of Benny Morris’ books have made significant contributions to our understanding of the Middle East. This book is his best yet. 1948 is brilliantly conceived, brilliantly written, brilliantly expressive. Morris writes an exciting narrative. On the one hand he explains the events of the 1948 war that created Israel. On the other hand he debunks and demystifies some of the greatest myths of the 1948 war. He explains and puts into context without diminishing the magnitude and the impact of 1948. For instance, Morris points out that in 1948, at the time immediately leading up to the War, there were only 650,000 Jews in Palestine to fight 40 million Arabs. And then he explains that while small in number other factors were on the side of these Jewish fighters. They had well led chains of command, they had the home court advantage, and they were driven by the need for victory. Losing the 1949 War was tantamount to death. The reality is that by winning the first Arab-Israeli war Israel transformed the entire Arab world. And as Morris observes, “The war was a humiliation from which that world has yet to recover.”