Ilan

This seminal text by renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, discusses one of the most significant periods in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Based on archival material, it presents the reader with a comprehensive and general history of the origins and consequences of the 1948 war.While among Arabs, and especially Palestinians, the events of that year are known as the nakba - the catastrophe, the trauma, the disaster - for Jews, and in particular for Israelis, their victory in the war of 1948 is a veritable miracle. For them, against tremendous odds and through heroic military effort, the Jewish community succeeded in thwarting attempts by the Arab states to destroy it.Pappe shows here that in sharp contrast to the recollections and myths of both sides, the military events of 1948 were not decisive. The victory of the Zionist organization and the fate of the Palestinians was determined by politicians on both sides - in the discussions and decisions of the United Nations in 1947-8 and in the

Tracing the history of Palestine from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century, through the British Mandate, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent wars and conflicts which have dominated this troubled region, Ilan Pappe's widely acclaimed A History of Modern Palestine provides a balanced and forthright overview of Palestine's complex history. Placing at its centre the voices of the men, women, children, peasants, workers, town-dwellers, Jews and Arabs of Palestine, who lived through these times, this tells a story of co-existence and co-operation, as well as oppression, occupation, and exile, exposing patterns of continuity as well as points of fracture. Now in an updated third edition, Pappe draws links between contemporary events, from war in Lebanon, violence in the Gaza Strip and the Arab Spring, with the long history of Palestine, taking into account the success of Israel without neglecting the on-going catastrophe suffered by Palestinians, leaving hop