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Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1880-1999, by Benny Morris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. xiv + 669 pages. Notes to p. 710. Sel. bibl. to p. 725. Index to p. 751. $40.
This is an encyclopedic account of Arab-Jewish relations from the early Islamic era to the election of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in May 1999, focusing on the past century in Palestine/Israel. The author, commonly regarded as one of Israel's "new historians" because of his work on Israel's role in the Arab refugee problem, has also written accounts of Israel's intelligence services and border wars with Arab neighbors.
An introductory chapter covers past Islamic relations with the Jews, Palestine's geography, the origins and early history of Zionism, Arab nationalism, and Ottoman administration. The subsequent dozen chapters are a detailed account of conflict between the two national movements, with special emphasis on the half-dozen ArabIsraeli wars and numerous other military and quasi-military confrontations, such as the intifada. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to a blow-by-blow record of these altercations, with detailed descriptions of battle plans and troop dispositions, as well as enumeration of tanks, planes, casualties, and other data that contribute...