How Israel Was Won: A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

by Thomas A. Baylis and Baylis Thomas

Book Overview

This is the only book you'll ever need in order to comprehend the complexities of the Middle East.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0739100645
• ISBN13: 9780739100646
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

emotional issue

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a highly polarizing, emotional issue. This is reflected in the highly polarized customer reviews of this book: clustered around one- and five-star reviews. The American public and the media are highly sympathetic to the Israelis--U.S. politicians are terrified to be on the wrong side--whereas the European public is more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. This polarization has been fueled by the Holocaust and 9/11, the latter monolithically casting all Muslims as anti-Semitic, anti-American terrorist thugs. These painful events color emotions despite their displacement in time and place from a conflict between the Zionists and Palestinians that began many decades before. It is a shame that a very good book recounting what historians (as opposed to the public) have said about this conflict has been mauled by personal identifications and sympathies--as though "unbalance" must be a feature of the book and not its readers. Serious academics have been impressed by this book. For example, the Association of College and Research Libraries (CHOICE) judged it to be an "outstanding academic work in the year 2000". The book does illustrate how an historically victimized people, the Jews, have, in their rising up, victimized another (not necessaril blameless) people, the Palestinians--perhaps analogous to how religiously persecuted Europeans, seeking liberation, victimized the resisting native Americans threatening to obstruct a providential colonization. No surprise; it is the way of the world. Virtually all modern states have the same history. This book, based on American and Israeli scholarship, simply tells how it was done, not whether it should have been done.

lively and accurate

As a student of this region, and particularly this conflict, I have read various takes on this conflict from a number of sources. This is easily the best so far. I'm afraid the attacks it's undergone at the hands of some reviewers are standard procedure for any source which acknowledges the Palestinians as group worthy of basic human rights- and Israel as a state denying them those. Unfortunately, these things are true to the ethical man. Please note that attacks levelled never contradict the factuality of the author's evaluation.As sources go, this one earns kudos for conveying the history with thought as well as representing the position of groups involved in the conflict and vital to the peace process who, nevertheless, are neglected in many accounts.I encourage anyone who desires a brief, but complete, picture of the conflict to pick this up.

How Israel Was Won - Baylis Thomas

A superb book. Hard to put it down. A real eye opener. I decided to become a political activist because of this book. I especially liked the quote of David Ben-Gurion in the book "When we say the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves-that is only half the truth...The fighting is only one aspect of the conflict which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves." page 307

Necessary Reading

I have just finished reading this extraordinary book. I marvel at its clarity and ability to coax the essentials out of the morass of material and anecdote to come up with this lively, spare and, as far as I can see, accurate history. Having lived through this history from the war years on, and been alternately fed too little or distorted reports, I am particularly grateful for the clear codification and perspective the work offers. It's a masterful job.

The truth concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Through Baylis Thomas' exhaustive research and clear, concise writing style, we learn, perhaps for the first time, the truth behind "How Israel Was Won." Most of us know only one side of the story, the side which corrupt and self-serving governments want us to know. Considering the highly complex events and political decisions surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict, events which Dr. Thomas has carefully corroborated in his notes, it is to his credit that the book reads like fiction from beginning to end. I found it revelatory.