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  • 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War
  • Matthew Hughes
1948: The First Arab-Israeli War. By Benny Morris. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 524. $32.50.

About a third of the way into Benny Morris’s new study of the first Arab-Israeli war, he describes a small battle west of Jerusalem at the village of al-Qastel in April 1948. ‘Abd al-Qadir al Husayni – one of the best irregular leaders on the Arab side – watched as his men attacked positions in the village held by soldiers from the Haganah, the Jewish defense organization that would become the Israeli army on the founding of Israel in May 1948. It was a fierce battle. The Haganah soldiers fought off the Arabs and ‘Abd al-Qadir lost control of his men in the fog of war (both metaphorically and literally as it was a foggy day). The following morning, just before dawn, ‘Abd al-Qadir with several aides went to investigate. On approaching the village, one of the Haganah men hailed the party in colloquial Arabic slang in common use: ‘Up here boys.’ ‘Abd al-Qadir replied in English: ‘Hello boys.’ Sensing something was amiss with the stranger’s English accent, the Haganah sentry fired on the party and killed ‘Abd al-Qadir. The effect was electric. Convoys of Palestinians came from as far afield as Hebron and Nablus on buses, trucks and donkeys to retrieve the body of their fallen leader, and they renewed the assault ‘like madmen.’ Under sustained pressure, the Haganah men fled from al-Qastel, leaving their dead and wounded behind; some Haganah men committed suicide rather than fall into enemy hands. After the battle, the Arab victors hunted for and found the body of their hero, ‘Abd al-Qadir, which was taken to Jerusalem and buried in the Haram ash-Sharif (Temple Mount) following an eleven-gun salute and a funeral procession headed by the Arab notables of the city. The Zionists, meanwhile, counter-attacked at al-Qastel, only to find the village empty, save for the dead. With ‘Abd al-Qadir dead, local resistance to the Israelis crumbled.

The al-Qastel incident is telling in so many ways: battles in the first Arab-Israeli war were small and brief, those fighting feared capture, emotions ran high (as did the courage of those doing the fighting) and much of the fighting was done by irregular, militia-style forces. Above all, the battle for al-Qastel showed how illogical and lacking was the Arab side when it came to the war. What was ‘Abd al-Qadir, the senior commander, doing wandering around the battlefield? Why didn’t he send a subaltern? Why had Arab command and control broken down? Why was ‘Abd al-Qadir walking point as he came on the enemy considering that he had with him several aides? Having won the battle at some cost, why did the Arabs then leave the field of battle for the enemy to re-occupy without firing a shot? Finally, why did local Arab resistance rely so heavily on the talents of one man?

The answer is to be found in Benny Morris’s readable and complete study: the Arabs had not prepared for war and were found wanting when they came up against primed Zionist opposition. While Morris outlines the desperate fighting and casualties of the Israelis, his narrative is of a David versus Goliath struggle, in which the Arabs and not the Israelis were the David.

Another incident described farther on in the book neatly illustrates the imbalance in military effectiveness: the battles for the hilltop monastery and police station of Latrun that overlooked the road into Jerusalem from Jaffa/Tel Aviv. Held by Jordanian forces of [End Page 978] the Arab Legion, the Israelis repeatedly battered themselves against this position, failing each time, at great cost and suffering to their own men, to capture it. The Jordanians held firm and the tactical brilliance of their legionnaires supported by firepower from their (British-supplied) 25-pounder guns smashed up each Israeli attack. The Arab Legion, some 6,000-strong and trained...

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