1949: The First Israelis

By Tom Segev. New York: The Free Press, 1986. 323 pps. $19.95 (cloth).

Reviewed by Arun Kapil

The histories of most nations, as understood on both the popular and official levels, are generally structured around a series of myths. Israel is no exception to this. Unlike other nations, however, important myths that Israelis hold concerning the events surrounding their early history are vehemently denied by another people—the Palestinians—who were the collective victims of that history. Arab and western scholars have attempted to set this historical record straight, with varying degrees of effectiveness.

Some of the more important scholarship in this area, however, has been by Israelis themselves. Tom Segev's outstanding book 1949: The First Israelis is only one of the more recent examples. Segev, who was a writer for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and is presently a co-editor of the left-of-center Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit, based his work almost exclusively on declassified official documents and other archival material in Israel. When originally published in Hebrew, 1949: The First Israelis no only shattered many entrenched myths held by Israelis about their past, it also created quite a stir on its way to becoming a best-seller.

As the title implies, the book focuses on the first full year of Israel's existence, when Israeli leaders turned their attention to consolidating the Jewish state and society. The book is divided into four parts: the relationship between Israelis and Arabs, efforts to increase and absorb new Jewish immigrants, the conflict between religious and secular Jews over the character of the state, and questions of identity and economic privation during the period.

The section on Israeli-Arab relations is especially important and brings to light new documentary evidence on both the 1948 Armistice negotiations and the massive displacement and removal of Palestinians from their homes and villages. The Israeli claim that the Arab states had been hell-bent on bringing about the destruction of the Jewish state from the very beginning is called into question as Segev recounts the often amicable atmosphere in which negotiations took place with the Egyptians in Rhodes, the good will of King Abdallah of Transjordan, and of offers by Syrian President Husni Al-Za'im to meet with Ben-Gurion and to settle Palestinian refugees in Syria. The Arab states are essentially portrayed as defeated powers trying to seek some restitution for the Palestinians and recoup some of their own position through negotiations. It is the Israelis, and Ben-Gurion in particular, who are depicted as the intransigent ones here, rejecting pressure from the US and refusing to adopt a more conciliatory posture toward the defeated Arab States.

The chapters on the dispossession of the Palestinians and the subsequent pillaging of their abandoned villages and property by the new settlers are particularly devastating. The Israeli contention that the Palestinians fled their homes on "orders" from the Arab regimes is once again revealed as a fabrication. Segev documents in considerable detail the debate among the Israeli leadership that resulted in the relatively easy decision to expel, by whatever means, the majority of Arab residents under their control and to prevent those who had already fled from returning to their villages. Lengthy descriptions are given of the removal of Arabs from Haifa, the destruction of Ikrit and Bir'em, and the massacre at Deir Yassin.

Segev discusses these events in a dispassionate, non-polemical manner. Apart from refuting some of the more widespread myths propagated in Israel regarding the Palestinians' dispossession, he depicts the period as an especially chaotic one, where the fledgling institutions of the Jewish state were barely formed and scarcely able to cope with the large numbers of destitute Jews arriving from Europe and the Arab world, not to mention the war and serious economic shortages. In such a situation, it could not come as a surprise that Jews would commit their share of excesses and crimes. Thus, ill-disciplined and sometimes frightened Jewish soldiers carried out numerous rapes, murders, and massacres of unarmed Arab villagers. Traumatized immigrants, hungry and living in squalid absorption centers, jumped at the chance to rob fleeing Arabs, loot their property, and take over their homes.

Segev is interested in setting the historical record straight for Israelis and bringing them to view the events surrounding the establishment of the state in a less romantic and idealistic manner. Much of Segev's narrative is already well-known, especially to the Palestinians who were the victims of the Zionist enterprise. What is important about 1949: The First Israelis is that it is by a mainstream Israeli writer, is based exclusively on original Israeli sources, and was originally written for an Israeli audience. The documentation it presents is irrefutable. It is a must-read for anyone with an interest in Israel, the Palestinians, and the history of the conflict in the region.

Arun Kapil is a graduate student in political science at the University of Chicago.