Description: The seminal and authoritative account of how Israel became a state, written by prominent Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe
Brief description: Ilan Pappé is professor of history at the University of Exeter. A veteran of the Yom Kippur War and two time Knesset candidate, Pappé left Israel in 2007 after his endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel led to calls for him to resign from his post at the University of Haifa. He remains one of Israel's most prominent and outspoken anti-Zionist academics. His previous books include The Modern Middle East (2005), Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War against the Palestinians (with Noam Chomsky, 2010) and The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (2011).
Review Quotes:
"Ilan Pappé's research and publications are invaluable resources for anyone seeking to understand what is still happening in occupied Palestine ... [This book is] worthy of consideration for inclusion on anyone's bookshelf." --Muslim World Book Review
"[A]ny one looking for an authoritative account of 1948... should go straight to this book." --Yezi Sayigh, Middle East International "Pappé has added significantly to our understanding of a formative period in the making of the Arab-Israeli conflict" --Avi Shlaim, London Review of Books "This is an important book and especially relevant to the current process of Arab Israeli negotiations" --Leonard Goren, International Affairs "The value of Pappe's work lies not only in his well-documented rebutall of much traditional Israeli, and Arab, historiography, but also in his contribution to our understanding of how international efforts to resolve conflicts can fail, because of the politics of international power struggles in bodies like the United Nations, its committees and commissions." --Rosemary Hollis, Asian Affairs "The argument presented by Pappe is as simple as it is powerful." --Ilan Peleg, International Journal of Middle East Studies "Pappe makes a special effort to provide an objective account of what happened in those crucial years. The period has been painstakingly researched and the arguments of the conflicting sides are presented in the way that they would have argued them themselves [...] This is an important book" --Leonard Geron, International Affairs "Ilan Pappe manages to confer considerable freshness and topicality on this seemingly exhausted topic." --Nissim Rejwan, The Jerusalem Post Magazine