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A Senseless, Squalid War: Voices from Palestine 1945–1948
A Senseless, Squalid War makes a dramatic and original contribution to our understanding of one of the most deep-rooted and controversial international problems that continues to baffle and bedevil us to this day. The troubles in Palestine between the end of the Second World War and the declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948 ruptured Middle Eastern history and left an indelible mark on the modern world. Chronicling in gripping detail this critical period that led, for the Jews, to the establishment of their national homeland, and, for the Palestinians, to their Nakba—or "catastrophe"—this book gives powerful expression to all those who took part in these stirring Britons, Jews and Arabs alike. The book draws on a rich medley of official documents, private papers, biographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers, novels, songs, plays, and reminiscences. It vividly reconstructs the attitudes and experiences of the many diverse participants, be they foot-soldiers or generals, hawks or doves, politicians or diplomats, dissidents, terrorists, writers, teachers, or simply men and women on the street, each voice telling its own story, woven into a compelling historical narrative that shifts seamlessly from one level of experience to another.
278 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2009
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About the author
Norman Rose
25 books4 followersA distinguished historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Norman Rose is the Chair of International Relations at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 22, 2025
The narrative section makes this book flawed, but moderately interesting. The lazy, dishonest conclusion, however, drags it down from perhaps three stars to one (and even then, a single star is generous). Throughout, it is riddled with flawed arguments and half-truths, such as:
- The main discussion of the Peel Plan never mentions that it involved the compulsory expulsion of 200,000 Palestinians Arabs from the Jewish state (there is a vague allusion in a footnote much later, in the conclusion). The reader is left with the impression that it was a reasonable compromise, refused by Arabs only because of their intransigence.
- Rose criticizes Arabs for their "all-or-nothing demands" (conceding that they were "perhaps perfectly reasonable from their point of view) and lauds Zionist leaders for their readiness to accept "a reasonable compromise, if offered." The Palestinian Arabs were the native inhabitants of the land and were being "asked" (told) that they needed to vacate it, at least in part, to make way for European settlers. How exactly were they supposed to see the situation? What "compromise" are foreign colonists entitled to over someone else's home?
- Rose refers to the British government's post-WWII "callous immigration policy" of not opening the door to all Jewish refugees in Europe. He omits to mention that Zionists consistently worked to kill any proposal that would have allowed Displaced Persons to seek refuge in America or Britain, or to support them in remaining in Europe if they so chose. For the Yishuv's leadership, the only place these people should be allowed to go was Palestine.
Others praise this book for being fair and balanced. The reason is that they simply don't know enough of the history to place this work in context. The "fair and balanced" view for so many people is that Zionism was and is of course right and just, even if it must be admitted that extremists occasionally committed certain excesses against the Arabs, who are not bereft of legitimate grievances.
That is nonsense, and there is no more shameless example than Rose's breathtaking claim that "there is no convincing evidence of a Zionist plot to ethnically cleanse, or transfer, the Palestinians from their homeland." He argues that "the events of 1947-49 must be judged against the background of war ... a war waged to overturn the United Nations' decision to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states." He is right, but it is the Yishuv that looked to overturn that decision (whereas the Arab states entered the war only reluctantly at the last minute, with minimal planning). It is the Yishuv's leadership that explicitly stated (in private) that accepting partition was simply an interim step to the conquest of all of mandatory Palestine and perhaps beyond. And it is the Yishuv's leaders that, since the inception of Zionism (as far back as Herzl himself), had explicitly discussed and planned to expel the Palestinian Arab population so as to "make Palestine as Jewish as English is English," in Chaim Weizmann's phrase. For a real history of the Nakba, a popular recommendation is Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. I prefer Rosemary Esber's Under the Cover of War, which includes oral history. Either is a great start. Benny Morris' The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited is also excellent, as long as you remember to compare the actual evidence he presents of large-scale, deliberate ethnic cleansing with his conclusions that Arab flight was entirely unintentional and note that the latter do not flow from the former.
The clinching argument in this regard is that ethnic cleansing was a necessary condition to creating a viable Jewish state. Indeed, the Jewish state created by the UN would have had only a 55/45 Jewish majority that would have soon flipped (even with Jewish immigration) due to a vastly higher Arab birth rate. Rose's contention that Zionists intended to build a Jewish majority state through immigration and not expulsion is absurd. Such a thing was simply impossible.
For a conclusive exposé of Zionist intentions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, see Nur Masalha's masterpiece, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. See also his follow up, A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians, 1949–96. They make an irrefutable case that Zionist leaders knew perfectly well that expulsion was a basic requirement for the creation of their state. Their immediate and continued refusal to allow the return of the refugees, their ongoing expulsion of Palestinians post-1949, and the openly-announced plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza even as we speak can leave no doubt.
Finally, for a proper history of the end of the mandate period and a detailed discussion of the horrors of the Yishuv's terror campaign against the British and the Palestinians, see Thomas Suarez's outstanding work, Palestine Hijacked. It is far superior to this book, which deserves neither your time nor your money.
- The main discussion of the Peel Plan never mentions that it involved the compulsory expulsion of 200,000 Palestinians Arabs from the Jewish state (there is a vague allusion in a footnote much later, in the conclusion). The reader is left with the impression that it was a reasonable compromise, refused by Arabs only because of their intransigence.
- Rose criticizes Arabs for their "all-or-nothing demands" (conceding that they were "perhaps perfectly reasonable from their point of view) and lauds Zionist leaders for their readiness to accept "a reasonable compromise, if offered." The Palestinian Arabs were the native inhabitants of the land and were being "asked" (told) that they needed to vacate it, at least in part, to make way for European settlers. How exactly were they supposed to see the situation? What "compromise" are foreign colonists entitled to over someone else's home?
- Rose refers to the British government's post-WWII "callous immigration policy" of not opening the door to all Jewish refugees in Europe. He omits to mention that Zionists consistently worked to kill any proposal that would have allowed Displaced Persons to seek refuge in America or Britain, or to support them in remaining in Europe if they so chose. For the Yishuv's leadership, the only place these people should be allowed to go was Palestine.
Others praise this book for being fair and balanced. The reason is that they simply don't know enough of the history to place this work in context. The "fair and balanced" view for so many people is that Zionism was and is of course right and just, even if it must be admitted that extremists occasionally committed certain excesses against the Arabs, who are not bereft of legitimate grievances.
That is nonsense, and there is no more shameless example than Rose's breathtaking claim that "there is no convincing evidence of a Zionist plot to ethnically cleanse, or transfer, the Palestinians from their homeland." He argues that "the events of 1947-49 must be judged against the background of war ... a war waged to overturn the United Nations' decision to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states." He is right, but it is the Yishuv that looked to overturn that decision (whereas the Arab states entered the war only reluctantly at the last minute, with minimal planning). It is the Yishuv's leadership that explicitly stated (in private) that accepting partition was simply an interim step to the conquest of all of mandatory Palestine and perhaps beyond. And it is the Yishuv's leaders that, since the inception of Zionism (as far back as Herzl himself), had explicitly discussed and planned to expel the Palestinian Arab population so as to "make Palestine as Jewish as English is English," in Chaim Weizmann's phrase. For a real history of the Nakba, a popular recommendation is Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. I prefer Rosemary Esber's Under the Cover of War, which includes oral history. Either is a great start. Benny Morris' The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited is also excellent, as long as you remember to compare the actual evidence he presents of large-scale, deliberate ethnic cleansing with his conclusions that Arab flight was entirely unintentional and note that the latter do not flow from the former.
The clinching argument in this regard is that ethnic cleansing was a necessary condition to creating a viable Jewish state. Indeed, the Jewish state created by the UN would have had only a 55/45 Jewish majority that would have soon flipped (even with Jewish immigration) due to a vastly higher Arab birth rate. Rose's contention that Zionists intended to build a Jewish majority state through immigration and not expulsion is absurd. Such a thing was simply impossible.
For a conclusive exposé of Zionist intentions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, see Nur Masalha's masterpiece, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. See also his follow up, A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians, 1949–96. They make an irrefutable case that Zionist leaders knew perfectly well that expulsion was a basic requirement for the creation of their state. Their immediate and continued refusal to allow the return of the refugees, their ongoing expulsion of Palestinians post-1949, and the openly-announced plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza even as we speak can leave no doubt.
Finally, for a proper history of the end of the mandate period and a detailed discussion of the horrors of the Yishuv's terror campaign against the British and the Palestinians, see Thomas Suarez's outstanding work, Palestine Hijacked. It is far superior to this book, which deserves neither your time nor your money.
January 13, 2019
British Policy and the Founding of the jewish State
One of the best analyses and accounts I've read on this topic. The book's title is from a speech to parliament by Winston Churchill, a long time advocate for Zionism, (pp145) where he asks from the opposition benches on March 12, 1947 how long this 'senseless squalid war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs or God knows who' will continue.
What makes Rose's account superior to others is his ability to pull back and illustrate how events in Palestine related to the wider world. The sinking of the Struma off the coast of Turkey on February 24, 1942 resulting in the death of all but one of its 770 passengers, Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe seeking to reach Palestine, caused the Zionists to blame Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne (assassinated in November 1944 by members of the Stern Gang) who blocked compassionate entry of the refugees to Palestine declaring that allowing such refugees to enter on compassionate grounds was “in flat contradiction to government policy”. The collapse of British rule in Palestine is shown to be part of Britain's postwar trauma in context with the simultaneous loss and partition of India, poor economic constraints on the British economy forcing ending aid to Turkey and Greece and the abandonment of Suez as a keystone of policy - the new line of Empire being drawn thru Lagos and Kenya. He links the tipping point towards Partition to a surprising and passionate and pro-Zionist speech to UNSCOP by Russian foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. Gromyko's repeats his performance in the UN but Rose also emphasizes that former colonies Canada, Australia, South Africa surprise by flexing their newly independent voices against the mother country, and none so indefatigably as Canada's Lester B. Pearson, a founding force behind the UN and highly respected by all sides. When Czechoslovakia agrees to supply the Haganah in late 1947, which we learn that Jan Masyrk who signed and approved the deal had been a close personal friend of Chaim Weizman which may have influenced the decision.
Rose is scathing towards the Irgun and Stern Gang (Lehi) whom he labels as counterproductive to the goals of the Zionist mainstream. The assassination of Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), a dear friend of Churchill, threatened to overturn Churchill's deep support for the Zionist cause. In response the mainstream Jewish Agency disavowed both splinter groups and, in a period called “the saison” (the hunting season) the much larger Haganah, hunted down members of both groups turning many of them in. The two joined the Haganah again forming the short lived URM (United Resistance Movment) after the war in October 1945, but fell apart after the attack on the King David Hotel the following summer, and a mini-saisson was begin – 200 Hanagah fighters were assigned to act against both, to “break bones, yes, but not 'hits'”. The British administration managed to speak with grudging admiration for the Jewish Agency and its defence forces the Haganah, describing it as well organized and ready for governance, repeatedly referring to it as a “state within a state”. They acknowledge that the Haganah had some success suppressing the Irgun and Stern Gang, managing to “prevent serious loss of life amongst the security forces.” (pp149)
He is less complimentary to the British, and he does so once again providing a wider context, in particular with reference to the “Sergeants' Affair”. In response to the planned execution of 3 Irgun fighters, none of whom had committed a capital crime, the Irgun captured 2 British sergeants and convicted them in a kangaroo court. When the Irgunists were hung on July 29, 1946, the Irgun followed suit, leaving the bodies booby trapped with explosives at Umm Uleiqa. In spite of widespread condemnation from the Jewish Agency and Jewish press, a vigilante group of British policemen shot up a bus of Jewish civilians in Tel Aviv, killing 5 innocent people including an 8 year old girl, injuring 70. In response to pictures of the sergeants published in the British Press, Jews were attacked in across England and in Scotland (Glasgow), Jewish shops were vandalized, cemeteries and synagogues desecrated. Nor is the Arab narrative and role in this history ignored.
The sense of narrative is superb and easy to follow, yet rather surprisingly this excellent work has gone largely unnoticed. There's a table of acronyms at the back, along with a bibliography, no maps l, and unlike the text itself, the footnotes are annoyingly jammed together in a continuous run, possibly to save space.
Definitely a “keeper” and well worth reading! Recommended!!!
One of the best analyses and accounts I've read on this topic. The book's title is from a speech to parliament by Winston Churchill, a long time advocate for Zionism, (pp145) where he asks from the opposition benches on March 12, 1947 how long this 'senseless squalid war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs or God knows who' will continue.
What makes Rose's account superior to others is his ability to pull back and illustrate how events in Palestine related to the wider world. The sinking of the Struma off the coast of Turkey on February 24, 1942 resulting in the death of all but one of its 770 passengers, Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe seeking to reach Palestine, caused the Zionists to blame Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne (assassinated in November 1944 by members of the Stern Gang) who blocked compassionate entry of the refugees to Palestine declaring that allowing such refugees to enter on compassionate grounds was “in flat contradiction to government policy”. The collapse of British rule in Palestine is shown to be part of Britain's postwar trauma in context with the simultaneous loss and partition of India, poor economic constraints on the British economy forcing ending aid to Turkey and Greece and the abandonment of Suez as a keystone of policy - the new line of Empire being drawn thru Lagos and Kenya. He links the tipping point towards Partition to a surprising and passionate and pro-Zionist speech to UNSCOP by Russian foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. Gromyko's repeats his performance in the UN but Rose also emphasizes that former colonies Canada, Australia, South Africa surprise by flexing their newly independent voices against the mother country, and none so indefatigably as Canada's Lester B. Pearson, a founding force behind the UN and highly respected by all sides. When Czechoslovakia agrees to supply the Haganah in late 1947, which we learn that Jan Masyrk who signed and approved the deal had been a close personal friend of Chaim Weizman which may have influenced the decision.
Rose is scathing towards the Irgun and Stern Gang (Lehi) whom he labels as counterproductive to the goals of the Zionist mainstream. The assassination of Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), a dear friend of Churchill, threatened to overturn Churchill's deep support for the Zionist cause. In response the mainstream Jewish Agency disavowed both splinter groups and, in a period called “the saison” (the hunting season) the much larger Haganah, hunted down members of both groups turning many of them in. The two joined the Haganah again forming the short lived URM (United Resistance Movment) after the war in October 1945, but fell apart after the attack on the King David Hotel the following summer, and a mini-saisson was begin – 200 Hanagah fighters were assigned to act against both, to “break bones, yes, but not 'hits'”. The British administration managed to speak with grudging admiration for the Jewish Agency and its defence forces the Haganah, describing it as well organized and ready for governance, repeatedly referring to it as a “state within a state”. They acknowledge that the Haganah had some success suppressing the Irgun and Stern Gang, managing to “prevent serious loss of life amongst the security forces.” (pp149)
He is less complimentary to the British, and he does so once again providing a wider context, in particular with reference to the “Sergeants' Affair”. In response to the planned execution of 3 Irgun fighters, none of whom had committed a capital crime, the Irgun captured 2 British sergeants and convicted them in a kangaroo court. When the Irgunists were hung on July 29, 1946, the Irgun followed suit, leaving the bodies booby trapped with explosives at Umm Uleiqa. In spite of widespread condemnation from the Jewish Agency and Jewish press, a vigilante group of British policemen shot up a bus of Jewish civilians in Tel Aviv, killing 5 innocent people including an 8 year old girl, injuring 70. In response to pictures of the sergeants published in the British Press, Jews were attacked in across England and in Scotland (Glasgow), Jewish shops were vandalized, cemeteries and synagogues desecrated. Nor is the Arab narrative and role in this history ignored.
The sense of narrative is superb and easy to follow, yet rather surprisingly this excellent work has gone largely unnoticed. There's a table of acronyms at the back, along with a bibliography, no maps l, and unlike the text itself, the footnotes are annoyingly jammed together in a continuous run, possibly to save space.
Definitely a “keeper” and well worth reading! Recommended!!!
July 6, 2014
Amazing book. The only one thus far that gives details of the partition. Seldom have i read about the Zionist terrorism that took place during the end of the British Mandate against Arabs and British. The Zionist (current Israeli) style of terrorism has only improved over time but the idea remains the same. Ethnic cleansing was not their motive but creation of Eretz Israel was and has been the most important task at hand. The strength of the Zionist lobby around the world has been highlighted very well in this book. Recommended read.
November 20, 2013
so well written and so much detail. Plus I have to say the font and layout of the book made it such an easy book to read.
September 7, 2014
A fascinating and inevitably confusing book about the events leading up to the creation of Israel
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews