Where the Desert Meets the Sea

by Werner Sonne

The peace activist Uri Avnery experienced that period as an Israeli soldier and impressively describes his experiences in his extremely readable book 1948: A Soldier’s Tale; The Bloody Road to Jerusalem. Dov Yosef, the military governor of Jerusalem appointed by Ben Gurion, gives the most comprehensive insight into the tense situation of a city cut off from all supplies in his account, The Faithful City: The Siege of Jerusalem, 1948, doing so with facts and figures and in the sober manner of his actual profession, as a lawyer. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, is a joint work by British, Israeli, and Palestinian historians published by Cambridge University Press that I found as helpful for understanding the conflict as I did Tom Segev’s One Palestine, Complete. The memoirs of Golda Meir, My Life, and Abba Eban, My Country, describe the critical years of 1947–48 from the perspective of those directly involved in shaping them. On the journalistic side, O Jerusalem!, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, counts as a classic among the numerous other works about the struggle for the Holy City—they complement the other well-known sources with their own gripping and comprehensive research. The internet has become an indispensable source as well these days. More and more Palestinians are speaking out there, telling their stories, as are British soldiers, with their accounts of active duty in Palestine. The British Record on Partition, published by The Nation...