Talk:1948 Palestine war/Archive 7

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Religious character of the war

Should we add a section to discuss whether the Palestine war was, at its core, a religious or a nationalistic one? This could also include religious motivations that animated the Palestinian Arab and foreign volunteer fighters, as well as the religious significance of the region.

Benny Morris asserts in his book that "The 1948 War was a war of religion as much as, if not more, a nationalist war over territory." On the other hand, other scholars have stated that religion was merely a tactical tool by the Arab leaders.

Morris provides various quotes to back his point. A couple excerpts:

The Jewish rejection of the Prophet Muhammad is embedded in the Qur'an and is etched in the psyche of those brought up on its suras. As the Muslim Brotherhood put it in 1948: "Jews are the historic enemies of Muslims and carry the greatest hatred for the nation of Muhammad." Such thinking characterized the Arab world, where the overwhelming majority of the population were, and remain, believers.

In 1943, when President Franklin Roosevelt sent out feelers about a negotiated settlement of the Palestine problem, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia responded that he was "prepared to receive anyone of any religion except (repeat except) a Jew." A few weeks earlier, Ibn Saud had explained, in a letter to Roosevelt: "Palestine ... has been an Arab country since the dawn of history and ... was never inhabited by the Jews for more than a period of time, during which their history in the land was full of murder and cruelty.... [There is] religious hostility ... between the Moslems and the Jews from the beginning of Islam ... which arose from the treacherous conduct of the Jews towards Islam and the Moslems and their prophet."

Historians have tended to ignore or dismiss, as so much hot air, the jihadi rhetoric and flourishes that accompanied the two-stage assault on the Yishuv and the constant references in the prevailing Arab discourse to that earlier bout of Islamic battle for the Holy Land, against the Crusaders. This is a mistake. The 1948 War, from the Arabs' perspective, was a war of religion as much as, if not more than, a nationalist war over territory. Put another way, the territory was sacred: its violation by infidels was sufficient grounds for launching a holy war and its conquest or reconquest, a divinely ordained necessity.

In the months before the invasion of 15 May 1948, King Abdullah, the most moderate of the coalition leaders, repeatedly spoke of "saving" the holy places. As the day of invasion approached, his focus on Jerusalem, according to Alec Kirkbride, grew increasingly obsessive. "In our souls," wrote the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, "Palestine occupies a spiritual holy place which is above abstract nationalist feelings. In it we have the blessed breeze of Jerusalem and the blessings of the Prophets and their disciples."

The jihadi impulse underscored both popular and governmental responses in the Arab world to the UN partition resolution and was central to the mobilization of the "street" and the governments for the successive onslaughts of November-December 1947 and May-June 1948. The mosques, mullahs, and gulema all played a pivotal role in the process. Even Christian Arabs appear to have adopted the jihadi discourse. Matiel Mughannam, the Lebanese-born Christian who headed the AHC-affiliated Arab Women's Organization in Palestine, told an interviewer early in the civil war: "The UN decision has united all Arabs, as they have never been united before, not even against the Crusaders.... [A Jewish state] has no chance to survive now that the `holy war' has been declared. All the Jews will eventually be massacred. " The Islamic fervor stoked by the hostilities seems to have encompassed all or almost all Arabs: "No Moslem can contemplate the holy places falling into Jewish hands," reported Kirkbride from Amman. "Even the Prime Minister [Tawfiq Abul Huda] ... who is by far the steadiest and most sensible Arab here, gets excited on the subject."

On 2 December [1947] the gulema, or council of doctors of theology and sacred law, of Al-Azhar University in Cairo – one of Islam's supreme authorities – proclaimed a "worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine."

Amayorov (talk) 14:22, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Please read something other than just Benny Morris. Just clutching at snippets of POV-infused statements from Benny Morris is no way to go about understanding the topic, let alone establishing anything in a neutral, encyclopedic voice. Please gain an appreciation of some other sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not just Morris – the religious character of the war has been discussed at length in much of Israeli historiography.

If you disagree, we could include reference to other historians that consider that religion was only a minor factor. That is, in fact, exactly what I proposed. Amayorov (talk) 19:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

"Israeli historiography" – if it's an Israeli narrative then it needs to be delineated as such, but yes, more voices than Morris would be needed to support this, otherwise it's a Morris narrative, and we already have too much Morris. Though frankly, the sad clutch of quotes above hardly makes the point that Morris seems to think it does. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Just as "pro-Palestinian" or "Arab" historiography must be disclaimed.

I agree that references to other historians would be useful. I will work on that. Amayorov (talk) 20:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Morris (who recently wrote in Haaretz that Israel should nuke Iran without delay) took up the "jihad" idea after his "conversion" and it's sort of embarrassing. The transparent purpose is to deny the Palestinians any genuine reason for complaint. There were plenty of people on both sides who spouted religious nonsense; let's not play that game here. Zero^talk 12:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but what you wrote doesn't constitute a historical argument.

The idea that the 1948 War was viewed through a religious lens was first advocated by Morris in his 2008 book, which was widely praised, even by non-Zionists like Avi Shlaim. This book has become a key reference for many scholars.

Sure, some scholars (Shlomo Ben-Ami, Yoav Gelber, etc) have said that Morris exaggerated the role of a "religious war," and that it wasn't as important as he suggested. However, a discussion of this could still be useful to add to the article. Amayorov (talk) 23:09, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

So you want to over-emphasize the main thing that reviewers of the book criticize as being over-emphasized in the work as one of its key drawbacks? It's the opposite. You should listen to the feedback from academic reviewers, and since they commonly chime in that Morris over-emphasizes religious background and motivations, that makes it more undue and fringe. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Morris overload

It's come to my attention that Benny Morris is quite gratuitously over-represented on this page relative to other historians, with 50+ citations and mentions. I'm not sure if any other historian crests half a dozen citations and mentions. On a page with just over 100 citations, the sea of Morris references is quite overbearing. This is a pretty clear balance issue. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that would be good! However, one must distinguish between backing up objective facts using a historian's research, and representing the conclusions that that historian draws from them as fact.

I don't have a problem with the former. Morris has done a massive amount of primary research, which he quotes in his books and which was later quoted by other authors, such as Shlaim, Flapan, Pappé and others. Amayorov (talk) 20:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Iskandar323 is right. إيان (talk) 05:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a problem across many Wikipedia articles regarding this history. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:07, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this would be a situation to -add- further scholars, not just remove information. Arkon (talk) 17:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

There are different Morris "eras", seems to me, and I agree with Arkon, we should add sources, and if that results in Morris being drowned out on any point, so be it. I am not knocking Morris, one of the first sensible scholars from that side of the line but no need to overdo it, is there? Selfstudier (talk) 18:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)