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Acknowledgments Preface 1 Palestine on the Eve 2The Beginning of the Conflict: Jews and Arabs in Palestine, 1881-1914 3 World War I, the Balfour Declaration, and the British Mandate 4 The Arabs Rebel 5 World War II and the First Arab-Israeli War, 1939-49 6 1949-1956 7 The Six-Day War, 1967 8 The War of Attrition 9 The October War, 1973 10 The Israeli-Egyptian Peace, 1977-79 11 The Lebanon War, 1982-85 12 The Intifada 13 Peace at Last? 14 Ehud Barak's 19 Months Conclusions Notes Selected Bibliography Index

At a time when the Middle East has come closer to achieving peace than ever before, eminent Israeli historian Benny Morris explodes the myths cherished by both sides to present an epic history of Zionist-Arab relations over the past 120 years. Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but it also shattered Palestinian Arab society and gave rise to a massive refugee problem. Morris offers distinctive accounts of each of the subsequent Israeli-Arab wars and details the sporadic peace efforts in between, culminating in the peace process initiated by the Rabin Government. In a new afterword to the Vintage edition, he examines Ehud Barak’s leadership, the death of President Assad of Syria, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recent renewed conflict with the Palestinians. Studded with illuminating portraits of the major protagonists, Righteous Victims provides an authoritative record of the middle east and its continuing struggle toward peace.