The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1947-1951

Professor Ilan Pappé is a prolific writer and arguably the most consistent Israeli historian in setting out the reality of the occupation state and its effects on the people of Palestine . His book under review was written in 1992, which makes the Preface to the 2025 edition an opportunity to look back, not only with his expert eye, but also with a keen eye on how the events he recorded in the early nineties have developed .

Importantly, his “Preface to the 2025 Edition” seeks to ‘examine whether we should understand the period under review in a new way, in light of the events that have unfolded since the last edition, and in particular in the wake of the dramatic developments in Israel and Palestine since 7 October 2023’ (p .xiii) .

An explanation of what happened in Palestine fits well with the content of the other book under review: The Truth About Empire — Real Histories of British Colonialism which is described on the blurb as a ‘fine collection of detailed and remarkably restrained assessments of the troubling and dubious manner in which the right-wing polemicists of the culture wars have distorted the historical record in service of the political rehabilitation of colonialism .’ (Michael Taylor, author of The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery.)