A Few Words on Sources
The @1948War Twitter Experience hopes to relate what was happening leading up to and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war without promoting any partisan interpretation. The tweets represent, for the most part, what people were reading and hearing about the conflict as it was raging. As such, primary sources for the Tweets are newspaper reports (eg. Palestine Post and international papers in English, Davar, al Hamishmar and others in Hebrew, and, where available, from Arabic-language papers like Filastin, Ad-Difa’a, Al-Masry Al-Youm etc).
As well, some behind-the-scenes facts are being Tweeted because, even if not public knowledge, these details were known to important participants and those around them. Secondary sources, then, include memoirs and diaries, some of which have only come to light in the last few years. As well, some details are coming out as archives have released particular (but not all) files. So, tweets may include information from Israeli military records, British intelligence reports, UN records, and private correspondences between military or political figures. These sorts of tweets will be labelled accordingly.
Of course, such an endeavour is problematic and bound to be contentious for a number of reasons:
- Some information, as it was transmitted, went through military censorship;
- People sometimes lie, even in their own memoirs;
- People tell the truth but their memory may be faulty;
- People, even participants, may lack a complete understanding of an event;
- Some things need to be understood in context.
That said, an attempt is being made to verify information by looking at two (or more) sources; but, newly-revealed details based solely on anecdotal evidence may not be used, unless there is some other evidence to back it up.
The fact is memory and politics may, in some cases, cloud the facts, which is evident by contradictory statements where more than one witness is involved.
Every effort will be made to be faithful to facts as we understand them. Mistakes (especially dates) will undoubtedly occur. We apologize in advance.
Here’s the list. It will be updated regularly:
ENGLISH BOOKS (Hebrew and Arabic coming soon)
Avner, Yehuda, The Prime Ministers, Toby Press, 2010
Begin, Menachem, The Revolt: Story of the Irgun, Dell Publishing, 1980
Bell, J. Bowyer, Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence, Transaction Publishers, 1996
Burns, Lt. Gen. E. L. M., Between Arab and Israeli, New York, Ivan Obolensky, 1962
Chertoff, Mordecai S., The State is Born: A Person Memoir, Self-published, Jerusalem, 2010
Cohen, Hillel, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948, University of California Press, 2008
Cohen, Hillel, Good Arabs: Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948-1967, University of California Press, 2011
Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem, Simon & Schuster; 1988
Cull, David, Shlomo Aloni and David Nicolle, Spitfires over Israel, Grub Street, 1993
Dheer, Ala Abu, Nakhba Eyewitnesses: Narrations of the Palestinian 1948 Catastrophe, An-Najah National University, Nablus
Dunkelman, Ben, Dual Allegiance: An Autobiography, Macmillan Canada, 1976
Evron, Joseph, Gidi: One Chasing a Thousand, Gefen Publishing, 2009
Gelber, Sylva M., No Balm in Gilead: A Personal Retrospective of Mandate Days in Palestine, Oxford University Press, Don Mills, Canada, 1989.
Gelber, Yoav, Palestine, 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee, Sussex Academic Press, 2001
Gilbert, Martin, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab Israeli Conflict, Routeledge, 2008
Glubb, John, Britain and the Arabs: A Study of Fifty Years, 1908 to 1958, Hodder & Stoughton, 1959.
Golan, Zev, Stern: The Man and His Gang, Yair Publishing, 2011
Hochstein, Joseph, The Jews’ Secret Fleet, Gefen Publishing, 1987
Kay, Zachariah, Canada and Palestine: The Politics of Non-Commitment, Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1978
Kenen, I.L., Israel’s Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington, Prometheus Books, 1981
Kollek, Teddy, For Jerusalem, a Life, Futura Publications, 1979
Kurzman, Dan, Genesis 1948, Da Capo, 1972
LeBor, Adam, City of Oranges: Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, WW Norton, 2010
Levenberg, Haim, Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine, 1945-1948, Frank Cass and Co. 1993
Lochman, Zachary, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, University of California Press, 1996
McDonald, James G., My Mission in Israel, 1948-1951, Simon And Schuster 1951
Meir, Golda, My Life, Random House, 1988
Milstein, Uri, History of Israel’s War of Independence - Volume I, University Press of America, 1997
Morris, Benny, Righteous Victims : A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999, Knopf, 2000.
Morris, Benny, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge University Press, 1987
Morris, Benny, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2009
Pollack, Kenneth, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991, Bison Books , 2002
Rabinovitch, Itamar and Jehuda Reinharz (Ed.), Israel in the Middle East, Brandeis University Press, 2008
Radosh, Allis, and Ronald Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, Harper Collins, 2010
Rogan, Eugene L., Avi Shlaim, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the history of 1948, Cambridge University Press, 2001
Sakakini, Hala, Jerusalem and I, The Commercial Press, 1987
Sayegh, Fayez, The Palestine Refugees, AMARA Press, 1952
Segev, Tom (trans. H. Watzman), One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, Metropolitan Books, 2000.
Senior, Boris, New Heavens: My Life as a Fighter Pilot and a Founder of the Israel Air Force, Potomac Books, 2006
Shapira, Anita (Translated by Evelyn Abel), Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008
Shteiner, Puah, Forever My Jerusalem, Feldheim, 1987
Tal, David, War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy, Frank cass Publishers, 2003
Talham, Ghada Hashem, Palestine in the Egyptian Press: From al-Ahram to al-Ahali. Lexington Books, 2007
Tamari, Salim (Ed.) Jerusalem 1948: the Arab Neighborhoods and their Fate in the War, Inst of Jerusalem Studies, 2002
Tolan, Sandy, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, Bloomsbury, 2007
Yofe, Alex, Spitfire: Star of Israel (Classic Warbirds), Ventura Hobby Products, 2007
ONLINE RESOURCES
22 Battalion, ”Carmeli ” Brigade-Israel Independence War, 1948 website
Al-Ahram Weekly: Special pages commemorating 50 years of Arab dispossession (1948-98)
Arab Riots and Jewish immigration, Arab Revolt and the White Paper from http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm
Besieged Jerusalem, 1948: Memories of an Irgun Fighter, Yehuda Lapidot
British Pathé newsreels.
British Record on Partition, Reprinted from The Nation, May 8, 1948
Canadian Jewish Chronicle Archive
Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem by Issa Nakhleh, online version
“Memoirs and reflections“ Institute for Palestine Studies.
Jewish Terrorism and the Modern Middle East by David A. Charters, The Journal of Conflict Studies, Winter 2007
They Needed to be There There By Efrem Sigel, The Jerusalem Post: Israel at 60, May 8, 2008
Falastin newspaper archives.
Maps, documents and treaties, website.
Memoirs, Fauzi Al Qawuqji, Journal of Palestine Studies
Palestine Post, Davar, al Hamishmar Archives
Palestine Remembered: Maps, photos and oral history.
Qatamon, 1948: The Fall of a Neighborhood by Itamar Radai, Jerusalem Quarterly, Summer 2011, 46
Quarterly Historical Reports: 1st Bn Irish Guards, Jan ‘47-Mar ‘49
UNISPAL: United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine
United Nations Photo Library Website
United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa (1948)
World Machal: Volunteers from Overseas in the IDF website.
PHOTOS
Most of the photos have been found on the internet. Every attempt is being made to request permission for the use of a low-res image for Tweeting. If you have not been contacted, we apologize. Please contact us at 1948war.project@gmail.com to have a photo removed from the Twitter feed.
Photos from Central Zionist Archives are through the David B. Keidan Collection of Digital Images at Harvard Library.
Photos from Wikipedia are available through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported http:/ / creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by-sa/ 3. 0/
