Rating: 
Summary: Detailed and Fair
Review: After reading about a quarter of this book you get the impression the Shlaim had access to notes from the principles for each day that passed from 1948 through this book's publication. I found the research extensive and its presentation fair. More fair than other books whose authors wish to blame one party or the other for the state of affairs in the Middle East. Shlaim points out there have been missed opportunities for peace on both sides. I don't think he blames one side more than the other (except for Netanyahu), but it is a new concept to hold Israel partially responsible for these events for the casual American reader of Middle Eastern events (of which I am one). (Immediately, after finishing this book I coincidentally read Mort Zuckerman's article on Israel in the Nov 3, 2003 US News and World Report, seek that out for a different view, one that points out what others might say Shlaim left out of his book).
I've yet to find a historian not accused of bias, especially with regard to such a heated and contemporary topic as Israel and its Arab neighbors. I've seen Shlaim accused of the same. The point being, if you're trying to understand the Middle East, "The Iron Wall" would be a good book to add to your list. But seek out others as well, because no one author is ever going to own the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: Not balanced
Review: Avi Shlaim belongs to a group of Israeli writers whose self-described agenda is to "destroy the myths of the Zionist enterprise". But, instead of bringing to light new and more accurate information with which to challenge previous accounts of this history, what these writers do is substitute their own myths for what is by and large an accurate record. And in some cases this school (called revisionist historians) use outright distortion and fabrication to protray Israel as a regional villain. [For more on this, read "Fabricating Israeli History" by Efraim Karsh, an extremely well documented critique of these "blame Israel" writers.]Mr. Shlaim is a malcontent - he no longer lives in Israel, and hasn't for some time. His thesis in "The Iron Wall" is that Moshe Sharret has been maligned by previous Israeli historians as a weak an ineffectual Prime Minster, and Mr. Shalim has set out in his book to rehabilitate Sharrett. Consequently, Shlaim spends far too much time going over in excruciating detail possible motives (which is all conjecture on Shlaim's part) for Sharrett's behavior, and that of his opponents. And of course, Sharret is shown to be the superior intellect, as well as made of higher moral stuff. Rubbish. The phrase "Iron Wall" is a reference to Ze'ev Jabotinsky's opinion that the Arabs will never willingly accept a Jewish state and that Israel must erect an "iron wall" of defense in order to enforce Israel's legitimacy. Shlaim trys to prove that Sharrett's total reliance on diplomacy and overly high regard for international opinion (even if it meant sacrificing Israel's security interests) were superior to the "iron wall" approach. It does not take a genius to see that Jabtinsky's stance is more apt. Avoid "The Iron Wall" unless you are looking for books that rubber stamp a bias against Israel. Instead read more balanced books such as "Six Days of War" (Michael Oren), "From Time Immemorial" (Joan Peters) and the best overview of and argument against the "post-Zionist" philosophy, "The Jewish State" (Yarom Hazony).
Rating: 
Summary: Avi's use of primary sources makes this a compelling book
Review: Avi Shlaim has painstakingly gone through the Israeli state archives as well as the public record office in London and interviewed many prominent notables including Abba Eban, King Hussein, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and many other major players for this massive history of modern Israel and its relations with the Arab world. All of this massive research and inquiry has culminated in what is one of the most complete and compelling history books written about Israel. Uncompromising in his inquiries, Shlaim addresses the problems that both sides faced during their struggles for supremacy in British Palestine. Starting with the Prologue, Shlaim begins with an interesting look at the early years of Zionism, which began as a nationalist movement in Europe. Shlaim makes some good points regarding its birth as a response to European anti-Semitism and the inability of some Jewish groups to fully integrate into European society (many exceptions to this existed however). We get insights into all the major Zionist figures including Birnbaum, Herzl, Weizmann, Jabotinsky, and the mastermind himself, Ben-Gurion. The problems faced by the early Zionist movement can be summed in an interesting early statement from a fact-finding mission sent by Herzl, which stated [about Palestine], "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man." Meaning that the proposed land coveted by the Zionists already had a population of predominantly Arabic speaking peoples. Here begins the conflict that Shlaim writes about. Shlaim goes over the relentless and systematic approach of early Zionist leaders to court all the prominent leaders of the early 20th century by telling them what they wanted to hear. The Ottomans were offered money and investment for their cooperation, while the British were given promises that the new Jewish state would be a British colony, and so on. Two forces emerged from the early Zionists according to Shlaim. One group wanted a complete population transfer and a new Jewish majority state planted in the area, while another group sought a partition plan that would give them a state, while leaving some territory for the Arabs. Both camps varied in terms of how they viewed the natives of the area. Some like Jabotinsky, Shlaim contends, basically viewed the Arabs as savages who could be easily removed in order for the Jews to have a homeland. Others were more conciliatory towards the Arabs and sought some sort of co-existence. Israel was born during the tumultuous events following the UN resolution 181 to partition the region. The new state of Israel had many anomalous problems such as an Arab population that was nearly half the population of Israel itself. After decades of selective political pressure, the new state of Israel emerged as the most powerful state in the region. Shlaim correctly points out that the new state of Israel was not a David battling the Goliath of the Arab world. On the contrary, the new state had a military that was twice the size of the ill-equipped Arab adversaries it faced. Shlaim does a great job in showing what was reality and was fiction. The Arabs were never told to leave by surrounding Arab nations, but fled after hearing about massacres like Deir Yassin and in some cases were expelled by Israeli forces in order to create a decisive Jewish majority in Israel. The result was the Palestinian refugee problem that came to be the biggest obstacle to peace during the subsequent peace talks at Lausanne. The views of both sides by this time had become uncompromising. Shlaim points out that the Arab states opposed the creation of Israel from the outset for the simple reason that it was based upon an undemocratic process that would give Jews dominant political power, while nearly half the population was still Arab. In addition, leaders like Menachem Begin (once a terrorist commander of the extreme nationalist Irgun) proclaimed that, "The partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized.... Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel (biblical Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And forever." So while the Arabs sought to extinguish the state of Israel in 1948 as something they had never agreed to, the Israeli view was that they too wanted all of British Palestine. Preferably without any Palestinians left to oppose them. The details of the wars in 1956, 1967, 1973, and the invasion of Lebanon are quite interesting as well. Israeli leaders often had conflicting views as to how to pursue different goals that Shlaim correctly describes as Byzantine in complexity. We learn that France and Britain were Israel's main allies during the early years and in order to maintain its military advantage, the Israelis even turned to Germany only a decade after WWII and the tragedy of the Holocaust for arms. Effectively outmaneuvering the Arab states through smart diplomacy, the Israelis managed to maintain the upper hand over the years. Shlaim goes over the political process and interaction before and after the 1967 with great detail in a section entitled "Poor Little Samson." This is a reference to the Israeli leadership's attempt to depict Israel as an underdog, when in reality they had the military advantage from the beginning. The saber rattling of the Arab states is interesting to read about as well. Why did Nasser order the removal UN peacekeepers in the Sinai? To appease the Arab critics who complained that he was "hiding" behind the UN. From Israel perspective, this made war a possibility though. Both sides misinterpreted each other's moves and this led to war, according to Shlaim. I have compared Shlaim's work with many other books I've read, and have found this book to be one of the more objective books about Israel. It is critical of all groups involved and presents an honest attempt to analyze the conflict using mostly primary sources. I would recommend reading Shlaim's work along with other similar works such as "Righteous Victims" by Benny Morris. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great intro to Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1947
Review: I read this book at the end of 2001, when I was pretty ignorant of the details of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This book was a great introduction to the conflict. It provides just enough pre-1947 background to understand the framework in which the events since the 1947 establishment of Israel have unfolded. (If you're interested in a more detailed pre-1947 history, I suggest two books by Benny Morris: "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem", and "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict".) It also casts an appropriately critical eye on the actions of both Israel and Arab parties. No nationalistic rhetoric here. The major criticism I've seen leveled at this book is also somewhat justified: it is more critical of the political realism behind Israeli policy and actions than it is of the Arab side. However, most of this criticism seems to come from fiercely Zionist parties who brook no criticism whatsoever of Israeli hawks. My own feeling is that there is a bit too much of an underlying assumption in the book that blame needs to be laid somewhere; Shlaim generally comes down on the side of laying blame at the feet of Israeli leaders. It's not clear to me that the exercise of saying who's at fault will contribute at all to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The most important thing is to come to a detailed understanding of WHAT happened over the last half century, and WHY, without fingering a subset of the parties for blame. Fortunately, this book does help a lot in providing that understanding.
Rating:
Summary: Great intro to Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1947
Review: I read this book at the end of 2001, when I was pretty ignorant of the details of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This book was a great introduction to the conflict. It provides just enough pre-1947 background to understand the framework in which the events since the 1947 establishment of Israel have unfolded. (If you're interested in a more detailed pre-1947 history, I suggest two books by Benny Morris: "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem", and "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict".) It also casts an appropriately critical eye on the actions of both Israel and Arab parties. No nationalistic rhetoric here. The major criticism I've seen leveled at this book is also somewhat justified: it is more critical of the political realism behind Israeli policy and actions than it is of the Arab side. However, most of this criticism seems to come from fiercely Zionist parties who brook no criticism whatsoever of Israeli hawks. My own feeling is that there is a bit too much of an underlying assumption in the book that blame needs to be laid somewhere; Shlaim generally comes down on the side of laying blame at the feet of Israeli leaders. It's not clear to me that the exercise of saying who's at fault will contribute at all to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The most important thing is to come to a detailed understanding of WHAT happened over the last half century, and WHY, without fingering a subset of the parties for blame. Fortunately, this book does help a lot in providing that understanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased, inaccurate, and misleading
Review: If you want a biased and misleading account of the Arab war against Israel, this ought to satisfy you.
Shlaim tells us that Jabotinsky, in discussing Zionism explained that "if the cause is just, justice must triumph."
I think Jabotinsky made a very good point here. You see, human beings will, if given the chance, tend to buy land in the places they wish to live in. The ones who can make best use of the land and wish to do so will be the high bidders for the land. If injustice consists of stealing that land from them and justice consists of letting them buy the land and keep it (which they will wish to do if they are offered only low prices for it), then it is easy to see what the triumph of justice would mean here. In particular, it would mean a prosperous Israel and a triumph for Zionism.
Shlaim appears to have missed all this. To him, Zionism is unjust. And to him, the triumph of terror and theft is both forthcoming and desirable. He tells us that an independent Levantine state "is inevitable." I disagree. It may be likely. But it would serve no purpose. It would not help Jews, Arabs, or others. Its only purpose would be to damage Israel. The people of such a state do not as yet have an independent language, religion, culture, cuisine, or foreign policy. So I think there is still hope that sanity may prevail here.
Shlaim also tells us that this new Arab state will be "weak, demilitarized, and territorially divided." Is it just possible that this, if true, provides even more reasons why neither side might want to create it at all? And could that make the appearance of this state even less inevitable? Or at least less desirable?
And the author also explains that both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict will have to make "painful compromises," and that Jerusalem will have to be "the subject of hard bargaining."
Really?
Is having peace and prosperity with reasonable borders a painful compromise? For either side? Of course not. Shlaim is kidding us if he expects us to believe that war, poverty, and destruction are somehow less painful.
Had Shlaim been writing about France and Germany, we'd have seen at once that the whole viewpoint is nonsense. He'd have been telling us that the German National Socialists needed an independent state in France, either to replace all of France or part of it. He would have laughingly dismissed French claims on the basis of the entire idea of France being unjust! He'd have sternly explained that a German National Socialist state in France was both desirable and inevitable. And he would have discussed the necessary "painful compromises" for both sides and the "hard bargaining" about Paris.
There are plenty of reasonable books about the Arab war against Israel. This isn't one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Zionism, and the Arabs
Review: In this excellent book, Shlaim brought up to the spotlight what has been one of the most confusing, disputed history of any country of the world, that of Israel.
The State of Israel was born officially in 1948, but its modern ideological seeds grew out of mid-late century European zionism amid the rising anti-semitism of western Europe in the same period. Shlaim relates that a Zionist Congress convened in Viennna in the early 1900s to analyze a report of a fact-finding mission in the land of Palestine by two organization members. "The bride is beautiful," the envoyers stated, "but is taken."
This admission is crucial to understand the logic of the Iron Wall as championed by leading Zionist Ze'ev Javotinsky. Pretty much every Zionist acknowledged that Jews were not the majority in British-occupied Palestine, thus they had to broker a deal that would leave them in charge and in power to submit the natives against their will into accepting a Jewish state in their land.
What's stunning, as Schlaim writes, is that the Zionists knew what they were doing was indisputably inmoral, if not criminal, so Jabotinsky argued to his comrades that regardless of the inmoral implications of displacing the local population of their land, it was the prospect of a Jewish what was at stake all along in the end.
Unsurprisingly, the spate of immigrants arriving into Palestine after the 1917 Balfour declaration gave the tacit go ahead to the Zionists about their Jewish state in historical Palestine did not sit well with the local Arabs, who rightly feared the new wave of immigration as a effort to take their lands and to create an outpost for imperialism against Arab self-determination and rising nationalism. Hence the seeds of the 1948 war that saw the creation of a Jewish Nation and the displacement of millions of Arab Palestines into sour nation, land-less dispair.
Schlaim also asserts the Arab armies entering Palestine did not amount to an organized effort at crushing the Jewish state, as is often described in official Israel history. Rather, the different Arab armies had entered the war independent of the other, without even the slightest pretension of winning it or for that matter fighting it in behalf of their fellow Palestine Arabs. There were driven more by self-interest and by failure to ensure accommodation with the Zionists in the pre-war period than by altruistic motives of helping their Palestinian brethen retake their land.
Just read this fascinating book and find out the rest to this unusual account of the history of Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors,
Rating:
Summary: Topical and Important
Review: Professor Shlaim's review of the relationship between Palestinian Arabs and Jewish immigrants from the beginning of the Zionist colonisation project up to the election of Ehud Barak as Prime Minister is highly enlightening. "The Iron Wall" was an expression coined by Ze'ev Jabotinsky to denote that the immigrants will require a strong military to gain the respect of the Arab population both within the British mandate area as well as by their neighbors. The various wars the state of Israel has been involved in since its inception, and their reasons, are carefully documented. So are the policies which led to the current impasse between Israelis and Palestinians. It is most heartening to see that the views of both sides are presented rather than, as usual, the unilateral one from the Israeli side. The fact that the book is written by a Jewish rather than Arabic author makes it even more important.
The Iron Wall ought to be read by our politicians as well as media pundits because the current good versus evil depiction of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not only inaccurate but dangerous since it will inevitably result in further escalation of bloodshed.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling, objective text on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Review: Schlaim, in "The Iron Wall" reevaluates traditional schools of thought regarding the Arab-Israeli Conflict. His revisionist approach ensures a nonbiased, objective examination of the issues, people and policies behind the raging Arab-Israeli Conflict. What is particularly impressive is Schlaim's exhaustive use of primary sources - his bibliography cites countless interviews and discussions with people involved in the conflict, past and present. Schlaim, while critical of Israel, supports his stance with powerful and detailed evidence that rarely generalises or distorts the facts. "The Iron Wall" is well structured, each chapter deals with the conflict during the tenure of each Israeli PM since David Ben-Gurion. It is thus a truly historical text, presenting the facts of history without the spin. You will learn something from this book.
Rating:
Summary: A good history by a serious moderate historian
Review: Shlaim writes that a main reason for the Arab states invading Palestine in May 1948 was to undermine the abmitions of King Abdullah, who had agreed to partition Palestine with the Zionists in November 1947. He writes that Israel avoided peace offers from Syria and Jordan in 1948-49. He writes that Israel committed many atrocities while making searches in Israeli Arab villages for Palestinian "infiltrators." Most of these infiltrators, he writes, had come back for social or economic reasons to the land from which they had been cleansed in 1948 and between 1949 and 1956, Israel managed to kill between 2700 and 5000 of these persons, the vast majority of them unarmed. Israel insisted on the view that the Arab states were deliberately sponsoring the infilitration, when Israeli officials he quotes like deputy intelligence chief Yehoshafat Harkabi were aware that Jordan was trying to restrain the infiltration as best they could. He quotes defense minister Pinhas Lavon that Israel was deliberately sending military units into Jordan and committing atrocities but claiming to be responding to some fraudulent atrocity against Israel. Israel tried to disrupt relations between the West and Nasser's Egypt in the summer of 1954 by sending agents to bomb British and American installations in Egypt in what came to be known as the Lavon affair or "the mishap" as Israelis like to euphemistically call it. Likewise Israel hijacked a Syrian civillian airliner in December 1954, claiming that five Israelis had been kidnapped, but he notes that Sharett, whose diary he quotes alot, eventually went public that the five had actually infiltrated into Syria to take care of a wiretap on a telephone line. The February 28 1955 Israeli raid on Gaza, Shlaim writes, destroyed the secret talks between Egyptians and Israeli envoys. After this Nasser began actively supporting fedayeen terror against Israel. The border between the two had been quiet in the previous months except for the killing of a cyclist and Sharett expressed irritation in his diary that Ben Gurion felt the need to make up a story that the raid had resulted from an Egyptian military unit invading Israel. In the run-up to the Suez war, he writes, Israeli plans for territorial expansion reached their heights. He quotes Sharett's diary on plans in 1954 for annexing Southern Lebanon up to the Litani river and installing a friendly Christian regime in Beirut, and destabilizing the Hashemite regime in Jordan and handing control over it to Iraq. They discussed taking the Sinai and exploiting oil deposits there with the French. Egypt had no right to it Ben Gurion wrote in his diary, because it was attached to it by Britain in the late 19th century, taken from the Turks. Ben Gurion read a few books that asserted, based on interpretation of the Byzantine writer Procopius, that an ancient Jewish kingdom had existed on the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Gulf of Aqaba and became convinced that Israel had a right to control the Straits of Tiran. He calls the 1967 war a pre-emptive attack of self-defense on Israel's part. But he also writes that it was basically rooted in the Israeli-Syrian feuding over the Demilitarized zones from the 1949' armistice. He quotes a conversation with journalist Rami Tal that Moshe Dayan had in the mid-70's that was published in 1997 where Dayan estimated that at least 80 percent of the incidents since 1949 between Syria and Israel in the DMz's were provoked by Israel. He dismisses Dayan's suggestion that the Israeli settlers near the Golan Heights were only concerned about grabbing that territory for themselves instead of genuinely being about protection from Syrian shelling. He writes that they only mentioned security and nothing about land in their meetings with government officials. The 1973 war, he shows, was significantly caused by Israel's settlement building in the Sinai as well as its rejection of Sadat's February 1971 for recognizing Israel in return for the Sinai and proposals for demilitarizing the Sinai. On Lebanon, he calls the Qana massacre an error on Israel's part. He does give an interesting account of what Sharon hoped to achieve by the war, namely the destablization of King Hussein and the "transfer" of Palestinians to the East Bank of the Jordan. On the peace process, he was highly optomistic about it though he admits that Labor governments as well as those of Likud were the cause of injustices to Palestinians:increased settlement building, the encirclement of Jerusalem by Israeli settlement blocks, cutting off the West Bank from East Jeruasalem, the continued application of Israeli military ordnances instead of the fourth Geneva conventions, the continued lack of security of Palestinians from abuses by Israeli soldiers and settlers. I don't think he is quite right when he says that Har Homa was suspended by the Rabin-Peres government: it was actually approved to go forward in February 1996 and be implemented at the same time and manner as Netanyahu did. In his intro to the paperback edition dated September 2000 he does not get too much into the unpleasant specifics of the July 2000 proposal for a Palestinian state such as Israel's control over water and the by-pass roads. He just says that the "state" offered would be "weak, demilitarized and territorially divided."
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