Israeli War of Independence

Observations · March 17, 2025
Israel’s Second War of Independence
By Michael Oren
The generation fighting in Gaza and Lebanon is tempered, steeled, anything but fragile, and intensely patriotic.
Monthly Essay · September 11, 2023
The Perennial Power of the Nakba
By Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
How generations of Arab thinkers and leaders tried to turn the humiliation of their losses to Israel into a springboard to launch their nations into an enchanted new age.
Response · February 12, 2020
What Ben-Gurion Knew Would Happen after Israel Declared Independence
By Eliot A. Cohen
If the Jews could hang on through the tough early months, he thought, they would grow considerably stronger while their opponents might well become weaker. And so it proved to be.
Monthly Essay · February 3, 2020
Ben-Gurion’s Army: How the IDF Came into Being (and Almost Didn’t)
By Martin Kramer
On the eve of Israel's statehood in 1948, with the massed forces of five Arab nations threatening invasion, David Ben-Gurion picked a fight with his own army. Why?
Monthly Essay · November 6, 2017
Who Saved Israel in 1947?
By Martin Kramer
The usual answer is Truman—but it could just as easily be Stalin. In fact, thanks to Zionist diplomacy, it was both; and therein lies a lesson for the Jewish state today.