Social Mobilization in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Home Front Strategies in Israel | Israeli Military History & Middle East Politics | For Academic Research & History Enthusiasts

There have been many, many books on the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, but none, so far as I know, about the mobilization of Israeli society as a whole--the sort of mobilization that is a critical part of all modern wars, and that was absolutely essential to the Israeli victory. What Naor describes in clear and straightforward prose is truly remarkable--a brand-new country trying to mobilize (beginning even before coming into legal existence) to ensure its own existence under extremely difficult circumstances. The bureaucracies needed to manage the war effort (and the country as a whole) were being created even as the war was being fought; the scarcity of resources of all types--food, weapons, technical skills--was a tremendous problem; and the arrival during the war of vast numbers of immigrants (relative to the size of the initial population) enhanced Israel's strength while also placing a huge burden on the government's and society's ability to cope with so many newcomers. This is not exactly an idealized picture--Naor discusses draft evasion, conflicts among Jewish military and political groups, and public protests against the new government. There are not a lot of human-interest stories here--this is a work of academic history--but the book nevertheless manages to convey how the war influenced civilian life and how civilians influenced the course of the war. This is a fine book that will greatly enhance readers' understanding of the Israeli side of the 1948 war.I do wish it were available in paperback.