300. Gaza: The 1948 War (Part 10)

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durympo. Now, in the last episode we left you, or Caroline Elkins, talked us through a Palestinian revolt, a report sent to the League of nations, yet all eyes are turned away as the world enters its next phase of tumult, and that is the Second World War. And with the end of that war, the mandate entered its last and most fateful phase that led on one hand to the great triumph of the creation of the State of Israel, and on the other to the great catastrophe, the expulsion of most of the Palestinians known to them as the Nakba, meaning the catastrophe.

Well, here to guide us through what is, I think it's fair to say, one of the most contested territories of history, is a rare figure who is respected by both sides of this conversation. Eugene Reagan, professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford. He is the author of two seminal books that tell the story of this land, the Arabs, A history and the fall of the Ottomans, a friend of the show since our very inception. Eugene, welcome to you.

Thanks very much for being with us. It is a pleasure to be back with you. Thank you, Anita. Eugene, we haven't mentioned there, you actually edited a book, didn't you, on exactly this topic? The War for Palestine, which I edited with Avi Schleim and brought together a lot of the then new historians and uh other leading scholars on the Nakbah itself and the 1948 war.

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