Shay Hazkani

Shay Hazkani, author of Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War (Stanford University Press, 2021)

About the book

In 1948, a war broke out that would result in Israeli independence and the erasure of Arab Palestine. Over twenty months, thousands of Jews and Arabs came from all over the world to join those already on the ground to fight in the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces and the Arab Liberation Army. With this book, the young men and women who made up these armies come to life through their letters home, writing about everything from daily life to nationalism, colonialism, race, and the character of their enemies. Shay Hazkani offers a new history of the 1948 War through these letters, focusing on the people caught up in the conflict and its transnational reverberations.

Dear Palestine also examines how the architects of the conflict worked to influence and indoctrinate key ideologies in these ordinary soldiers, by examining battle orders, pamphlets, army magazines, and radio broadcasts. Through two narratives—the official and unofficial, the propaganda and the personal letters—Dear Palestine reveals the fissures between sanctioned nationalism and individual identity. This book reminds us that everyday people's fear, bravery, arrogance, cruelty, lies, and exaggerations are as important in history as the preoccupations of the elites.

About the author

Shay Hazkani is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a particular interest in the social and cultural history of Palestine/Israel, and Middle Eastern Jews. In his research and teaching he focuses on the interactions between elites and non-elites, and how ideas which emanate from elites and state institutions were transformed and subverted as they make their way to the reflections and conduct of ordinary people.