Israel's Border Wars 1949-1956 is a 1993 book written by Benny Morris concerning the Arab infiltration from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria into Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and before the Suez Crisis war in 1956.
Benny Morris contends that the Arab infiltration into Israel and the Israeli retalitory response to the infiltrations set patterns of behavior that were to characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades to come.
Benny Morris believes that he can build a relatively clear picture of the events of this period in spite of a formidable lack of many documents, especially those from the Arab states.
No Arab state has opened its state papers to researchers, Arab or non-Arab.
The protocol of the Israeli Cabinet meetings are closed as is the overwhelming bulk of the Israeli Defense Ministry and Israel Defense Forces documents. Nonetheless, much of the Israeli civilian decision-making is available in declassified military[sic] records. The situation is much more difficult when it comes to the Arab side.
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