|Israeli paratroopers march along the Suez-Cairo road on the
western bank of the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War. Israel
reversed earlier Arab gains [GALLO/GETTY] | In 1989, Benny
Morris, the founder of Israel's New Historian movement,
published The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,
questioning the traditional Israeli view of the Middle East's
longest conflict. In April, Morris will publish his latest book,
1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, about the
creation of the state of Israel. Al Jazeera met with him at
London's Jewish Book Week, held in late February, to discuss the
impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War on Arab unity. Al Jazeera: Why
did Egypt's President Anwar Sadat launch the war of 1973?
Morris: Sadat gambled correctly; he wanted to dislodge the
logjam. He wasn't going to get Sinai back unless he did
something hard and he decided a war would do it and he was
right. It broke the logjam, he got Sinai back within nine years.
So his calculation was correct. How did the war affect t