Book Description
Since the Holocaust, it has been almost impossible to hide large-scale crimes against humanity. In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.
Customer Reviews:
Yet ANOTHER CASE of JEWISH SAVAGERY and HUMILIATION towards the"PALESTINIAN HOLOCAUST.".......2007-10-02
You will have to stop reading at times to wipe the tears coming from your eyes like Niagara Falls. Get a huge box of tissues for this gut-wrenching story of the daily brutal, humiliating and savage treatment against the women and children of Palestine. I started reading about the fate of the Palestinians with Carters book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter's book is a great and objective overview of the Palestinians Holocaust. Bush, Rice and Cheney will be rightfully humiliated in History books and in posterity for turning their backs and 'allowing' these atrocities to go on and on and on.... Right now as you read this review, The Palestinian Holocaust is in full terror. I'm 'not' giving up on the idea, that America will soon be "Good 'ole America again." Read this book.
What the U.S. Press Refuses to Show.......2007-09-30
A clear and concise view of the Palestinian holocaust, a view that the American media refuses to show.
Unspeakable evil finally expressed in words.......2007-09-26
The unspeakable evil that has been committed against the Palestinian people in 1948, and the unspeakable evil that is still being committed against the Palestinian people, has at last been expressed in words.
Amidst the vast zionist propaganda machine created to cover up horrendous atrocities, at last we have a book that gives us the truth. This book, with all its shocking details, is the best book I have read on the Palestine/Israel conflict, though it made very grim and painful reading. Ilan Pappe has given the world a wonderful gift in the writing of this book, one that could play a major role in bringing world peace, once all the facts that Pappe presents are known. His sources include the Israeli Archives and Ben Gurion's diaries, as well as eye witness accounts of what happened in 1948, and is continuing today.
If anyone wants to know what the conflict in the Middle East is all about, just read this book; every member of Congress, and every member of the general public should know how our billions of tax dollars that we send to Israel each year are being spent.
History you Must Know.......2007-09-15
If you have not read ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE you do not know the history of Palestine, nor can you understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of a new group of Israeli historians, Ilan Pappe reveals previously secret Israeli documents. The cleansing of Palestine of its Arab inhabitants began long before 1948, and continues today. Step by step the plans to cleanse the land, and the entire infrastructure with the cleansing details -- 1927 land surveys, The Red House, the Consultancy, Plan Dalet, Plan D -- is spelled out by Pappe. This is a painful read, but a necessary one to understand the Middle East.
Honest & Excellent.......2007-09-14
Very excellent book that shows part of the sufferings of Palestinians written by a very honest person
Amazon.com
This is the exciting and highly literate story of the real Lawrence of Arabia, as written by Lawrence himself, who helped unify Arab factions against the occupying Turkish army, circa World War I. Lawrence has a novelist's eye for detail, a poet's command of the language, an adventurer's heart, a soldier's great story, and his memory and intellect are at least as good as all those. Lawrence describes the famous guerrilla raids, and train bombings you know from the movie, but also tells of the Arab people and politics with great penetration. Moreover, he is witty, always aware of the ethical tightrope that the English walked in the Middle East and always willing to include himself in his own withering insight.
Book Description
The monumental work that assured T.E. Lawrence's place in history as "Lawrence of Arabia." Not only a consummate military history, but also a colorful epic and a lyrical exploration of the mind of a great man who helped shape the Middle East as it exists today.
Customer Reviews:
A Unique Masterpiece.......2007-09-25
This is one of the great books of the 20th century. That it could be written at all is almost a miracle in itself. Take a brilliant Oxford student trained in the old classical tradition, place him in the Arabian desert as advisor to the wild Bedouin tribesmen during their revolt against the Turks and have him write with an acute sensitivity and unparalleld insight into what was transpiring before him and you may have some notion of what the book is like.
It's a long book. You will learn a great deal about blowing up a railroad bridge in the desert, about camel rides, thirst, and hunger and the heroism and brutality of war. The portraits of Sheik Auda, Sherrif Ali and Prince Faisal of the two Arab boys who Lawrence takes under his wing are masterpieces in and of themselves. The nobility and savagery of the desert tribesmen contrasted with the cold stoicism of the British and the inculcated cruelty of the Turks are just some of themes addressed during the course of the work. There are brilliant passing insights as to the Semitic inspiration for all the revealed religions and their relation to the desert beautiful descripitions of the terrain the weather and the obstacles encountered. When Lawrence says that from the beginning he believed the Arab revolt would succeed because it grew out of a sympathetic population was opposed by a modern army that could not garrison the territory occupied one wishes that President Bush had read it instead of just seeing the movie. Read it yourself.
The Hejaz War.......2007-06-10
The Hejaz War of 1917 was written by Colonel T.E. Lawrence at the Paris peace talks in 1920 -21. Lawrence understood the Arabs thay did not conquer territory but they brought the Arab tribes together to conquer the Ottoman Turkish Army whom they considered poor soldiers. The Hejaz is the Red Sea coast parallel to the extinct lava fields of the 3,000m high Hejaz mountains. The Hejaz railway, linking Damascus with Medina, was attacked by Lawrence's Hejaz army until the Turks could no longer repair it. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the bible of Guerilla Warfare and should be read by General Petraeus US Armed Forces Commander, Iraq.
The taking of Damascus intact in 1918 by the arab army before General Allenby's allied army at least ensured Sheikh Feisal became King of Iraq. The Sykes -Picot treaty of 1916 ensured the Middle East was divided up by Britain and France directly leading to the present Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Stylistic autobiography with insight.......2007-01-09
Mr. TE Lawrence was not only a gifted tactician/strategist but also a scholar of the highest order. His writing style is rich and descriptive avoiding the dry pitfalls sometimes associated with autobiographies. The story of the Arab revolt from the man who helped shape and guide it is an invaluable resource to have. TE Lawrence's thoughts on irregular/unconventional warfare are insightful and still lessons to be rememembered today. An enjoyable and insightful read- perfect for any military history collection.
Learning the Arab way.......2007-01-05
For me, the complexity of the Middle East seemed unfathomable. By reading this book, carefully, delving into the author's text, I have a better understanding of the people of the Middle East and their many tribes and cultural ways. I also can begin to understand their rivalries and methods of dealing with each other. It is a very complex society that will take the USA years to understand and deal with.
Extraordinary - History and the Man.......2006-11-10
At a critical time, the right man steeped forward (if somewhat indirectly) to encourage an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. This classic war novel is more than the usual, as it reveals a character tortured with self analysis.
Highly recommended.
Book Description
In Resurrecting Empire, Rashid Khalidi dissected the failures of colonial policy over the entire span of the modern history of the Middle East, predicted the meltdown in Iraq that we are now witnessing with increasing horror, and offered viable alternatives for achieving peace in the region. His newest book, The Iron Cage, hones in on Palestinian politics and history. Once again Khalidi draws on a wealth of experience and scholarship to elucidate the current conflict, using history to provide a clear-eyed view of the situation today. The story of the Palestinian search to establish a state begins in the era of British control over Palestine and stretches between the two world wars, when colonial control of the region became increasingly unpopular and power began to shift toward the United States. In this crucial period, and in the years immediately following World War II, Palestinian leaders were unable to achieve the long-cherished goal of establishing an independent state-a critical failure that throws a bright light on the efforts of the Palestinians to create a state in the many decades since 1948. By frankly discussing the reasons behind this failure, Khalidi offers a much-needed perspective for anyone concerned about peace in the Middle East.
Customer Reviews:
Good historian, stolid writer.......2007-04-18
I will not duplicate the excellent summations of this important work by Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi. Nor do I challenge his research or analysis of a complex situation. What I will add (and concur with another reviewer) is that it is a very slow and tedious read -- repetitious, lacking in vivid narration, and plagued with ackwardly constructed and convoluted arguments that make it difficult to even skim. The Iron Cage is worth reading to glean the important points the author makes about why Palestinians have achieved so little in their long, sad history, and their failure to achieve sustained good leadership. But, to be honest, reading this book was an uphill battle. I was very motivated because of my interest in the topic, otherwise I would have put it aside and looked for another well informed book written by a person with a better feel for the written language. (That being said, I heard the author discuss his book on C-SPAN and found him more compelling as a speaker.)
Outstanding book which reveals the truth regarding Palestinians & the nightmare called "Israel".......2007-03-15
I am Jewish and the "state" of "Israel" is an embarrassment to worldwide Jewry. More and more Jews are waking up to this fact. This book does an excellent job of exposing the cruelty which Jews inflicted (and continue to inflict) on the indiginous Palestinians after Jews stole their land in 1948.
superb overview of the Palestinians from a terrific historian.......2007-03-14
Khalidi does it again! Like in his previous books, he informs the general reader about the real story behind the headlines. Smear campaigns against Khalidi by groups like Campus Watch seem to be part of a strategy to convince the US public that there is no such thing as a rational, reasonable Palestinian. That is precisely what New-York-born-and-raised Khalidi is - and an important voice for the public debate in America. His former colleagues at the University of Chicago (many of them Jewish) hold him in high esteem.
Fine account of the Palestinian people's struggle for national self-determination.......2007-03-08
Professor Rashid Khalidi, a historian at Columbia University in the City of New York, has written a brilliant account of the Palestinian people's struggle for national self-determination.
He shows how in the 1920s and 1930s, the British Empire deprived the Palestinians of all democracy to stop them defeating the Zionist project. The Mandate for Palestine, like the Balfour Declaration, made no reference to Palestinians or Arabs, only to `non-Jewish communities' who had only civil and religious, not national or political, rights. By contrast, both Mandate and Declaration asserted that the `Jewish people' had the right to a `national home'.
Khalidi notes the British Empire's `vast experience in thwarting the will of majorities in different countries'. He shows in detail how it divided, diverted and distracted all opposition to its rule. The Empire's rulers always presented the colonies as made up of incompatible religious and ethnic communities, who would be at each other's throats without the benevolent presence of the British.
Khalidi dissects the Zionist myth that `seven Arab armies' invaded Israel in 1948-49. The fiercest fighting was the Jordanian army's defence of areas assigned by the UN to the Arab state, and of the UN-defined area around Jerusalem, against Israeli offensives.
He records that in 1991, the first Bush Government pledged "to oppose settlement activity in the territories occupied in 1967, which remains an obstacle to peace." But the US government broke its word: it backed the Israelis throughout the 1990s building new settlements to reinforce their illegal occupation.
Finally, he shows how, at the behest of the Israeli government, the USA imposed rules for negotiations on the Palestinians which "indefinitely froze dealing with any of the issues of substance between the two sides (the final status issues: occupation, settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, water, and permanent borders), while there was no concomitant freeze on the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem." In April 2004, Bush II openly tore up his father's pledge when he wrote to Sharon recognising the `new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers'.
Coming to Terms with a Hard Situation.......2007-02-17
Khalidi poses the question of why Palestinian political development is so weak, certainly not up to the standards of contemporary high-income republics.
By itself, this question might not be very interesting, as the high-income countries' level of political development is so difficult to achieve that its absence hardly needs explanation. People who think that England and France set the norm may not remember those countries' internal wars of religion in the 1600s and the ruthless methods used to integrate their territories. Thus, the Palestinian experience should hardly surprise us.
Khalidi's purpose in answering the question about political development, however, is to show what the Palestinians' efforts have been.
Khalidi's main point is that there was no sustained effort to create a coherent Palestinian political structure in the first forty years after the early 1920s, when partition first created a territory termed "Palestine." He relates that Palestinians initially tried to work through the British rather than to set themselves up as independent. Then, after Israeli forces expelled them in the 1947-48 run-up to Israel's formal independence on May 15, 1948, Palestinians' lives were simply too disrupted for political organization.
In the subsequent period from the early 1960s on, Khalidi gives the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) credit for three essential achievements in political organization: (1) winning most Palestinians' recognition of the PLO as their first-ever central point for political cooperation, (2) winning Arab countries' recognition of a Palestinian national cause, and (3) finally winning global recognition that the Palestinian nation existed.
At the same time, Khalidi also identifies three failings: (1) not setting up internal democracy and efficient service bureaucracies, (2) not being categorical enough when they gave up armed resistance to the Israelis after the mid-1970s, and (3) neglecting Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza when Israel allowed the PLO leadership to return in the mid-1990s.
Khalidi's final chapter is a separate essay on Israel's progress toward absorbing the West Bank, the role of the peace process in promoting this, and the likelihood that it has made a Palestinian state impossible.
Returning to the history, it is unfortunate that Khalidi does not clarify the impact of partition, which separated Palestine from the rest of the Arab nation, including the political centers -- Damascus, Beirut, and Cairo. Khalidi points out that the Arab provisional government in Damascus opposed partition and wanted a unified nation. But Khalidi does not say what the people suddenly isolated in Palestine thought about the Arab nation. In particular, did they have the sense that building separate Palestinian political institutions would work against Arab goals and play into British hands?
Indeed, given the degree of longstanding social interaction across the borders partition created, is it objectively reasonable to speak of Palestine in 1920 as a nation? Or was it rather one portion of a partitioned nation?
The writing in Khalidi's historical chapters is indeed somewhat repetitive (a carryover from Arabic poetry's style?), but interested readers will persevere.
Book Description
The enormous changes in the 1990s throughout the Middle East have necessitated this thoroughly revised edition of the standard introduction to the subject. Offering a balanced history of both Israeli and Arab goals, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict covers the history of Palestine before Israeli independence in 1948 and brings the story forward to the breakthrough Arab-Israeli Accord of 1993 and its troubled aftermath.
Customer Reviews:
Good with excellent primary sources.......2006-02-10
The Arab-Israeli conflict is one that touches on so many painful emotions and biases that no book will be deemed fair or unbiased by all concerned. However, Smith's book does a very good job of attempting to be as close to unbiased as possible. It is often used as a textbook in upper-level modern Middle East history courses for just that reason. It is good choice for someone who is new to the subject (other than the inescapable news coverage) and really wants to understand some of the issues invovled throughout the history of the conflict.
One of the strongest things about Smith's book is the inclusion of a number of primary sources. Other than disputing the translations, no one can deny that primary sources are as close to an honest look at history as we can get. Documents are included from many sides of the issues involved and no side comes out either squeekly clean nor as pure evil.
Another strength I found, to differ with another reviewers opinion, is that the book starts quite far back in the history of the conflict. As the mythologizing of the roots of Israel as a nation has been worked into the official stance of all sides, each for their own purposes, understanding what happened at the beginning is of utmost importance if you really want to grasp the subject. This is a good book that does it's best with a difficult subject and goes into some depth in addition to excellent primary source material.
Read with care and caution.......2005-06-04
Like some other reviewers, I too bought this book for a college course and I too find it overly biased toward the Arab point of view. The author has the right to draw his own conclusions, but like any non-fiction book, readers must use their own judgement to evaluate those conclusions carefully. I don't know if there is an author without bias on this topic due to its sensitivity.
It is also horribly dry in my opinion. I know it's supposed to be, but certain sections just drag on and on, it seems, uneccessarily.
Read critically, not literally. If you have a choice (i.e. don't have to buy this particular book for a course or something) choose a more balanced author, if you can find one.
A Good Historical Overview But More Recent Events are Biased.......2005-04-25
The book is a fairly concise and accurate overview of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It covers ancient Jewish history, the beginnings of Zionism, the emergence of Israel, the Arab Wars and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of the coverage is well researched and documented.
The closing chapters of the book are undoubtedly biased towards the Palestinian account. One example is the coverage of the Barak-Arafat-Clinton negotiations in 2000. Smith portrays Barak as a man whose intentions were not to conduct honest negotiations but rather "carefully calculated, intended to appear more amenable to the United States." Smith writes that "there was never an Israeli offer." Further, Smith asserts that Barak was manipulating the media in order to force them to present a positive account of Israeli negotiations. Arafat's refusal to make any counter offer, or contribute to the negotiations -- as asserted by President Clinton and the U.S. chief negotiater -- are not mentioned. Smith also does not fault Palestinian terrorism -- the systematic, often daily suicide bombings experienced by Israel -- for turning Israeli public opinion against further peace talks. According to Smith, the blame lies solely on Sharon and his visit to the Temple Mount and Palestinian frustration.
Smith's discussion of the Intifada speaks in terms of Israeli attacks and Palestinian "armed response." In fact, Israel had been initially very reserved in its replies to suicide bombings. Israeli interests do not lie in a military occupation of the Palestinian territories, unless necessary to alleviate security risk.
Admittedly, I have an opinion about whose fault the failure of the Camp David II was. It is acceptable for the author to take an opposite view. However, in a book that claims to be a non-biased textbook for college use, the topic should be presented with acknowledgement of differing opinions. Especially, when the book presents an account that is largely a contrast to the established narrative (a narrative that there is no reason to believe is inaccurate).
My rating is still positive because the book is a valuable resource in its coverage of earlier time periods. However, this book should be used with other materials for balance.
Read this book.......2005-04-15
A perfectly balanced, non-biased, facts only, well documented, concise and detailed account. An excellent book to be read by all who wish to have an in-depth knowledge of what went and goes on in that part of the world.
A great survey of the everlasting conflict.......2005-02-23
Great book...easy to read for a history text. Read it over a weekend and actually stayed awake. Up to date discussion and documents add value to the study of the topic.
Highly recommend.
Book Description
The Case Against Israelargues that Zionism was responsible for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and that Israel is responsible for its perpetuation. The argument rests on widely accepted factual claims and impeccable sources. It avoids rhetoric and gratuitous moralizing. There is no attempt to blacken Israel through association with colonialism, imperialism, or racism. Instead, Neumann's argument emphasizes the fateful Zionist quest for Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. This quest-not the massacres or plans for transfer or other blots on Zionist history-made violence inevitable and compromise impossible. The prospect of Zionists gaining the power of life and death over all inhabitants of Palestine had to be seen by the Palestinians as a mortal threat. They responded accordingly.
The tragic consequences of the quest for sovereignty did not follow all at once, but in two stages. The Zionists established a sovereign Jewish state in 1948. Had they been content with that, peace might have followed the 1967 war, when Israel could have backed the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Instead, Zionists pushed to extend Jewish sovereignty, this time through the settler movement. The settlements were a renewed mortal threat to the Palestinians and once again necessitated a violent response. The only solution is for Israel to withdraw, unilaterally, to its 1948 borders.
Michael Neumann was born in 1946, the son of German Jewish refugees. He graduated from Columbia University with degrees in European history and English literature, followed by a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Toronto. He teaches moral and political philosophy at a Canadian university. He has written What's Left?, a critique of 1960s radicalism, and numerous articles relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict. His academic work includes The Rule of Law: Politicizing Ethics as well as articles on utilitarianism, rationality, and rights.
Customer Reviews:
COMPELLING INDICTMENT OF ISRAEL'S POLICIES AGAINST PALESTINIANS.......2007-10-06
Well documented analysis of Israel's apartheid and sadistic policies against entire Palestinian populations under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
This book by a principled and brave writer like Michael Neumann is another compelling and revealing indictment of the daily human rights abuses suffered by the Jewish state's palestinian victims (christians and moslems alike) on a daily basis and which regretfully are systematically ignored or underreported by the zionist or neocon controlled so called mainstream media.
NEUMANN HITS a NERVE, AS THE "TRUTH" USUALLY DOES .......2007-10-03
The overreactions of some of these reviews told me I just had to read this book for myself. It is no surprise that Neumann has hit the bullseye with his book. It feels like FREEDOM of SPEECH, is actually coming back to America - slowly but SURELY! Neumann has written a great book and a heroic book. If you want to go full circle on this topic after reading Neumann's book, then read "The Israel Lobby," by Mearsheimer and Walt. You won't put it down, as it is an eye opener just like Neumann's courageous work. Scholarly and Highly Recommended! WHERE HAS ALL THIS INFORMATION BEEN FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS?!
Now seriously, folks...........2007-08-22
If fairy tales were real, I'd enjoy this book. It is common knowledge that the author is not Jewish, had his name legally changed from Muhammad in 1992, and has never had a positive thing to say about Israel or anyone of Jewish faith. This book is serious humor - and to those who follow the nonsense of the author's "sources' as being reliable, then as the old adage goes..."I have some swampland in Florida I have for sale - wanna buy it"?
If the facts don't fit the theory, then the facts must be wrong(?).......2007-07-01
This book, written by a philosopher, misses the key points that would be obvious to any historian - or for that matter anyone who lives in the real world. The author writes: "The Zionist project, as conceived and executed in the 19th and early 20th century, was entirely unjustified. ... " That's an interesting view in retrospect but one that conflicts with the views of world community as reflected by the League of Nations and the UN in their respective times. In any case, how will the application of a certain 21st century moral viewpoint to the 19th century help us resolve the conflict? Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of Zionists of 100 years ago (note that actual historians sensibly avoid making such retrospective judgments), both Israelis and Palestinians find themselves in a difficult situation today (to say the least). In fact, as a philosopher, Neumann is smart enough to understand the irrelevance of the historical background. Therefore in order to judge the Israelis, he simply stipulate premises, which, if they were true, would in fact validate his argument. Thus he claims: "Israel can withdraw at will and close its border, Israel can put an end to virtually all the violence....Since that occupation has no defensive or strategic rationale, Israel has no good reason to prolong it." Indeed in the hypothetical alternate universe that Neumann inhabits, this would be a valid point. However, in the real world, even the most naive observer understands that simply withdrawing from the occupied territories will not conceivably end the violence. The violence began long before the territories were occupied (rockets were routinely launched into Israel prior to 1967) and currently Hamas, with the support of maybe half the Palestinian population, refuses to recognize the right of Israel to exist (and routinely launches rockets into Israel). The fact that the real-world situation is not amenable to a simplistic philosophy-based analysis, does not give us permission to ignore the real world.
Excellent study of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.......2007-06-07
Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario. He writes, "I am a moral and political philosopher: if I have an expertise, it is in moral and political argument." In this brilliant book he clearly outlines the essentials of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. He concludes, "Israel is, generally speaking, in the wrong in its conflict with Palestinians. The Palestinians, I will claim, are generally speaking in the right."
In Part One he looks at the Zionist project and its consequences. In Part Two he examines the current situation - the occupation, the settlements, alternatives, possible Palestinian strategies, and terrorism.
He summarises Part One, "The Zionist project, as conceived and executed in the 19th and early 20th century, was entirely unjustified and could reasonably be regarded by the inhabitants of Palestine as a very serious threat, the total domination by one ethnic group of all others in the region. ... The illegitimacy of the Zionist project was the major cause of all the terror and warfare that it aroused." Zionism's "leaders literally conspired to dispossess or dominate the Palestinians. ... It was the implementation of this idea that made bloodshed in Palestine, if not inevitable, as close to it as we can expect to get. That blood is on the Zionists' hands."
The Palestinians were faced, "not with a long-standing conflict between two established populations, but with an invasion conceived and executed by a political movement. No one is morally required to compromise with an invasion. ... Any population may defend itself against the threat of an externally imposed sovereignty."
In Part Two, he argues, "Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, there was a fundamental change in the situation .... Israel's existence became as secure as any state has a right to expect. Its settlement policy was not defensive but a form of ethnic warfare, and, therefore, outrageously wrong. The Palestinians were justified in claiming that once again some sort of violent response was not only permissible, but necessary. Moreover, all this holds regardless of whether the previous arguments hold: regardless of whether the Zionist project was justified."
The Palestinians have no alternative to fighting for survival, but Israel has an alternative - unilateral withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. Neumann points out, "Its willful and pointless rejection of that alternative places Israel decisively in the wrong. ... since Israel can withdraw at will and close its border, Israel can put an end to virtually all the violence. That violence is occasioned by the settlement policy, which is Israel's sole reason for the occupation. Since that occupation has no defensive or strategic rationale, Israel has no good reason to prolong it. Since Israel is willfully pursuing an unjustifiable strategy that it can end at no cost, it is responsible for all the consequences of that strategy. It follows that all the violence, and all horrors of the occupation, are to be laid at Israel's doorstep."
Book Description
Thousands of people have been honored for saving Jews during the Holocaust-but not a single Arab. Looking for a hopeful response to the plague of Holocaust denial sweeping across the Arab and Muslim worlds, Robert Satloff sets off on a quest to find the Arab hero whose story will change the way Arabs view Jews, themselves, and their own history.
The story of the Holocaust's long reach into the Arab world is difficult to uncover, covered up by desert sands and desert politics. We follow Satloff over four years, through eleven countries, from the barren wasteland of the Sahara, where thousands of Jews were imprisoned in labor camps; through the archways of the Mosque in Paris, which may once have hidden 1700 Jews; to the living rooms of octogenarians in London, Paris and Tunis. The story is very cinematic; the characters are rich and handsome, brave and cowardly; there are heroes and villains. The most surprising story of all is why, more than sixty years after the end of the war, so few people-Arab and Jew-want this story told.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting book on little known facts.......2007-06-22
The "righteous" would be those who risked their lives to help the unfortunate....in this case Arab Jews during the holocaust. We remember the WWII battles in North Africa. We may forget that they were necessary because the Germans and Italians controlled those areas that were at the time colonies and only became nations post WWII. Because there have been no stories about righteous people rescuing Jews in those countries, Robert Satloff set out to find them. He did find some and he also opened up a whole area of research because he is sure there are many he did not find. That said, however, he had trouble finding descendents in families who would admit this heroism. Apparently this kind of heroism is so unpopular these days that a family would rather not be known as heroic. This leaves one extremely depressed.
One interesting fact I learned is that the definition of the word "Zionism" is completely different in Moslem countries than it is elsewhere in the world. Here we see it as another word for Israeli nationalism. There it means, "the purposeful infliction of pain and suffering on Arabs and Muslims." Wow! No wonder we have so much trouble acquiring peace in the region! So let's abandon the term and simply say there are two countries there that need to have borders established.
By all means read the book. It does depress one a bit, but it also shows that simple humanity is possible. Let us build on our common humanity.
Arabs & Jews: a complex story.......2007-02-13
Robert Satloff follows Germany's genocide plan to wipe out the Jews in North Africa during World War II. As in European countries, some neighbors helped the Nazis and others helped the Jews, either colaborating with the Nazis or risking their own lives helping the Jews of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Satloff did intense research and traveled to the locations of the labor camps and communities. He gives the reader a complete picture and a very well written history.
Salvaging "Lost" History.......2007-01-24
Before I go too deeply into this book, two general observations right off the top.
Firstly, considering all that has been written about the Second World War in its magnitude, to have a relatively untouched subject such as this be brought to light at this late date is truly welcome and laudable. Secondly, as I've often noted, an unfortunate side-effect of the coverage justifiably given to the evils of the Holocaust has been a certain infrequently-admitted desensitizing to the horror of the mass murder at its heart, and this new study of that period helps reawaken some comprehension of the utter dimension of cruelty that was behind the atrocities.
This book and its true stories of Arabs as rescuers of persecuted Jews (and sometimes as pro-Fascist collaborators who oppressed the Jews in North African labor camps) is a meaningful read for any scholar, or for the curious-minded. Telling tales of bravery in a time of great danger, there are many feel good moments, foremost Tunisian statesman Mohamed Chenik's clever and brave duel of wits and nerves with the occupying Nazis, courage on his part that saved Jewish lives, but there is also a scattering of disheartening tales, too, showing no culture has a monopoly on indecency.
I think anyone who deems peace between Jews and Arabs to be impossible would do well to consult the history recorded here. Not only is it a fact that traditionally Jews received better treatment when dwelling in Muslim nations than in Christian ones, but many Muslims regarded the slaying of Jews, identified in the Koran as "a People of the Book" to be a direct sin against God. Furthermore, I also think it's a sad fact that so many Muslims who worked to assist their Jewish countrymen later denied their roles, lest they suffer repercussions at the hands of reactionary fanatics intent on waging war on Judaism and those seen as soft on it. Progress may not be a constant in human affairs, but a book like this is fuel for the light of optimism.
Arabs Helping Jews Survive the Holocaust.......2007-01-04
A most interesting book that I'm not quite sure just how to take. The primise is quite simple, 'were there Arabs that assisted the Jews during the Holocaust.' And the answer comes out a resounding yes. In Arab lands, such as those ruled by Vichy there were concentration camps set up. At the same time there were Arabs that helped Jews escape. It seems that the Arabs were pretty much like the other people in similar situations. Some helped the Germans, some helped the Jews, most simply stood by.
What makes it hard to take, is the present situation. If you found an Oskar Schindler or a Raoul Wallenberg among the Arabs that was still alive he wouldn't admit saving a Jew because of fear of his own life.
Still this book is important from the standpoint of understanding more of what was happening during the farther reaches of the Nazi empire during the war and for understanding a bit more about the history of the middle east and how it got into the confusing situation that it finds itself today.
A well written and needed book.......2006-11-17
This book is well written and covers an important and mostly overlooked subject. But the most poignant and important subject of this book is the authors main point. The book sets out to answer the question "was there one Arab who saved one Jew?" The introduction to this book shows that in general the most famous Arab to collaborate with the Nazis, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and tangentially Ibn Rashid the coup leader in Iraq, are moderatly known and there stories covered. However little light, outside of Michel Abitbol's book, has been shed on the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in North Africa. SO the effort here is to shed light on the many work camps set up in Tunisia, Algeria and Libya during the war and show how thousands of Jews died in North Africa at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. But the treatment was not universal. The Vichy government and the Italian government enacted race laws, but indiviudal local leaders didnt always extend the laws to Jews. However after 1941 the Nazis took an increasing role in North Africa, eventually sending the SS to round up and extort the Jews. In the end the Jews of North Africa and their communities which numbered some 300,000 were destroyed financially, stripped of rights and thrown out of all occupations, despite having been patriotic Frenchmen and Italians.
But the book aims to do something more than give us an intimate history of this. The author admits most Arab countries deny the Holocaust. However the view here is to examine the role of individual Arabs in saving Jews in North Africa so that Arab educators might be able to internalize the Holocaust as a heroic story of Arabs helping others, rather than the way it is taught as the Holocaust leading to the state of Israel.
So this book has a two-fold goal and the goal is admirable and interesting. It helps us understand what happaned to 500,000 Jews during the war who have mostly been forgotten by history. Second it helps to show Arabs that some of them can be proud of being knowledgable of the Holocaust.
Seth J. Frantzman
Amazon.com
Topicality is never an issue where Israel and the Palestinians are concerned. The arguments--not to mention bloodshed--over Jewish and Muslim nationhood and land rights have been going on for centuries and, whatever the best intentions of the current peace process, they will probably go on for centuries to come. Both parties fanatically believe they have an inalienable historical right to statehood on the land in question and both regard Jerusalem as a holy city. As befits the disenfranchised, the Palestinians are slightly more open to a negotiated settlement, but the Israelis remain intransigent about handing over any but the most inhospitable of scrubland and the impasse remains. In the battle between the bullets and the ballot box, the bullets are winning hands-down.
Tom Segev is one of Israel's most notable historians and journalists--one of the few to strive for any sense of objectivity in his writings--so a new book by him is always worth waiting for. One Palestine, Complete is a detailed account of Palestine under British rule from 1917 to 1948, the critical period in the modern history of the region that led up to the creation of the state of Israel. Segev begins by carefully detailing Britain's well-known inconsistencies in dealing with both the Jews and the Arabs--to both of whom it had appeared to promise, if not the world, at least the country after independence was granted--and goes on to make a convincing case that because Palestine fell into the category of an emotional rather than self-interested colonial possession, the Brits hoped the situation would unwind to everyone's advantage.
Where Segev departs from the historical norm is in his assertions that whatever the British may have said to the Palestinians, their actions were uncompromisingly pro-Zionist from the start. This, he claims, was done out of the mistaken, anti-Semitic belief that the Jews controlled business and turned the wheels of history, rather than from a recognition of the rightness of their cause. Be this as it may, it is at best a partial explanation. Before World War II, Britain was on the verge of handing over Palestine to the Arabs, and Segev completely downplays the impact of Western war guilt over the Holocaust that led to a huge growth in support for an independent Israeli state at the expense of Palestinian rights.
Even so, One Palestine, Complete offers a thoughtful and dramatic account of the evolution of two nationalist movements that seem destined never to be reconciled. With a past like this, what hope is there for the future? --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
A panoramic and provocative history of life in Palestine during the three strife-torn but romantic decades when Britain ruled and the seeds of today's conflicts were sownTom Segev's acclaimed works, 1949 and The Seventh Million, overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now Segev explores the dramatic period before the creation of the state, when Britain ruled over "one Palestine, complete" (as noted in the receipt signed by the High Commissioner) and when its promise to both Jews and Arabs that they would inherit the land set in motion the conflict that haunts the region to this day.Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials, Segev reconstructs a tumultuous era (1917 to 1948) of limitless possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures--General Allenby, Lawrence of Arabia, David Ben-Gurion--as well as an array of pioneers, secret agents, diplomats, and fanatics. He tracks the steady advance of Jews and Arabs toward confrontation and with his hallmark originality puts forward a radical new argument: that the British, far from being pro-Arab, as commonly thought, consistently favored the Zionist position, and did so out of the mistaken--and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history.Rich in unforgettable characters, sensitive to all perspectives, One Palestine, Complete brilliantly depicts the decline of an empire, the birth of one nation, and the tragedy of another.
Customer Reviews:
No Solution: The British in Palestine, 1917-1947.......2007-06-09
I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a lively, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.
Segev's book is well written and deeply humane, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.
I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece "A Peace to End All Peace") emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.
As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not meditate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally appear? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:
First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationhood was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.
Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nation allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.
Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.
Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).
It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?
First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.
Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.
We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?
Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, new questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.
Segev's masterpiece.......2006-12-15
This is Segev's finest work, and even if you disagree with its general thesis or its particular details, few can find fault with Segev's organization of his materials; he provides a wealth of larger information about the Mandatory period, but tempers it with a few individual "characters" who he introduces and reintroduces, here and there, to illustrate the human dimension of this period. In an area of study where few people will be wholly pleased, this aspect of the work can be nearly universally agreed upon. Independent of its historiagraphical worth (which I think is quite high), One Palestine, Complete, is well written and completely realized.
Thoughts on One Palestine, Complete.......2006-05-26
I am a sophomore in highschool who had the opportunity to read One Palestine, Complete instead of the usual textbook readings on the story of Palestine. Tom Segev used first hand sources to compile a complete history of all the events from the British taking control to the creation of Isreal. He did a wonderful job writing a detailed account of Palestine, and I recomend reading the book if you would like to learn more about the origins of the conflicts that still occur to this day in that region.
Tom Segev was able to make the book interesting and fun to read while still providing information about Palestine. Every page had something new and facinating, small things that would build up to help me understand the whole novel completely. For example, I found it interesting why the British government was so interested in Zionism. Segev wrote many chapters to fully explain all the people involved in the politics behind the decisions made, and the real motivations behind them. Using quotes from people and documents, he illustrated clearly why things happened the way they did.
Also, Segev wrote a very objective book on a very controversial subject. When writing on terrorist actions in the region, he explained both sides and gave the reasoning behind these people's feelings and actions. He spent time to make sure the reader would comprehended the motives of the terrorist, while still taking time to explain the reactions of the victoms of these attacks. The reader gets a sence of understanding on the issue, not a one sided argument.
I would recomend reading this book for anyone who wants to be enlightened on a much less known subject in history. This book is very objective, and well writen. If anything, you will enjoy reading it.
Too Biased To Be "Objective".......2005-10-04
While I did enjoy this book (I read it on an airline ride back from of all places: Israel) Segev seems to be one of these authors who is fascinated with making the Zionists in Israel look like English/Boer colonialists in South Africa, aka racist and uncarring to the "natives."
Even the assumtion that is made that the Arabs WERE "natives" was completely wrong considering Jews have had a connection to the region of Palestine for over 4000 years.
On top of that there were a number of factual errors such as the footnote on page 386 stating, "In its early years Etzel [Irgun] targeted only Arabs." Just the way this is said makes Irgun out to be a racsist anti-Arab group. Maybe Segev passed over other literature but the Irgun's (Etzel) attacks were (for that time) directed soley at the Arabs mainly because of Arab provications (note: Irgun launched small operations 1931-1937, for those of you who familiar with what happened in that period you would know that there were frequent Arab riots especially in 1929 and again in 1936 with the "great riot" leading to 320 Jews killed).
Regarding the book itself, it was a somewhat quick read with some very slow parts in the middle. I would recommend this book, but remember to read a few other sources before picking this book up.
Challenging Mythology and Ortodoxy.......2005-06-11
Writing this book was a brave act. In it, Segev takes it upon himself to challenge what amounts to national mythology presented as history. Segev isn't always right in the book, but he is more often right than wrong. Thats what upsets so many reviewers. Its not that they find what he has written to be incorrect, its that such books (and the facts that go with them) should be suppressed in favor of patroitic national history as handed down.
The value of this patriotic national history is close to zero now however. Israel's support, for example, in the US is no longer based on liberal romaticism. Its based on fanatic israeli-hating fundementalist christians whose love for Israel is based on the need for it to be destroyed at the proper time as part of their prophecies. If asked, they can explain how god's love for Israel is such that Israel must be destroyed in a final war where the only survivors will be Israeli christian converts.
That said, several criticisms of the book deserve to be challenged:
There is no historic, legal or even theoretical palestine that included all of what is today Jordan. The boundary of palestine east of the jordan was never determined until the early 1920s when Transjordan was created (see the mandate text for proof). The League of Nations sanctioned every act with regard to the creation of Transjordan and every act was consistant with the mandate, as written.
None of the Zionists of the period ever assumed that they were entitled or had been promised the entire territory of Jordan. At best, some of them argued for the whole of the Jordan River Valley for part of Palestine. But they made similar arguments for territory in Lebannon and Syria as well. No Contemporary Zionist thought that they had been promised all the territory of modern Jordan.
The problem of the mandate is that no one involved thought through what would be required to implement it. The existing population was certainly not going to accept being displaced without resistance. And when they did rise up in the 1920s and 1930s, the british had three choices: 1) Arm the Zionists and inagurate a civil war 2) Massacre and displace the Arab population or 3) Give up on the unrealistic goals of the mandate.
The British lacked the money, the brutality and the national will to impose the mandate by force. They tried to give up it, but eventually the Zionists armed themselves and inagurated what they always wanted: a civil war. The British, bankrupted by the war, then gave up and left them (and their neighbors) to fight it out.
Make no mistake, democratic Israel could not have been created except through war and refugees. If there had been no war and no movement of population in 1948, Israel could have only existed as a state without democracy. Most (if not nearly all) Israelis know this. Its only idiots trying to convince non-Israelis that even suggest otherwise. Israel won its existance in war. The refugees created by that war deserved resettlement and compensation (and still do!) but once Israel was created by force of arms, there was (and is) no going back.
The resettlement and compensation issues are not an Israeli failure, they were a failure of the US/UN/UK and most of the rest of the international community. Palestinians were placed in permenant refugee camps rather than resettled to create a visible humantarian crisis for anti-Israel purposes. Even to this day, if the will existed to do something the refugee problem and the problem of compensation for lost land in Israel could be quickly solved.
Where Israel was (and is wrong) isn't in 1917 or 1948, but after the 1967 war when the policy of settlements created a situation where Israel would either absorb the large arab population of the territories or become an non-democratic country. That is the problem Israel lives with today. And strangest of all, Israel itself could have solved the problem of the refugee camps after 1967 (broken them up) but went along with the UN in keeping them operating.
The mandate and its failure are the problems of the British and the (defunct) League of Nations. Whatever the history of Israel before 1948, its patriots created the country by force in 1948 and have protected it since. The Balfour declaration didn't create Israel, war in 1948 and its people created Israel. And now that its existed for 50+ years, whatever events before 1948 were, they do not justify erasing Israel from the map or destroying it. But its well past time to start admitting the historical truth. The unworkable mandate and its failure are a historical problem for the British, not Israel.
Absolutely evil dishonest works (like "From Time Immemorial") also need to be ignored and forgotten rather than quoted by those who would support Israel.
Its well past time for Israel to embrace its true history and legtimacy. Its time to stop trying to defend false history from the truth and get on with solving the problems of Israel in 2005 rather than the problems of 1922 or 1939.
Amazon.com
In 1897, under order of First Zionist Congress president Theodor Herzl, two Austrian rabbis traveled to Palestine to explore the possibility of locating a Jewish state there. "The bride is beautiful," the rabbis cabled Herzl, "but she is married to another man." That "other man" was the Palestinian Arab nation, long established in the region as a political entity. Undeterred, Herzl pressed on with his program of emigration, ignoring Palestine's existing occupants and creating in the process what came to be known as the "Arab question."
In this far-ranging history, Avi Shlaim analyzes that question in remarkable detail, tracing the shifting policies of Israel toward the Palestinians and the Arab world at large. Herzl, he writes, followed a policy that consciously sought to enlist the great powers--principally Britain and later the United States--while dismissing indigenous claims to sovereignty; after all, Herzl argued, "the Arab problem paled in significance compared with the Jewish problem because the Arabs had vast spaces outside Palestine, whereas for the Jews, who were being persecuted in Europe, Palestine constituted the only possible haven." This policy later changed to a stance of confrontation against the admittedly hostile surrounding Arab powers, especially Syria, Jordan, and Egypt; this militant stance was a source of controversy in the international community, and it also divided Israelis into hawk and dove factions. The intransigence of those hawks, Shlaim shows, served to alienate Israel and made it possible for the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Arab nationalist groups to enlist the support of the great powers that Herzl had long before courted. Both sides, in turn, had eventually to face the "historic compromise" that led to the present peace in the Middle East--a peace that, the author suggests, may not endure. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
As it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, the State of Israel could count many important successes, but its conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world at large casts a long shadow over its history. What was promulgated as an "iron-wall" strategy--dealing with the Arabs from a position of unassailable strength--was meant to yield to a further stage where Israel would be strong enough to negotiate a satisfactory peace with its neighbors. The goal remains elusive. In this penetrating study, Avi Shlaim examines how variations of the iron-wall philosophy have guided Israel's leaders; he finds that, while the strategy has been successful, opportunities have been lost to progress from military security to broader peace. The Iron Wall brilliantly illuminates past progress and future prospects for peace in the Middle East.Maps, 18 pages of photographs.
Customer Reviews:
Worthless.......2007-06-12
This post-Zionist drivel will confirm the delusions of lefties and arabists who don't want to learn anything about the actual history.
Study the author for insights into the masochistic omnipotence that plagues Jewish leftists and gives so much encouragement to those who want to destroy Israel.
Detailed, novel, but profoundly coloured by his anti-Zionism.......2007-06-05
As one would expect from a radical revisionist historian Shlaim has reputation to make by subverting the orthodox. Many of his observations are detailed and interesting - and purport to show how many opportunities Israel has missed to negotiate with its neighbours. Since the author was present in 1967, and plainly has an intimate familiarity with his source documents - his writing naturally therefore seems authoritative.
Nevertheless, I had a constant sense of hearing only half the narrative whilst reading the book. As though his determination to revise the history he was determined to change had blinkered him to the realities of the amply documented Arab intent to utterly annihilate Israel, in 67 particularly.
His leading participation in the 2005 Oxford Union debate 'Is Zionism today the real enemy of the Jews?' marks him out as a vocal and active anti-Zionist - and therefore hardly well qualified to write an objective history.
The appraisal is fair...........2007-05-02
The appraisal is fair.
The Author was not fooling with the Lavon affair. He decided, with more discretion and valor, to attribute it all to Ben-Gurion's machinations.
The hawkish branch of the Israeli leadership has always had to compensate for its political defeat at home through finding the deficiencies of others as cover up.
Ben-Gurion believed that his superficial knowledge of Egypt in general, and of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular would lend him credence to any action he took to convince `The West' that terrorism works were being masterminded by the fundamentalist Muslims against the Jews and Christian minorities.
Greater only than his aversion to the Palestinians was Ben-Gurion aversion to Nasser who was a newcomer junior lieutenant and represented the reforming tendencies in Egypt and the Arab world. Ben-Gurion was afraid of those reforming tendencies lest Egypt would be `extravagantly' feted so much for her magnificent influence, which seemed a reassuring symbol of her leadership.
When Sharett refused him permission to resort to force, etiquette did not give way to the natural quality of that oriental Jew whose expression so often succeed to endear him to the Arabs. Egyptian Jewish minorities were the unfortunate victims of Ben-Gurion's political intransigence and military adventurism, and the Lavon affair was its apex.
In his mid thirties the tall and heavily built Nasser, with `oval' face, protruded lower jaws, a `fellah' haircut shaved so close to the scalp it made him look older. His expression was serious and gave the misleading impression he was uncompromising. Nasser was equally aware of his political inexperience but proud of Egypt as a cohesive nation always ready to assume the leadership role of the Arabs.
To Nasser no tragedy could be greater than military defeat between the `great and proud' Egypt and the `tiny' Israel. When the reformist Nasser spoke of Israel he was speaking more from instinct than from reason, whereas the expansionist Ben-Gurion had more reason for being intransigent.
Ben-Gurion must have been vindicated when King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated. His demise was indeed the beginning of the end of moderation.
Hosni el Zaeem of Syria (1949), King Abdullah of Jordan (1951), Naguib and Nasser of Egypt (1953-1955) all advocated moderation and sought `settlement' of the Arab-Israeli debacle, whereas the Hawkish Leadership in Israel was only looking for `solutions' - Temporary solutions!!
Perhaps the most moderate era was the one during the Egyptian Royal Court. King Farouk regarded `his' defeat in 1948 as a personal insult. His caustic manner and tendency to bad temper and impolite language began when his overtures to find a viable `settlement' with the Israelis was also declined. Farouk was no more pleased to the new `neighbor' than his colleagues (and Israel) were to have him as the Arab Leader.
The cult of arrogance practiced by the Israeli leadership after its short-term military successes affected, in the long run, no one painfully than itself.
Israel, though admittedly intelligent and hard working, is described by its neighbors as rude, tactless, disputatious and given to domineering and expansionist manners.
But once divinity of Israel's doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith. The impression they transpired to everyone is one of uncertainties and emotions, tormented by indecisiveness whenever a decision for `peaceful settlement' was required.
On the other hand, aggravated by their bitterness and despair - not a pleasing prospect for a vigorous Arab world with an appetite for `a fair settlement' and whose excessive passions for progress had caused one regime to be deposed and another to take its place, the Arabs continue to give the false impression of intransigence, for uncompromising Israel to look moderate.
Pity that little thought is given to what wars did to the minds and to the national psyche of all the peoples living in this beautiful and fruitful part of the world.
The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.......2007-01-05
This book contains correct information presented from a viewpoint that may undermine rather than contribute to real efforts for a piece in the Middle East.
Absolutely illuminating.......2006-06-27
Avi Shlaim is a rare authority of the kind who honestly portrays the truth. He meticulously unravelled the knots in history and came out with the true events that shaped Israel and its relation towards Arabs since 1948. He deconstructed the history by analyzing many documents and showed how the and why the Israeli leaders behaved and reacted to scenarios, how was their interrelation, how they perceived the security facts and what was their relation to the military commanders. I was looking for this kind of book for long and finally found it in Tanya Reinhert's book (see my review on this book). He showed that how true is Kissinger's aphorism about Israel is true: "Israel has no foreign policy, it has only domestic politics." It was so true. Although he showed that USA has rather balanced policy toward Israel, at least till the 1990s, but from a lay person's perspective thats hardly the case. How come Israel has so many F16s and Pakistan had to burgain for years to buy F16s ! Anyway this book was very educative for me, it helped me to learn objectively about the Arab-Israel conflict, and thus to counter the stereotypes of many of my Egyptian friends, for example.
Book Description
James L. Gelvin's new account of the century-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians presents a compelling, accessible and up-to-the-moment introduction for students and general readers. Placing events in the disputed area within the framework of global history, the book skillfully interweaves biographical sketches, eyewitness accounts, poetry, fiction and official documentation into its narrative, including photographs, maps and an abundance of supplementary material as well. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century in Palestine, it traces the evolution and interactions of the two communities from their first encounters up to the present conflict.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding analysis of the roots of the Israel-Palestine question.......2006-01-14
Like Gelvin's other general readership work, The Modern Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2005), this is more an analytical essay than traditional textbook. In a field of study that is almost impossibly broad, this work aims to center on central themes and problems rather than a step-by-step narrative of events. More than anything else, reading this work is like sitting down with a very smart, very knowledgeable person for many cups of coffee: you learn a lot, but a lot gets breezed by as well. And the time passes quickly.
This emphasis on the "big picture" is both the book's greatest strength and its most significant weakness. Although aimed at undergraduates and a general audience, without recourse to other works, the reader may not feel that they have a sufficient grasp of chronology or of major actors. For this reason, readers may well find a basic textbook like those by Charles Smith or Mark Tessler to be of value. At the same time, what this work offers - far more than any other work that I know of - is an understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict as rooted in the very modern problem of nationalism. In a field that often gets caught up in the details or polemics, this broad approach is both engaging and intellectually provocative, offering the reader a means of seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict in a broader context than is generally offered.
Gelvin's breezy style is, at times, too dismissive and, while he argues that both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are both modern constructions, his fundamental sympathy for the Palestinian cause is clear. This "imbalance" will, no doubt, engage some readers and annoy others. Regardless of political inclinations, however, there are few readers, either novice or specialist, who would not benefit from a careful reading of this engaging and important survey.
A Historian's Historian; A Reader's Writer.......2005-12-17
As an amateur historian, I appreciate it when I read a book that takes an over-exposed subject and makes it fresh. Gelvin is a superb historian and writer as well as a polymath who is entirely comfortable writing about politics, literature, international exhibitions, poetry, and world history. He uses a short story by the Jewish-Austrian writer Joseph Roth to investigate how and why European Jews turned to nationalism, archaeological evidence to describe how nationalisms like Zionism remake national histories, Palestinian poetry to elaborate the experience of exile, and biographical sketches (Theodor Herzl, Ariel Sharon, Yasir Arafat, Mahmoud Darwish) to make history come alive. His writing is fluent, witty, and never pedantic. I almost felt guilty reading a book this enjoyable about such a bloody and endless conflict.
BRILLIANT and ENGAGING.......2005-09-08
I've read many books on the Israel/Palestine conflict (Smith, Tessler, Bickerton/Klausner, etc.) but this one is by FAR the best. First, it's actually fun to read. Gelvin writes as if he is there in the room having a conversation. The book is peppered with jokes and wry observations, and although Gelvin obviously knows his way around the academic world, there is none of the usual academic jargon. Second, most historians present history as one disconnected thing after another. Gelvin states a theme at the beginning of the book and sticks to it. For Gelvin, the conflict has had three phases: the first involved the initial encounter between two peoples (Jewish settlers and Arabs); the second began in 1948 when it was defined as an interstate "Arab-Israeli conflict" and the Palestinian question dropped off the map for most of the world (except the PLO); the third began in 1993 when Israelis and Palestinians recognized each other and brought the conflict full circle. This should be obvious, yet no one else I've read has said this directly. Also, the author keeps reminding the reader of the global context for the conflict, from the emergence of nationalism in Europe and its impact on Jews and Arabs in the nineteenth century to the impact of the end of the Cold War.
This is definitely a five star book, but I can see how it will drive some people nuts (i.e. those who can't bring themselves to use the words "Palestine" or "Palestinian" in their reviews). Zionists claim their nationalism is special, but Gelvin points out that it is pretty much a typical 19th century nationalism: it reconstructs Jewish history in its image, it insists that Jews have a right to establish a sovereign state on a piece of land they ruled thousands of years ago, etc. But all nationalisms do the same thing. What will really drive people nuts is that Gelvin shows how much Zionism and Palestinian nationalism resemble each other: both invent traditions, both claim to fulfill their peoples' national destinies, both have used terror to accomplish their goals. Gelvin doesn't let the Zionists off the hook, but he doesn't let the Palestinians off the hook either. Just read his analysis of the PLO doctrine of armed struggle or his profile of Arafat. His argument here is simple: while both national movements have a lot to answer for, if you accept the right of Jews or Palestinians to self-determination, you really can't ignore the right of the other side to self-determination either.
One small criticism: I read another book by this author (The Modern Middle East) in which he added inserts with anecdotes and stories that were related to points raised in the main text. They were a really good read, and I wish he did the same in this book.
Misleading.......2005-08-20
Gelvin is a professor who knows plenty of facts. But that does not stop him from misleading his readers in this piece of propaganda.
This book does have some really interesting material in it. Some of it is about Masada. Here, the author complains that the traditional Masada story is pretty far off. I tend to agree with much of what Gelvin says here. But I also feel that Gelvin is wrong to imply that Masada is being used as an excuse by Jews for the policies of Israel. I think Israeli policies are typically driven by a desire of Israel to protect the rights of its citizens.
The author discusses Golda Meir's comments about the Levantine Arab nation not having existed prior to 1967. Gelvin and I disagree here: he says that Meir's claim was absurd, while I say it was accurate. As a matter of fact, I think the Levantine Arabs still do not behave like a nation. They do not ask for rights for themselves. They do not ask for land. They ask only for less rights for Jews. They are more like the Sudeten Germans, who did not ask for independence, but merely for an end to Czech independence. Or the Ku Klux Klan, which does not ask for freedom for Whites, but an end to freedom for Blacks.
Gelvin spends some time discussing the Levantine Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair. This exhibit looked like an idealized Jewish "tower and stockade" construction. And I found the whole section quite interesting. But I was shocked that Gelvin did not appear to take a strong stand against the way the British were treating the Jews at the time. As I see it, the British White Paper of 1939 was one of the most obviously evil acts of a rather wicked twentieth century. I can't imagine why anyone would want to appear to be neutral about it. But Gelvin implies that the Jews should have been more moderate, at a time when we can all see that moderation was totally unsuccessful in preventing a truly huge disaster in which millions of Jews were murdered. That's quite a view to take.
Just to make sure that we readers can be sure where Gelvin stands, he then whitewashes the "poetry" of racist thugs such as Mahmoud Darwish. And he casually mentions that the Jews took land that belonged to the Arabs. But wait a second. Does all land belong to the Arabs? Even land that wasn't Arab before, or was sold by the Arabs to others? Gelvin is misleading his readers quite badly here by implying that all of the Levant was (and is) rightfully Arab land. And he has to know better than that.
In my opinion, if the Arabs want peace, they can have it in five minutes, just by calling off their war and abiding Jewish rights in the region. I suspect the Jews truly want peace, even one that may not be totally fair to them. But it doesn't matter: the Jews would have no choice but to accept such a peace, since they need peace to survive and prosper.
I think we need some scholarly works on the Arab war against Israel, rather than all the propaganda we see. And I think that Gelvin knew enough material to write such a book. Unfortunately, he did not write that book. He wrote this one.
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Arab Nationalism: A History: Nation and State in the Arab World
Youssef M. Choueiri
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
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A History of the Arab Peoples: Second Edition
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Book Description
This concise survey looks at Arab nationalism both as an historical movement and as a doctrine. It guides readers new to the subject through the diverse scholarly views about its origins, nature, and intellectual significance.The book identifies characteristics of Arab nationalism in the region in recent years, setting them in the context of political, economic, religious and cultural change throughout the Middle East. The author describes four distinct phases in the evolution of Arab nationalist ideas - the cultural, the political, the social and the fourth or current phase, in which both nationalism and democracy have resurfaced in a fresh encounter. He uses these stages as a basis for the discussion of ideology within an historical framework.
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