Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly well-documented history
Review: "Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict" provides a concise and impartial history of Palestine, a topic which is the subject of much distortion and outright propaganda. Charles Smith, the author, relates the relevant historical facts, without judgemental commentary or extraneous information. His sources for significant facts are thoroughly documented in plentiful footnotes at the end of each chapter, which is probably why this book is often used as a text in university courses.

Smith's factual and scholarly approach to such a sensitive topic contrasts sharply with that of Mitchell Bard, author of the ubiquitous, though propagandistic, "Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict", which sets a new standard for one-sided apologetics. Bard has worked for AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, and one of the most effective and powerful lobbying groups in America.

Some of the facts impartially reported by Smith invariably collide with popular misconceptions, which probably explains the defensive reactions reflected in some of the above polemical reviews of the book. In summary, if you want to know what events have led to the current situation in Palestine, without judgement of either side, read Smith's book.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book!
Review: .

I purchased and read it because I saw that it was being used for the "Jews and Arabs in Contact and Conflict" course given at Cornell University.

In the preface Smith states that, "in the early 1980s [he] could not find a satisfactory text to introduce the subject to the college student or the general reader." Over the course of the next 500+ pages one understands Smith's use of the word "satisfactory" here. Smith assures us that he considers "Zionist and Palestinian attitudes."

I should have known right then that this would not be a history in the usual sense of the word. After all, what sort of history is it that considers attitudes? And right at the beginning he sets up the opposing sides, as it were, Zionists and Palestinians. These are both loaded words and Smith knows it.

Smith uses many loaded words: right-wing and right (but almost never left-wing or left), terrorist, and imperialist. Only Jews are right-wing. Apparently there were never any right-wing Arabs. Terrorists, too, are almost always Jewish. Arabs who attack the Jews are insurgents, squads, units, etc. And the imperialists are the Americans!

In a history of Palestine, certain things should appear which Smith omits. One is a map showing the boundaries of the first legal entity known as Palestine issued following the Balfour Declaration. (Up until that time it was merely a region just as Scandinavia is.) That would include all of Israel, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and all of Jordan. Those who can read between the lines may pick up on this when Smith refers to the "British Decision in March 1921 to separate Palestine east of the Jordan River," but histories really are not supposed to be like detective novels. Another thing that should appear in a history of Palestine is Mark Twain's description from "The Innocents Abroad," where Twain finds the Holy Land desolate and virtually uninhabited, but this would not be Smith's Palestine where the merciless Zionists displace the indigenous Arabs. And in this book described as "A History with Documents," the Balfour Declaration is curiously difficult to locate unless one already knows what it is. It is NOT included in any of the documents sections that follow each of the chapters.

To Smith the Palestinians are now, and were always, Arabs. He correctly notes that Herodotus uses the word "Palestine," but this was more than a thousand years before anything associated with the word "Arab" even existed. One doesn't have to go back to ancient history though. Readers who go to any of the annual issues of the "New York Times Index," published before the Balfour Declaration and look up "Palestine," will be told, "See: Jews." Smith tells us, "Palestine, as the home of Jesus, was sacred to Christians." Of course, Jesus never thought he lived in Palestine; and Smith's choice of the past tense here is at least interesting.

This is a book with pictures. There is one of an Israeli bulldozer clearing the area in front of the Wailing Wall, and one of "Palestinian Peasants Fleeing from an Unidentified Village." Another shows what looks like an Israeli soldier aiming a rifle at some Palestinian women. Arafat is shown addressing the United Nations looking like an angel. And then there is the subtle cover photograph, probably take in Jerusalem. It shows two Arabs (a majority) walking behind (subserviently) a single Jew. One of the poor Arabs walks with a cane while the other casts a wary eye toward the Jew in front of him.

There are no pictures taken during the siege at the Munich Olympics, or of any of the Arab airplane hijackings. In fact, I don't think the airplane hijackings are mentioned at all. The Olympic Massacre (unindexed) is tangentially mentioned over four lines on one page. But Baruch Goldstein's massacre in Hebron (three index references to five pages) is a prominent event. The massacre of Arabs at Deir Yassin (indexed twice) is presented in the worst possible light and presented as a typical, but the massacre of Jews in Hebron (indexed only under Hebron) is briefly mentioned and glossed over. You get the picture.

The way an historian portrays the players is always interesting. For Smith, Arafat is a diplomat, Nasser was a peaceful man who could not control his military, and President Reagan was a foreign policy ignoramus. Israeli leaders are a uniformly deceitful lot when they aren't targeting peaceful "Palestinians." (And why does Smith spell Hussein, as Husayn?!)

There is no bibliography in the usual sense. Smith has what he calls a "Selected Bibliography," which is organized by chapters, and lists books he DID NOT refer to in the footnotes. Still one can learn something from this list. Here is a run of consecutive works cited for Chapters 4 and 5: Swedenburg - Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past; Zadka - Blood in Zion: How the Jewish Guerillas Drove the British Out of Palestine; Heller - The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940-1949; Nevo - Abdullah and Palestine: A Territorial Ambition; and Shapira - Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948. Smith thinks this is balance.

Of course there is no reference to Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial, in the footnotes or the "Selected Bibliography." The Peters book would be my recommendation for someone who is genuinely interested in the history of this region called Palestine.

By now you are probably wondering why I rated this book at three out of a possible five stars. I said at the outset that this is a book of breathtaking bias. I was actually sorry when it ended. The creativity of Charles Smith in presenting his "history" continued to amaze me right up until the last page. This book needs to be studied by students as a model of how historical facts can be manipulated and distorted by someone who masquerades as an historian.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book!
Review: Contrary to the rubbish that a lot of people are putting up in the review section, this book does a reasonably good job of explaining the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It is concise, lucid and I don't really detect any considerable bias.
There's always going to be crazy hardliners who nitpick and have huge amounts of time to write scathing reviews of books that attempt to present the truth as it really is, and not the convoluted, one sided account/myth drawn up by AIPAC and other pro-Israel organisations.
I really recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Belongs in the fiction section
Review: I suppose some people think that one can write anything in a book and call it "history." But I think Smith's portrayal of the conflict is just too misleading to be called history. Real people in real life do real things for real reasons. But after reading this book, I had an image of wicked unarmed Zionists maliciously stealing land from hapless heavily armed Arabs. It wasn't exactly what Smith had said. But it was close enough to make me realize what was wrong with the book. The constant whitewashing of Arab misdeeds and criticism of reasonable Jewish behavior had simply erased the motivations for the two sides in the conflict.

Are there books that do a better job? Oh yes. I'll give you ten examples of books that are far better, and there are many, many more:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict (Bard, 2003)
A History of Israel (Sachar, 1996)
The Siege (O'Brien, 1986)
A Young Person's History of Israel (Bamberger, 1985)
The Rape of Palestine and the Struggle for Jerusalem (Casper, 2003)
Atlas of the Middle East Conflict (Gilbert, 2002)
Islam and Dhimmitude (Ye'or, 2002)
Right to Exist (Lozowick, 2003)
A Place Among Nations (Netanyahu, 1993)
From Time Immemorial (Peters, 1984)

Try one of them.


Rating:
Summary: Simply the best book available on this topic
Review: If you're going to purchase a single work on this topic, make sure it's this book. It is a must read for anyone and everyone who's interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's simple enough for even an uninformed reader to easily grasp, while maintaining the thoroughness to make it a must read for highly knowledgeable readers. Smith's book is by far the best work available, by any comparisons. It's detailed, accurate, and defines the word "unbiased" in this topic. Learn the facts here, and develop your own opinion. All experts I've known would recommend this book above all others without any hesitation. It's that good.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the best book available on this topic
Review: If you're going to purchase a single work on this topic, make sure it's this book. It is a must read for anyone and everyone who's interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's simple enough for even an uninformed reader to easily grasp, while maintaining the thoroughness to make it a must read for highly knowledgeable readers. Smith's book is by far the best work available, by any comparisons. It's detailed, accurate, and defines the word "unbiased" in this topic. Learn the facts here, and develop your own opinion. All experts I've known would recommend this book above all others without any hesitation. It's that good.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Book
Review: Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict" by CD Smith. THIS IS THE
BEST BOOK ON THE CONFLICT I HAVE EVER READ>>>>It is highly detailed and written as a middle of the road book. It does not favor one group over the other. I do disagree with the person who wrote the review giving it a one star. It has famous documents included in every chapter to include, Colonial agreements, UN Resolutions, Peace Agreements and even speeches by men like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yassir Arafat, Itzakh Shamir and Theordore Herzl. This is very nicely constructed. It is written on a Sr. High School level but very scholarly. This book was used in an Honors Course of my history department. If you are looking for professional writing this is it and will enlighten you beyond your wildest dreams. This book will give you a leg up on anyone with a personal opinion (not an informed opinion). When everyones arsenal of facts run out you will still be running strong as a result of what you learned in this book. After you

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, unbiased and well-documented overview
Review: This book was on the syllabus of Professor Zachary Lockman's course on Israel and Palestine at Harvard, where I first learned of it. It is extremely well-documented, unbiased and comprehensive, and is also a very easy read. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is its documentation of early Zionists' use of terrorist tactics which Palestinians have more recently begun to use. Although some readers criticize the book as unbiased, it is difficult to make that claim since the book is meticulously documented and relies heavily on Israeli and historical documents and newspaper archives.

Rating:
Summary: Most Unbiased Out There
Review: This is a remarkably judicious and comprehensive account of Palestinian-Israeli relations in the 20th century. Its chapters cover: the Middle East and Palestine to 1914; Ottoman society, Palestine, and the origins of Zionism, 1800-1914; World War One, Great Britain, and the peace settlements, 1914-21; Palestine between the wars: Zionism, the Palestinian Arabs, and the British mandate, 1920-39; World War Two and the creation of Israel, 1939-48; the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict, 1949-57; from Suez to the 1967 war, 1957-67; war and the search for peace, 1967-76; Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Camp David Accords, 1977-84; from pariah to partner: the PLO and the quest for peace, 1984-93; and finally, Israeli-Palestinian/Arab negotiations and agreements, August 1993-March 2000.

Key facts, of contemporary relevance, emerge from the narrative: Ben Gurion's aggressive approach was self-defeating - the Gaza raid of 1955 and the invasion of Suez in 1956 both made Israel less secure. The joint British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt, against the will of the United Nations, was a political fiasco. In 1967, the US government encouraged Israel to attack Egypt again, at the same time advising Egypt to hold back until a diplomatic resolution was reached! The first, key, Oslo agreement of 1993 was achieved without US participation, showing that the US is more a hindrance than a help to winning peace.

The Netanyahu government of 1996-99, like the present Sharon government, refused to carry out the agreements of Oslo 1, Oslo 2, the Hebron Protocol of 1997 and the Wye Memorandum of 1998. At Wye, Israel agreed not to `initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip'. As Smith notes, this was `a proviso that Israel had consistently ignored and would ignore in the future'.

The Palestinians have long recognised Israel's right `to exist in peace and security', but Israeli governments have consistently refused to reciprocate. Yet the majority of both peoples want peace, and recognise each other's right `to exist in peace and security'. Both peoples must ensure that their leaders act on this understanding.