These are notes for a talk given at the Nauset Fellowship, Chapel in the Pines in November 2007. They are based on the books listed in the Bibliography and several web sites, particularly Wikipedia. The talk was an attempt to offer an even-handed account of the origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. As this is not a scholarly article, no references are given. Who are the Semites? Peoples originating in southwest Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs. Semitic languages include, among others: Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic (the language of Jesus), Amharic (the language of Ethiopia), Phoenician, and Hebrew. Who is an Arab? Someone who traces his ancestry to the tribes of the Arabian peninsula. Someone whose first language and culture is Arabic. Someone who is a citizen in a modern Arab country. References to Arabs as nomads in northern Arabia appear in Assyrian inscriptions of 9th century BCE. The name was later applied to all inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. Small Arab kingdoms rose and fell in the area of modern Jordan and Syria. An Arab empire emerged with the spread of Islam in the 7th century CE. 200 million Arabs form the bulk of the population in nearly 20 countries, but Arabs live all over the world in various ethnic mixtures. Most Arabs are Muslims, but there are Christian, Jewish, and secular Arabs as well. Who is a Jew? A member of an ethno-religious group originating with the Israelites of the ancient Middle East. The origin of the Jews is traditionally dated to around 1800 BCE, but the earliest archaeological reference dates from 1200 BCE. Historically Jews have spoken Hebrew, Aramaic, and later Ladino and Yiddish. Judaism was the primary identifying characteristic of Jews until the Enlightenment. Since then, many Jews have seen themselves as members of a people or nation in addition to, or rather than, a religious faith. Modern Jews have a Jewish mother or are converts and may be of any ethnic, language, or racial background. There are around 14 million Jews in the world. The modern Middle East. See the small map of the United States overlaid by the Middle East in the upper right corner, for size comparison. You can see the southern border of Israel marked by agriculture on this satellite photo. 1200 BCE Here are the Jews and the Canaanites battling it out in southern California. Archaeologists see little evidence of the travels of the Jews before their entry into the land of Canaan. If the archaeologists are right, the Israelites may have been Canaanites. That would make them less special, but it would put them in Palestine as early as anyone else. 586 BCE The early chapters of Genesis are probably a mixture of oral history and myth, but an important event that almost certainly did happen was the Babylonian Captivity in 586 Before the Common Era. This is the Istar Gate, once in Babylon, now in the National Museum in Berlin. An inscription excavated near the Gate, says: "In the seventh month, the king of Babylon assembled an army and invaded the land of Palestine. He conquered the city and took prisoners, and after he had received rich tribute he sent them forth to Babylon." In Babylon, the Jews were allowed to worship but not to build a Temple or offer sacrifices. Instead, they made a virtual temple of the Torah, the first five books of the bible, and replaced sacrifice with Torah study. This practice developed into Rabbinic Judaism which helped the Jews keep their identity for 2500 years. The illustration of a synagogue comes from a 15th century manuscript. The Palestinian Jews (aka Hebrews or Israelites) lived under Persian, Greek, and Assyrian overrule for 400 years. 165 BCE In 165 BCE, the Maccabees' Jewish national liberation movement established the Hasmonean dynasty, an independent Jewish state. Hanukkah is the celebration of Judah Maccabee's, victory over the Hellensitic Selucids. A dreidel, from "dreyen" ("to turn") is a 4-sided top played with during Hanukkah. The letters Nun, Gimel, Hei, and Shim stand for Nes Gadol Haya Sham, "A great miracle happened here." 63 BCE In 63 BCE, the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem and the Romans took over. 70 CE The Jews revolted in the year 70 of the Common Era, when the Emperor Hadrian made Judaism illegal. This is a detail from the Arch of Titus in Rome, celebrating the Roman victory. Soldiers are carrying off the Temple trappings. During the fighting, a group of Zealots made a last stand at the fortress of Masada. In the 21st century, Israeli Defense Force recruits are taken here on inspirational field trips. 134 CE In 134 CE, another revolt, by Simon bar Kochba, “son of the star”, was put down, and, according to the Romans, several hundred thousand Jews were killed out of a population of 3 million. Some Jews remained in Palestine, but most were dispersed throughout the world. The Romans abolished the name Judea and called the land “Palestina” after the Philistines, (who occupied the coast of Palestine ca. 1200 BCE.) From then until modern times, the area now called Palestine has had a heterogeneous population of Arabs, Turks, Egyptians, Greeks, Christians, and Jews, etc.. It was never a nation and had no fixed frontiers. 312 In 312 CE, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Unrelenting persecution of the Jews by the Christian church for the next 1700 years is well documented in James Carroll's book. 7th Century After 3 centuries of oppression under Byzantine Christian rule, Palestinian Jews welcomed the Muslin conquerors in the 7th century. Muslims ruled a multi-ethnic community in Palestine until 1918, except briefly during the Crusades. 1099 The First Crusade began in 1099 CE. Supposedly as many as 300,000 Palestinian Jews were killed by the crusaders. This is a French bible illustration from 1250. You can tell the Jews by their pointy hats. 1187 Saladin took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He was a Muslim Kurd from Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, who liked to think of himself as Saladin II. Perhaps 1000 Jewish families remained in Palestine at this time. 1517 Except for brief intervals of rule by Egypt and Arab sheiks, the Muslim Ottoman Turks governed Palestine from 1517 until World War I. An Ottoman. 1799 Napoleon occupied Jaffa in 1799 and pledged to restore the Holy Land to the Jews. Small groups of Jews did come in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Here Napoleon is inspecting the pest-house in Jaffa. In 1844, George Bush, professor of Hebrew at NYU and a forebear of the present incumbent, called for re-creating a Jewish state in Palestine as a link between humanity and God. 1850 By 1850, Jews had been in Palestine for 3000 years. The population was around 200,000, of whom 17,000 were Jews. They spoke Hebrew and Arabic. They were mostly poor, religious, and oppressed, and many lived on charity from abroad. In mid-19th century, Christian missionaries tried to introduce modern agriculture to the Middle East and convert Jews and Muslims. They described Palestine as barren and unwelcoming. They made few converts, but they founded several schools, one of which became the American University of Beirut where the study of Arabic was revived, an essential element in the rise of Arab nationalism. 1860 In 1860, Moses Hess, A German Jewish socialist, proposed in Rome and Jerusalem that the Jews follow the example of the Italians and set up their own state. He pointed out that anti-Semitism was taking a new form in the West. “The Germans,” he said, “hate the faith of the Jews less than they hate their noses.” In 1862 the term “anti-Semitic” was first used to characterize the claim of Ernst Renan, French philosopher and author of The Life of Jesus, that the Semitic races were inferior to Aryans. Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867. He wrote in his satirical Innocents Abroad that it was, "... a country given over to weeds..... We never saw a human being.” Melville was equally unimpressed. Countless travelers’ reports described a wasteland: canals and irrigation systems destroyed, fertility gone, defoliation, erosion - “nothing but old walls” – “many areas having lost all their peasantry” - a land afflicted by money lending at high interest, tax farmers, corrupt officials, brigands, nomads, and profiteers. This was the general Western impression, but Ahad Aham, a Jewish traveler wrote in 1891, “We are used to believing that Palestine is desolate and that anyone may buy as much as land he wants, but this isn’t the case. Only sandy fields and stony hills remain untilled. When we encroach on the lives of the Arabs, they won’t give way.” 1870 By 1870, Jewish emancipation was nearly complete in Western Europe. It was assumed that anti-Semitism would continue to fade and Jews would be assimilated. For millions of Jews in the Arab world, assimilation was never a possibility. It’s claimed that Jews were well-treated by Muslims. Jewish culture did blossom during the Golden Age of Moorish Spain from the 10th to the 12th century, but at other times and places, including under the Ottomans in Palestine, they were oppressed. Bernard Lewis said, “The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, invented by Jews in the 19th century as a reproach to Christians.” The Koran contains dozens of harsh passages concerning Jews, and there were many restrictions placed on Jews in Muslim lands, including: the yellow star and special clothing, confinement to a Jewish Quarter, and heavy taxes. Many lived in extreme poverty, but they had nowhere else to go. It’s been suggested that the heart of the Middle East conflict is a kind of basic anti-Semitism, the loss of Jews as objects to oppress and despise, and the presumed unnaturalness of Infidels having cultural ascendancy over Arabs and Muslims. Christian persecution eased in the 19th century with the advancement of the Enlightenment, but it was replaced, as Hess and others pointed out, by a pseudo-scientific, ethnic-based persecution. It was said in Vienna, “What the Jew believes is neither here nor there. In the race lies the swinishness 1880 The 1880’s were a turning point for Russian Jews. Tsar Alexander II had been relatively liberal, and the triumph of liberalism had begun to seem inevitable even in Russia. In 1882 Alexander II was assassinated by anarchists, and the conservative Tsar Alexander III took power and enacted the “May Laws,” which vastly restricted Jewish freedoms. This is the Pont Alexander III, a monument in the center of Paris to the greatest persecutor of Jews in modern times before Hitler. Between 1882 and 1903, the first wave of 35,000 Jewish immigrants to Palestine fled pogroms in Russia. A “pogrom”, from the Russian “like thunder,” was an organized and semi-official massacre. The Jewish immigrants established agricultural settlements. Between 1882 and 1914 over two million Jews left Russia for the United States as well. In 1881, Eliezer ben Yahuda came to Palestine determined to revive Hebrew as an everyday language. His kids were the only European Jews in town who spoke Hebrew, which limited their social life. Dr. Leon Pinsker of Odessa published Autoemancipation in 1882. He said Jews needed their own nation. Pinkser favored Argentina, but a less well-known Russian wrote in 1882, “..take possession of Palestine and restore to the Jews political independence...establish colonies of farmers, set up workshops and industries, teach the young people the use of arms, and let them proclaim themselves masters of their own ancient fatherland.” And guess what! Around this time a group of Palestinian Arabs sent a telegram to the Ottoman ruler calling for a stop to Jewish immigration and acquisition of land. They received no respose. Conflict between the two peoples gradually became a part of daily life in Palestine, but the Arabs put up little organized resistance until the 1920’s. This is the point in the Chronology where you have to ask yourself, “Does Israel have the right to a Jewish homeland or a Jewish state in Palestine?” Your answer determines how you view all that comes next. 1890 The term “Zionism” was coined in 1891 by the Austrian publisher Nathan Birnbaum to describe all efforts to gather Jews into a homeland. In 1894, the Jewish French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was court-martialed for treason on false evidence. This is a photo of his re-instatement in 1906. Theodor Herzl, Paris correspondent for an Austrian newspaper, was shocked by the anti-Semitism he saw during the trial. Herzl concluded that Jews could never be fully assimilated in Western Europe. In his 1896 pamphlet “The Jewish State,” Herzl proposed establishing a refuge for Jews. It wasn’t a new idea, but Herzl believed it was possible, and he acted on his belief. He was a good showman and resembled the ideal Jewish leader described in George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda: “beautiful, strong, refined, and able to glorify the possibilities of Jews.” Some Russian Jews called him the Messiah (a mortal man who would lead the Jews back to Jerusalem.). Herzl believed international diplomatic activity, without force of any kind, could produce a Jewish homeland. In 1897, Herzl organized the First Zionist Convention. The International Zionist movement would eventually come to include elements of Judaism, colonialism, socialism, and nationalism. Palestine was discussed, although a Jewish state in Palestine at that time would have required the unlikely cooperation of both the Ottoman Muslim and the Russian Orthodox Christian empires. Most Religious Jews were hostile to Zionism. They believed only divine intervention could return the Jews to the Holy Land. Many secular Jews opposed Herzl because they still believed in assimilation. 1900 By 1900, the population of Palestine was around 500,000. 47,000 were Jews, who owned less than 1% of the land. Palestine was sparsely populated. Israel and New Jersey are the same size, around 8,000 square miles. The current population of New Jersey is 8 million and of Israel 6 million. In 1905, the 7th Congress of Zionists made a firm commitment to Palestine. Between 1904 and 1914, 40,000 Jews, the second wave of immigrants, (or the Second Aliyah, meaning "going up"), came from Russia following more pogroms. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were published in Russia in 1905 as a spur to persecution. These were documents which outlined a fictitious Jewish plan to dominate the world. They re-appear regularly in the Muslim world and even in the West. The immigrants of the Second Aliyah were socialist pioneers, or Labor Zionists. They became the battle-hardened men and women who eventually established the State of Israel. The Labor Zionists set up the first kibbutzim, or agricultural communes, which were until quite recently a major source of political and military leadership. Tel Aviv was founded. Newspapers began to be published in Hebrew. Political parties and a defense force were organized. The Zionists bought their land from absentee Turkish and Arab landlords. They found willing sellers up through the Second World War. Some Arab share croppers were dispossessed by Jewish farmers who wanted to do their own work, but many continued to find work in Jewish settlements under better conditions than under the Turks. It was only with the massive Jewish immigration of the 1930s, coupled with Arab violence, that Jewish workers largely replaced Arabs. The economic activity provided by Zionist investment may have attracted hundreds of thousands of Arabs to Palestine, even as the feeling grew among local Arabs that the Zionists meant to dispossess them. In 1904, Najib Azouri wrote in Awakening of the Arab Nation, “The coming Arab nation and the effort to revive the ancient kingdom of Israel will be in conflict until one side wins.” 1905 In 1907, Ha-Shomer (or The Watchmen), a Jewish self-defense force, was established. It became the Hagannah in 1920. In 1908, the Young Turk Revolution partially freed the Arabs from Ottoman Turkish domination. This allowed them to begin to build an Arab identity and to dream of independence. 1910 David Ben-Gurion came to Palestine from Russia in 1910 and soon headed the Yishuv (the Jewish community). Yishuv means “settlement” as opposed to “wasteland,” and implied that the land was previously unoccupied. Ben-Gurion, like Herzl, thought at first that the Arabs would greatly benefit from Jewish immigration and Jews would be welcomed. Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the Jewish Legion, which fought with the Allies in the First World War, said, however, “To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile. They feel about the land the way the Apaches felt about theirs.” Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party planned to take Palestine by force. This reference to native Americans is interesting. The recent books Mayflower, by Philbrick and Love and Hate in Jamestown by Price suggest a number of parallels with the recent history of the Middle East. Eliezer ben Yehuda, the promoter of modern Hebrew, thought the Arabs would have to be removed from Palestine. Even Herzl wrote, “We shall try to spirit the penniless populations across the border by procuring employment for them in the transit countries, while denying them employment in our own country.” The Arab Palestinian newspaper, Falastin, founded in 1911 in Jaffa, reported increasing conflict with Jews. It also severely criticized Palestinian leadership. In 1914, there were around half a million Arabs in Palestine and 80-100,000 Jews. With the outbreak of war, Britain needed Arab support against Turkey and the Axis Powers. The British High Commissioner in Egypt wrote to Sharif Hussein of Mecca that Britain was prepared to recognize Arab independence and suggested generous borders. This was seen by the Arabs as a formal agreement, and on this understanding, Hussein's son Faisal fought against the Ottoman Empire with the advice of Lawrence of Arabia. Feisel is in the foreground with a somewhat vague looking Lawrence to his left. 1915 In 1915, Sir Herbert Samuel, the British postmaster general, who would be much involved in every aspect of the Zionist success, proposed a British protectorate in Palestine into which Jews from all over the world could settle. Ottoman Palestine had been corrupt and backward. He believed the Jews would bring progress and enlightenment. Many Evangelical Christians, like the ancestral George Bush, called for the return of Jews to Palestine in admiration of a fellow People of the Book and because they believed this would hasten the Second Coming of Christ. Non-Jewish British intellectuals, like Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and George Eliot also supported a Jewish return. Many British statesmen opposed a Jewish homeland as asking for trouble. Others supported it because they believed in the power and influence of international Jewry. Jewish world influence remained a stock anti-Semitic claim, but the myth of their world power was sometimes used by the Zionists themselves. In 1916, Lawrence of Arabia said, “If properly handled, our Arab allies will remain small jealous principalities, incapable of cohesion.” In 1916, Britain and France secretly signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement by which Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France, Jordan and Iraq to Britain, and Palestine was to be internationalized. So much for Arab independence. Chaim Weizmann, a renowned British chemist who made a major contribution to the British arms industry, was also the leader of the World Zionist movement. In 1916, Weizmann converted Arthur Balfour, philosopher and British Foreign Secretary, to Zionism. “Jerusalem was ours,” he told Balfour, “when London was a swamp.” Lord Balfour was mildly anti-Semitic and wanted to limit the number of Jews in Britain, but he was also a Romantic who saw a Jewish Palestine as the focus of a new blaze of human creativity and the enrichment of world culture. In 1917, with Lloyd George’s encouragement, Balfour sent a letter to the Zionist sponsor Lord Rothschild which later became known as "The Balfour declaration". Altruism, romanticism, Bible religion, and pleasing influential Zionists were all factors in the Declaration, but the major reason for its promotion by the British government was to keep America committed to the war. “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will endeavor to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The phrase “national home” had been used since the First Zionists Convention because it sounded less threatening than a “Jewish state.” The reference to the Jews’ “status in other countries” spoke to the concern that if Jews had their own nation, they might not be allowed to be citizens and officials of other countries. That is how we treated American-born Japanese only 25 years later. There’s no indication that the British saw Palestine as an Arab nation. Weizmann lobbied U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis to speak with friends in the Wilson administration, and Wilson agreed to the Balfour Declaration. In 1918, Palestine was occupied by British forces. The Kaiser had ridden his horse through a specially made break in the wall. General Allenby walked. The foundation stones for Hebrew University were laid on Mt. Scopus while cannon fire could be heard in the distance. For many secular Jews, Hebrew University took on the role of Solomon’s Temple. This is obviously a recent photo. Tom Segev, wrote in One Palestine, Complete, “The British entered Palestine to defeat the Turks; they stayed to keep it from the French; they gave it to the Zionists because they admired and despised and feared the Jews. The Balfour Declaration was the product of prejudice and faith by men who were Christian, Zionist, often anti-Semitic, and believed the Jews controlled the world.” The Zionist community, the Yishuv, numbered 100,000 by the end of the war. Restrictions were briefly suspended on Jewish immigration and land purchases. Large areas along the coast and in Galilee were bought and settled. It has been estimated, and disputed, that as many as 300,000 Arabs entered the country from neighboring Arab states, attracted by The Zionist economy. The Zionist Commission, headed by Chaim Weizmann, acted as the Zionist government in Palestine until 1921. Wiezmann tried to buy the Western Wall from the Muslim Religious Trust. A recent picture. A 1918 Arab pamphlet challenged: “Men, do you want to be slaves to people who are notorious in the world? The Zionists have come to expel you, saying this country is theirs.” Ronald Storrs, a cultured British Arabist, was the Military Governor of Jerusalem from 1917 to 1925 He established the Pro-Jerusalem Society with British, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders. The Society did a lot of good work, including major repairs to the Muslim Dome of the Rock. Storrs set building standards in Jerusalem. In particular he required the exclusive use of the tawny Jerusalem stone. This ordinance is still in effect. There were many such efforts at compromise and cooperation, then and later, but, as Ben-Gurion told the Zionist Commission, “There is a gulf between us; and nothing can bridge it. We want this country to be ours; the Arabs want it to be theirs.” One educated Arab told Ben-Gurion he would prefer another century of backwardness to receiving the blessings of civilization from the Zionists. Rashid Khalidi, professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, says the Palestinian Arabs developed a strong sense of collective national identity in the first decades of 20th century which was then cemented by the 1948 war. But the Arabs never created an independent state because the Machiavellian British co-opted their leaders with jobs and privileges. The Palestinian elite were divided and compromised, critical of the British in public, but meek in private. It should be said in fairness that while the Palestinians complained that the British were anti-Arab, the Zionists complained just as bitterly that they were anti-Jewish. It may be that both were right. Immediately after the First World War, the British military administration again prohibited Jewish immigration and land transfer. The Jews felt the Balfour Declaration had been annulled. Weizmann wrote at the time, “We must have Palestine if we are not going to be exterminated.” Rashid Khalidi quotes a 1919 memo of Balfour’s: “Zionism, be it right or wrong, is rooted in age old traditions, present needs, and future hopes of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit this ancient land.” A Christian-Muslim assembly in Jaffa in 1919 called for ending Jewish immigration and Palestinian Arab autonomy, although within a Greater Syria under Prince Faisal rather than as an independent state.. The 3d aliah, from 1919-1923, brought 40,000 skilled and committed young Zionists from Russia. They revived collective farming 1920 Winston Churchill wrote an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald in February 1920, praising the Jews ["..no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidible and the most remarkable race that has ever appeared in the world"] but urging Russian Jews to choose Zionism over Bolshevism, his lifelong bete noir. In April 1920, the Balfour Declaration was approved by the former Allies and Britain awarded a Mandate for Palestine at the San Remo Conference. Palestinian Arabs called this the Nakba (the “Catastrophe”). A miliary administration was replaced by a civil one, under High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel. Zionist Labor led by Ben-Gurion, established more kibbutzim and youth and cultural organizations. With Jabotinsky’s help, they founded the Hagannah, the Jewish self-defense organization which was the precursor to the Israel Defense Forces. In 1920, Prince Faisel naively sought to form a government in Syria but was ousted by the French. The British later installed him as King in Iraq, where the Pan-Arab movement ultimately began, and made his brother, Abdullah, King of Jordan. But the British betrayal and their arbitrary division of the former Ottoman Empire was seen ever after as an Arab humiliation. There was serious Arab rioting in 1920 and 1921. It shocked the British who did little to protect the Jews. Arab violence was often self-defeating. A British administration opposed to a Jewish National Home was replaced by one in favor of it, and the riots caused the Jews to become more self-reliant. From then on, the threat of terrorism influenced all their decisions. The U.S. State Department was anti-Zionist, then and later. The U.S. consul in Jerusalem claimed that the Western Wall was a late Roman ruin, and that the Jews had incited law-abiding Arabs to riot by their provocative acts, as they had also deserved the Russian pogroms. In 1920, Herbert Samuel was named High Commissioner of Palestine under the British Mandate, the first Jew to govern the land for 2000 years. Samuel made immigration and land sales legal again. In January 1921 T.E. Lawrence told Churchill he had concluded an agreement with King Hussein's son, Emir Feisel, that Feisel would abandon all claims of his father to Palestine in return for Arab soverignty in Baghdad, Amman, and Damascus. Rothschild wrote Churchill in 1955 thanking him that in 1921 he 'laid the foundation of the Jewish State by separating Abdullah's Kindom from the rest of Palestine." In March 1921 Churchill planted a tree at the site of the future Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. In 1921, The Arabs sent Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill a Memorandum stating: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs. Jews have been scattered over the earth and have become citizens of the nations where they settled. The have no separate political or linguistic existence. Religion is their only tie. How can England conclude a treaty with a religion!” They blamed Jews for the disintegration of Russia and the defeat of Germany. -- Churcilll replied that it was not his wish or in his power to repudiate Balfour. Born in Kiev and raised in Milwaukee, Golda Mabovitz Meyerson came to Palestine with her husband in 1921. They divorced, and she advanced to senior positions in the labor movement and changed her name to Golda Meir. In July 1922, the British House of Lords voted against the Balfour Agreement. After a brilliant speech by Churchill to the House of Commons the House voted 292 vs 35 against to support the Agreement. In July 1922, to calm Muslim anger throughout the British Empire, Churchill and Commissioner Samuel published a White Paper in support of the British Mandate which emphatically supported Zionism, but which which excluded Palestine East of the Jordan from the Jewish Homeland and called for Zionist immigration to be limited. The Yishuv denounced this as another retreat from the Balfour Declaration, and the Revisionists under Jabotinsky demanded a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan, but with Churchill's activbe support the Jewish National Home in Palestine was a reality. The League of Nations approved the British mandate on July 22d, 1922, on the basis fo the Churchill/Samuel White Paper, incorporating the Balfour Declaration and statements that the Jews were in Palestine “of right and not on sufferance,” and “a Jewish National Home rests on ancient history.” Although Zionism was rarely in the interest of the British and was opposed by many officials, the Zionists were allowed to get on with the job. Some suggested it was divine providence, others that it was a gut feeling by the British that it might not be lucky to break a promise to return Jews to the Promised Land! It has been suggested that the Arabs could effectively have used the text of the British Mandate against the Zionists, although Rashid Kharidi says acceptance of the Mandate would have meant acceptance of their non-existence. In any event, as Arab leaders competed for supporters, uncompromising positions were the only ones they could safely take. Under Weizmann, the Zionist leadership accepted anything that moved their cause forward. To further placate the Arabs, the British set up the Supreme Muslim Council and chose, Haj Amin al-Husseini to be the Grand Mufti or religious leader of Arab Palestine. Al-Husseini had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for involvement in the riots of April 1920. The Muslim Council operated from 1922-1948 dealing with both the religion and the politics. Rashid Khalidi says the Council was a tool of the British, and the Mufti was their own man until the 1930’s. Eventually, al-Husseini sponsored violence and terror. He escaped arrest in 1937 and joined the Nazis in Berlin until after the war. It’s been said he looks like Alec Guinness playing a sheikh. The Palestinian Arabs were led, more or less, by the Grand Mufti from 1920 until well into the 1950’s, and from the 1960’s until 2003 by Yasser Arafat, two leaders in 80 years, both authoritarian, secretive, combative, and indecisive. The population of Palestine in 1922 was 757,000; 78% Muslim Arabs, 9% Christian Arabs, and 11% Jews. Commissioner Samuel tried to introduce an elective assembly. The vastly minority Zionists wanted the safety of a Jewish controlled state, but they cynically accepted the election, which the Arabs helpfully boycotted. Family, tribe, and Islam were at this time more important for Palestinian Arabs than thoughts of nationhood. The League of Nations established the Jewish Agency to act in concert with the Mandate to facilitate Jewish immigration and settlement. The Jewish Agency became the de facto government for the Jewish community until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1923, during a visit to Palestine Albert Einstein said, “I’m happy at the sight of the Jewish people learning to recognize themselves and make themselves recognized as a force in the world.” Einstein, Samuel and their wives. Elsa Einstein is on the left. In 1923, Elwood Mead, American hydrologist and chief engineer of the Hoover Dam, said that, contrary to British claims, Palestine could absorb millions of Jews. He was dismayed by the devastation of the countryside through neglect and abuse by indifferent Ottoman and Arab owners. Between 1924 and 1929, 82,000 Jews of the Fourth Aliyah arrived as a result of anti-Semitic violence in Poland and Hungary. They included many middle class families who moved into the growing towns and established businesses. The U.S. drastically reduced immigration quotas in 1924. This was one of the most decisive events in the history of Zionism. Safety was what most Jew wanted, and the U.S. looked like a better bet. The far smaller number of Jews who chose Palestine before 1924 were religious, adventurous, idealistic, desperate, or some combination of these. It was only after 1924, when America’s Golden Door was closed, that Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem about the “huddled masses,” which had been inspired by the pogroms in Russia, was allowed to be associated with the Statue of Liberty. The lady with the lamp originally was intended to be a symbol of the Enlightenment, not of refuge. Requests to immigrate to Palestine now came from all over the world. Young, unmarried men and those who brought useful skills were preferred, but anyone with 500 pounds sterling was welcome. 1925 In 1925, High Commissioner Samuel left Palestine in relative peace and with a stable society and growing economy. He had loyally supported the Zionists, but he strongly believed a Jewish state must not cause injustice to the Arabs. The growing disparity between the Jewish and Arab economies wasn’t a result of British policy but of Zionist entrepreneurship and money from abroad. The Arabs got little help from neighboring Arab countries. In 1925, Judah Magnes, starting pitcher for his Oakland, California high school team and President of Hebrew University, founded Berit Shalom (The Covenant of Peace), along with Einstein, Martin Buber, and Henrietta Szold, founder of American Hadasseh,. They promoted a bi-national state in which Jews and Arabs would have equal status. Bi-nationalism was never popular with either Jews or Arabs, but Rashid Kharidi believes the Palestinians missed a bet. Like his former mentor Edward Said, he thinks a bi-national state may be the only solution to Palestine’s troubles. On Yom Kippur in 1928, a portable screen was set up at the Western Wall to separate men and women. This is a modern photo, but it give you the idea. The Arabs claimed the screen marked the beginning of a synagogue. British response was slow, the Arabs rioted, and hundreds of Jews were killed. In 1929, many Jews were killed in country-wide riots. The Mufti had accused the Zionists of planning to build a Third Temple. This was never the intention of the secular Zionists, but they had used images of a temple in their fund-raising efforts, and the Mufti exploited every presumed threat to the Muslim holy places. Many Jewish women and children were killed in Hebron, where their families had been living for 800 years, although most of Hebron’s Jews were saved by Arabs who hid them in their homes. High Commissioner John Chancellor didn’t have enough police and wouldn’t let the Jewish police help. The Grand Mufti had inspired another massacre and yet remained in office. Chancellor said privately that the “national home” was unjust and impossible to carry out. The Balfour Declaration had been a colossal blunder. He again proposed a legislative council, in which the Arabs would have control. Leaders of the 7th Palestinian Arab Congress might have approved this, but the Mufti decided instead to whip up Arab anger. Most of the 250,000 immigrants from 1929 to 1939, the Fifth Aliyah, came from Nazi Germany. They included educated professionals who brought Western culture to Palestine. The Jewish population reached 450,000 by 1940. Fewer Jews now lived in the kibbutzim, but they still projected the Zionist image and helped enlarge the country’s borders. They promoted manual labor and a return to nature as a cure for what they called the long “sickness” of the Exile. This is a modern picture of Kibbutz Ketura. 1930 In 1930, Lord Passfield (formerly Sidney Webb), the British Colonial Secretary put out another White Paper that would have reduced Jewish immigration to a rate that would not put Arabs out of work. The Zionists were able to get it revoked through Weizmann’s diplomacy and pressure on the British government from American Jews. Arab national politics had been largely dormant in the 20’s. Family and tribal rivalries were their chief concern. Arab villages remained traditional and couldn’t support rapid population growth. Many young Arabs went to the cities, where they were attracted to the mosques. Arabs accused the British of imposing illiteracy on them, but unlike the Jews they invested little in education. A prominent Arab said Arab education must be nationalist first and only later for the sake of knowledge. The Jews linked renewed Arab terrorism with the increasing persecution of European Jews. They felt increasingly that they had no choice but to stand their ground in Palestine. The segregation of Arabs and Jews was becoming a basic Zionist principle. Zionists felt it was the only way there could be a majority Jewish State The Second British census of Palestine showed a total population of 1,035,154 with 73% Muslim, 17% Jewish and 8% Christian. Between 1933 and 1938 the Nazis and the Zionists cooperated in a “transfer” program, through which over 50,000 Jews bought their way out of Germany. In 1936 160,000 Jews arrived from Germany. This disturbed the Arabs, but it was felt to show the weakness of the Jews as well. They were seen to be powerless in Germany. 1935 In 1936, a full scale “Arab Rebellion” finally broke out against the Jews, the British, and the Arab ruling classes, which were thought to be collaborationist. The Jerusalem Post called it a “War of Extermination.” Jewish restraint mostly held, but the killing of Jews went on, and much property was destroyed. Ultimately more than 3,000 Arabs were killed by British troops and by other Arabs. Leading Arab moderates were assassinated, private Arab feuds were fought out, and the poor attacked the rich. In 1937, in reaction to the Arab Rebellion, the British Peel Committee held hearings. Churchill objected that the projected state would be too small to protect itself. He said the Mandate had intended that the Jewish State include Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, including the Negev. The Committee Report of 7 July 1937 recommended partitioning Palestine into a Jewish state comprising 33% of Palestine and a much larger Palestinian state to be incorporated into Trans Jordan. Jerusalem would remain a British protectorate. Jewish immigration would be limited to 12,000 per year. There would be an enforced transfer of Palestinian Arabs, if necessary. Harvard Senior John F. Kennedy, traveling in the Middle East, said only partition could reconcile the “arrogant attitude of the Jews” with Arab fears of Jewish superiority and conflicting British promises to both sides. Jewish leaders grudgingly accepted partition, which gave them less land than they wanted, and acted to enlarge their portion by establishing “tower and stockade settlements” on purchased land beyond the proposed borders. Over 130 settlements were established in the 1930’s, including 50 kibbutzim. Ben-Gurion said, “A partial Jewish state is only the beginning of our effort to redeem the land in its entirety.” He thought the Peel Commission’s Report, with its hint of “forced transfer” of Arabs, could be a true Jewish Declaration of Independence. The Arabs rejected partition. They demanded an end to the British Mandate. Any Arab leader who proposed compromise with the Zionist enterprise was in danger of being assassinated. When partition was rejected by the Arabs, the British began to back away from it. But they were forced to put down the Arab rebellion and to offer vague promises of a future Arab state. Weizmann said partition was a useful first step. Jabotinsky and the Revisionists wanted all of Palestine. Partition was approved by the League of Nations in September 1938, while the British quietly abandoned the whole idea. In 1938, the London Conference on Palestine was attended by 5 Arab countries, a Palestine delegation, the Zionists, and the British. The Arabs asked the Zionists to slow immigration. Ben-Gurion said that was like asking a woman in labor to stop giving birth. The result of the failed conference was the British White Paper of 1939 Most Zionists believed counter-terrorism would hurt their cause. But in 1938 dissidents broke away from the Hagannah and formed the terrorist Irgun and Stern organizations. There were campaigns to buy-Jewish and speak Hebrew. A port was built in Tel Aviv, because the port of Jaffa was run by Arabs. Jews were urged not to hire Arabs, because they might be spies. Education became fully segregated. Every Jewish child went to school. Few Arab children did. Ben-Gurion wanted to strengthen the Jewish community first and worry about world Jewry later. Speaking just after Kristalnacht, he said, “If we could save all the Jewish children in Germany by sending them to England and only half by sending them to Palestine, I’d choose Palestine. Nothing takes precedence over saving the Hebrew nation in its own land.” He was ashamed that the Jews in Germany weren’t fighting back. Delegates from 32 countries including the U.S. met at Evian in France to discuss options for Europe’s refugees. They decided on none, and the European Jews were doomed. In April 1939, to placate the Arabs as war approached, the House of Commons voted 268 to 179 for a Palestine White Paper restricting Jewish immigration and offering independence for Palestine within ten years. The effect was to rescind the Balfour Declaration. The MAcDonald White Paper said: "The framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country." “The objective of His Majesty's Government is the establishment within 10 years of an independent Palestine State in which Arabs and Jews share government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded.” "Jewish immigration will be at a rate which will bring the Jewish population up to approximately one third of the total population. After five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs agree." “The High Commissioner will have the power to prohibit and regulate transfers of land." The Hagannah was to be disarmed and outlawed. Paul Knabenshue, U.S. Consul in Iraq, approved and said, “The White Paper is a victory for the Arabs and makes a Jewish state impossible.” Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, "If we must offend one side. Let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs." In response to Nazi persecution of Jews, Chamberlain said, "NO doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom." The White Paper was rejected by the Zionists. Irgun and Stern terrorism increased. For most Arab leaders, the White Paper didn’t go far enough. It was denounced from exile by the Grand Mufti, and several Arabs who supported it were assassinated by the Mufti’s men The 1939 White paper reduced the influence of Chaim Weizmann, President of the Zionist Organization and proponent of cooperation with the British, in favor of Ben-Gurion, the more radical head of the Jewish Agency. At the 21st Zionist Congress in Geneva, Ben-Gurion said famously, "We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.” He also stated: “The White Paper has created a vacuum which must be filled by the Jews as though they were the State, until there is a state.” Rashid Khalidi writes that acceptance of the White Paper could have improved the Palestinian position. Instead, Palestine disappeared from the map and Palestinians from politics until 1969. As Abba Eben said many years later, “The Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” -- Or, one could say that the Palestinians always put principle ahead of practicality, whereas the Jews, longtime victims of principle, always put “facts on the ground” first. As British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945, Churchill did not allow the 1939 White Paper to come into effect. Jewish population rose to 30% of Palestine and their land ownership to 6%. Three million Americans toured the very popular Palestine Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. There was no mention there of Arabs. 134,000 Palestinian Jews volunteered for the British army. There was close cooperation between the British and the Hagannah from 1939 until the end of the war. The Grand Mufti issued a fatwa from Baghdad proclaiming holy war against Britain. Hundreds of Jews were massacred in Baghdad before the British captured it. 1940 In 1940, Stern broke off from Irgun and attacked the British. In 1941, the British trained Jewish commando units, the Palmach, to fight in Syria, where Moshe Dayan lost an eye. In 1942, 769 Jews drowned when Britain refused the steamship Struma entry to Palestine. It was known by 1942 that Jews were being exterminated in Europe. The Biltmore Conference at New York’s art deco hotel urged that Palestine be established immediately as a Jewish commonwealth with free immigration, recognized borders, democratic institutions, and an army. Nothing was done. In february 1942 Chaim Weizmann's yournger son, 25 year old Flight Lieutenant Michael Weizmann was shot down over the Bay of Biscay. The 1943 Bermuda Conference on Refugees was silent on strict US immigration laws and British limitation of immigration of Jews into Palestine. The Irgun, too, now turned against Britain, although the Zionist leadership and the Hagannah continued to work with the British until the end of the War At lunch at Chequers on 4 November 1944 Churchill told Weizmann that if the Jews could get the whole of Palestine that would be good, but if it came to a choice between no State and Partition, they should take Partition. 1945 In 1945, after the war, all Jewish military groups fought the British. Irgun and Stern, including two future Prime Ministers, Began and Shamir, stepped up bombings and assassinations. Large-scale Jewish immigration from DP camps resumed under the protection of the Hagganah. Encouraged by American Zionists, Truman told Britain that he expected official Jewish immigration to Palestine would recommence. In March 1945, Chruchill received letters from Emir Abdullah of Transjordan and King Ibn Saud of Arabia insisting that the Jews planned a fascist domination of the Arab world. Saud continued: "Joshua captured the land of the Canaanites, an Arab tribe. The Arabs had been in Palestine since 3500 BCE. They had ruled it alone or with the Turks for 1,300 years. The rule of the Jews lasted only 380 confused and sporadic years, ending in 332 BCE. For 2,200 years there have been few Jews in Palestine and they have had no influence. The Jews were aliens who had come to Palestine at intervals and had been turned out over 2000 years ago." But under Prime Minister Clement Atlee, the British government was determined to thwart the Jews. His Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin had said in 1229 that the Arab riots were against the power of Jewish money. He now opposed more Jewish immigration and a Jewish State. Thousands of Zionists were arrested and their weapons confiscated, as in this photo. The British military had almost universally disliked the Zionists. The Arabs had at least pretended to be respectful; the Jews bowed to no one. And for Jews to become warlike was seen by both the Arabs and the British as contrary to nature. On 22 July 1946, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel, killing 92, British, Arabs, and Jews. Most Jews denounced this as a crime and continued to view the British as a legitimate authority. The attack was prompted in part by competition between Ben-Gurion’s Labor Party and the Revisionists. Americans were very upset by the Holocaust. President Truman sent a fact-finding mission to Europe which found the condition of survivors inexcusable. British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin sneered that the Americans wanted to resettle Jews in Palestine because they didn’t want them in New York. Pressure grew on Truman from American Zionists on the one hand and the anti-Semitic State Department on the other. On Yom Kippur 1946, Truman called for admitting 100,000 Jews into Palestine and the creation of a viable Jewish state. In Poland in 1946, survivors of the Holocaust who tried to return to their pre-war homes in Poland were murdered by neighbors and strangers. 1947 In February 1947, a bankrupt Britain referred Palestine to the UN. Because partition would require a 2/3 vote of the General Assembly, they assumed it would be blocked, and the UN would be forced to help them keep troops in Palestine. But the Soviets decided to support partition to get the British out. Members of the UN Special Committee on Palestine were present in May 1947 to watch the Royal Navy force the steamer Exodus back towards Europe with 4500 Holocaust survivors aboard. The Arab League boycotted the Special Committee. The Special Committee recommended partition. The UN General Assembly voted on 29 November 1947 to divide Palestine into two democratic states, with safeguards for minorities. There would be an economic union to ensure joint economic development. Jerusalem would be an international city. In 10 years, a referendum would decide whether the international regime would be continued for Jerusalem. -- This the vote tally of Representative Emanuel Cellers. The vote was 33 in favor, 10 against, and 10 abstentions (including Britain). With encouragement from Weizmann and the Zionist lobby, President Truman supported the partition plan despite strong opposition from the US Defense and State Departments. The Palestinian Arabs, who were 70% of the population and owned 92% of the land, were allocated 47% of the country. The Jewish portion was twice as large as under the Peel Plan ten years earlier. The Arab League rejected partition and demanded an independent Palestine under Arab rule from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. The Jews accepted it, including the internationalization of Jerusalem. Thus their right to statehood was officially endorsed by the UN. The Palestinians, who had been offered statehood and rejected it, called a general strike and a boycott. There were bloody border skirmishes, and Arab volunteer forces entered Palestine from all sides. But the Arabs were divided by petty jealousies and had no real leadership. 1948 Up to 350,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes in the first months of 1948, including much of the middle and upper class. Ben-Gurion expanded the proposed boundaries with more “tower and stockade” settlements. In early April, the Hagannah captured districts around Jerusalem and major coastal towns. Pressure from the US State Department made Truman reverse himself and agree to delay partition. Weizmann went to Eddie Jacobson, Truman’s army buddy and business partner. Eddie begged Truman to talk with Weizmann, who once again convinced him to back a Jewish state. On 9 April 1948, after hours of fighting, Irgun and Stern troops captured the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin and killed over 100 civilians. The Hagannah had tried to stop the attack and repudiated it. Both sides exaggerated the toll, the Arabs to create sympathy and anger, the Jews to inspire fear. This plaque is somewhere in New York State. A week after Deir Yassin, Arabs killed 80 Jewish medical personnel and patients in a day long attack on a caravan on its way to Hadassah hospital. This took place only 200 yards from a British command post, but the British didn’t get involved. In the months between November 1947 and May 1948, Britain attempted to stop the Jews from arming presumably in order to assure an Arab victory and a friendly Palestinian state. British forces left Palestine on May 14, 1948. A British official said that throughout the entire 30 year British Mandate, despite vast effort and expenditure, dozens of committees, and thousands of pages of studies and statistics, the British were never sure what they were doing: helping the Zionists, pleasing the Arabs, or protecting the Empire. Beneath the portrait of Herzl, David Ben Gurion, the Chairman of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the state of Israel without defining its borders. On May 15, 1948, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, sent armies into Israel. The Arabs had considerable advantage in troops and armament, and almost everyone thought they’d win easily. But the Israelis had superiority on the individual battlefields and were far better organized. They had shorter lines of supply and communication, they could fight at night, and they had their backs to the sea. The Arabs had to keep forces at home to guard against unrest and had little fighting spirit. Rashid Khalidi claims that Palestinian Arabs were as well developed socially and economically as neighboring Arab states, but they lacked a capacity for mobilization. Khalidi also suggests that the Israeli generals knew the relative strengths of the opposing forces and wanted the war. The United States imposed an arms embargo on both sides, possibly more to keep the British from arming the Arabs. With Russian help, Israel was supplied from Czechoslovakia just in time to avert disaster. The Arabs underestimated the Israelis and moved too slowly. They attacked piecemeal, because they didn’t want to share credit for victory. Their plans were leaked by traitors, and they were pushed back on all fronts. Zionist ideology and the Hebrew education system had formed the Jews into a national community. The Arabs were torn by divisions. It would have been advantageous for them to stop their losing battle sooner, but no one dared suggest it. An one Arab sociologist has said, “The Arabs are often snared by their rhetoric.” In November 1948, Leonard Bernstein conducted the Israel Philharmonic for Israeli forces at Beersheba against a background of machine gun fire. 1949 Early in 1949, a ceasefire was reached with all parties, with the help of Dr. Ralph Bunch of the UN. Israel now controlled 77% of Palestine. The West Bank was under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian. The State of Israel was a humiliating fact. It was another al-Nakba, another catastrophe. The Arabs correctly blamed it on their leaders. There would be no peace. A representative of the Arab League said, “Our weapon is time. If we recognize the State of Israel, we are conquered. As long as we don’t make peace, the war isn’t over.” The Arabs announced a war of attrition, which the Israelis knew they couldn’t win. This is why their response to violence has always been what many call “asymmetrical.” Some Israelis would have preferred an international Jerusalem, but they couldn’t buck Ben-Gurion and public opinion. Israel incorporated West Jerusalem and proclaimed it their Capital, the only nation to make Jerusalem its Capital since the Kar Kochba Revolt in 134. The Zionists had assumed that a large Arab minority would remain in a Jewish State. But in 1948, 700,000 Palestinians left their homes and villages. Israel claims that Arab military leaders ordered civilians to leave and that most Arabs fled without seeing an Israeli soldier. The Arabs claimed they were driven out by force and by fear of massacre. There is likely truth on both sides. Arab leaders had boasted of a quick victory. And some Arab leaders said a return to the State of Israel would amount to recognition and for Arabs to be governed by Jews would be intolerable. Dag Hammarskjold said Arab countries could easily have absorbed the refugees and the UN would have helped. Many Palestinians did merge into the life of their host countries, but hundreds of thousands remained in miserable camps where their descendents still live. Arab nations feared the Palestinians would destabilize their shaky regimes, and the camps served as a political weapon. 700,000 Holocaust survivors came to Israel. The Jewish population of Israel doubled. Jordan’s King Abdullah annexed the West Bank. Palestinian political activity was forced elsewhere, and younger, educated Palestinians took over from the old families. Israel hoped for an agreement with Abdullah, but he was assassinated on orders of the Grand Mufti. No Arab leader could safely negotiate with Israel. After 1948, nearly a million Jews were forced to leave North Africa, Iraq, Persia, Kurdistan, and Yemen. Oriental Jews now formed more than half the population of Israel. They were more strongly anti-Arab than European Jews. For the Jews in the Arab world, humiliation had been a daily trial, and assimilation was never a possibility. IN CONCLUSION: By the late 19th century European Jews believed they needed their own state in order to survive. They were fortunate in their leadership, and they had much help from outside. Palestinian Arabs appear to have awakened to a national consciousness only in the 1920’s and 1930’s. They were much divided, had poor leadership, and received little help from other Arab countries. Had Jews and Palestinian Arabs cooperated over the past 120 years, Palestine today might be a peaceful and prosperous modern nation with an Arab majority, or the states of Israel and Palestine might exist happily side-by-side, making the desert bloom. Nothing is impossible. -- Additions, corrections, problems: write to Box 831, Eastman, Ma. 02642. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ross, Dennis. The Missing Peace: the inside story of the fight for Middle East Peace. N.Y. Farrar, 2004. 840p. Chief Mid-East negotiator under Bush I and Clinton. "There is little prospect of mediating any conflict if one does not understand the historical narratives of each side."  Oren. Michael B. Power, Faith, and Fantasy; America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. N.Y., Norton, 2007. 778p. An Israeli/American Historian. From the Barbary pirates and Protestant missionaries in 19th c. Palestine to Camp David. Fascinating and enjoyable reading. O'Brien, Conor Cruise. The Siege; the Saga of Israel and Zionism. N.Y., Simon and Schuster, 1986. 798p. A well-known Irish writer and diplomat. -- Covers from the 19th century to land-for-peace in the mid 1980’s. Readable, clear, mildly pro-Israel, and favorably reviewed. The best account in my opinion. Segev, Tom. One Palestine, complete; Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. N.Y. Holt, 1999. 612p. An Israeli writer.-- British made incompatible promises to both Jews and Arabs. Many Arab missteps. British leaders were pro-Zionist out of a mistaken notion of Jewish world power. Entertaining, full of information. Reviews are strongly pro or anti, and accuracy is criticized. Gilbert, Martin. Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century. N.Y., Wiley, 1996. 412p. – Noted Jewish/British historian. Solid history. Favorably reviewed. Horovitz. David. Still Life with Bombers; Israel in the age of terrorism. N.Y., Knopf, 2004. 266p. Israeli journalist. -- He says the root problems are misinformation, Arab terrorism, and mutual mistrust after Arafat rejected the 2000 Camp David offer. Clear presentation by a realistic Israeli dove. Gilbert, Martin. Churchill and the Jews, a lifelong friendship. N.Y., Holt, 2007. 359p. Carter, Jimmy. Palestine Peace not Apartheid. NY, Simon and Schuster, 2006. 265p. – Over 600 customer reviews on Amazon, most favorable, some anti-Semitic. Strongly critiqued by Alan Dershowitz Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage; the story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Boston, Beacon, 2006. Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies at Columbia. Failure to develop Palestinian state because of “Iron Cage” of British and failure of Palestinian leadership. Peters, Joan. From time immemorial: the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine. N.Y., Harper, 1984. Whitehouse Advisor on the Middle East during the Carter Administration. Well reviewed and then trashed. Strongly pro-Zionist. Main points are that Jews were never treated well in Arab lands, and there was extensive Arab immigration into Palestine in the early 20th century. Said, Edward. From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map. Palestinian Christian Columbia Professor, died Sept 2003. Articles in Al-Ahram. Condemns Oslo and the Road Map as not proposing a viable Palestinian state. Supports bi-nationalism Also note: Exile, a political, legal, and romantic thriller, by Richard North Paterson that presents a clear and even-handed picture contemporary Jewish and Arab suffering. As does The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East, non-fiction by Sandy Tolan.