Love of the Land: Palestine Betrayed

Palestine Betrayed

by Efraim Karsh
Yale, 336 pp., $32.50

Reviewed by Daniel Pipes
National Review
May 17, 2010

Nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe," has entered the English language in reference to the Arab–Israeli conflict. As defined by the anti-Israel website The Electronic Intifada, Nakba means "the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands [of] Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948."

Those who wish Israel to disappear actively promote the Nakba narrative. For example, Nakba Day serves as a mournful Palestinian counterpart to Israel's Independence Day festivities, annually publicizing Israel's alleged sins. So established has this day become that Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations — the very institution that created the State of Israel — has sent his support to "the Palestinian people on Nakba Day." Even Neve Shalom, a Jewish-Palestinian community in Israel claiming to be "engaged in educational work for peace, equality, and understanding between the two peoples," dutifully commemorates Nakba Day.

The Nakba ideology presents Palestinians as victims without choices and therefore without responsibility for the ills that befell them. It blames Israel alone for the Palestinian-refugee problem. This view has an intuitive appeal, for Muslim and Christian Palestinians had long formed a majority on the land that became Israel, whereas most Jews were relative newcomers.

Intuitive sense, however, does not equal historical accuracy. In his new tour de force, Palestine Betrayed, Efraim Karsh of the University of London offers the latter. With his customary in-depth archival research — in this case, relying on masses of recently declassified documents from the period of British rule and of the first Arab–Israeli war, 1917–49 — clear presentation, and meticulous historical sensibility, Karsh argues the opposite case: that Palestinians decided their own destiny and bear near-total responsibility for becoming refugees.

In Karsh's words: "Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. partition resolution." More broadly, he observes, "there was nothing inevitable about the Palestinian–Jewish confrontation, let alone the Arab–Israeli conflict."

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Palestine Betrayed

Love of the Land: 1948: Palestine Betrayed

1948: Palestine Betrayed

Elliot Jager
jewishideasdaily.com
20 April '10

Zionist Jews were not interlopers in Palestine. The creation of the Jewish state was not an "original sin" foisted upon the Arab world. The tragic flight of the Palestinian refugees was overwhelmingly not the fault of the Zionists. To the contrary, at every momentous junction the Zionists opted for compromise and peace, the Arabs for intransigence and belligerency.

This, in summary, is how most people once understood the Arab-Israel conflict. Today, however, as Israel marks its Independence Day, an entire generation has come to maturity believing a diametrically opposite "narrative": namely, that the troubles persist because of West Bank settlements, because of Israeli building in east Jerusalem, because of the security barrier, because of heavy-handed Israeli militarism-in brief, because of a racist Zionist imperialism whose roots stretch back to 1948 and beyond.

The new view has been shaped by a confluence of factors: unsympathetic media coverage, an obsessive focus by the UN and others on Israel's alleged shortcomings, improved Arab suasion techniques, and the global Left's adoption of the Palestinian cause. Added to the mix is the influence of Israel's own "New Historians," whose revisionist attacks on the older understanding have helped shape today's authorized academic canon.

Such attacks have themselves not gone altogether without challenge-and at least one prominent New Historian, Benny Morris, has since moderated his views. Outstanding among the challengers has been the scholar Efraim Karsh, head of the Middle East and Mediterranean Studies Program at King's College, University of London, and the author of a 1997 debunking of the New Historians entitled Fabricating Israeli History.

In his just-published book, Palestine Betrayed, Karsh zeroes in on the 1948-49 war, its background, and its consequences, in an analysis that re-establishes the essential accuracy of the once-classic account of the Arab-Israel conflict. Basing itself on Arabic as well as Western, Soviet, UN, and Israeli sources, Karsh's is corrective history at its boldest and most thorough. Elliot Jager interviewed Efraim Karsh for Jewish Ideas Daily.

Who "betrayed" Palestine?

Palestine was betrayed by its corrupt and extremist Arab leadership, headed by Hajj Amin Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem. From the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, these leaders launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival, culminating in the violent attempt to abort the UN partition resolution of November 1947.

You dedicate this book to Elias Katz and Sami Taha. Who were they?

A native of Finland, Elias Katz won two Olympic medals in the 1924 Paris games before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine and becoming coach of the prospective Jewish state's athletic team for the 1948 games. A firm believer in peaceful coexistence, he was murdered in December 1947 by Arab co-workers in a British military base in Gaza. Sami Taha, scion of a distinguished Haifa family, was a prominent Palestinian Arab trade unionist and a foremost proponent of Arab-Jewish coexistence. He was gunned down by a mufti henchman in September 1947, at the height of the UN debate on partition.

(Read full interview)

Love of the Land: 1948: Palestine Betrayed

Love of the Land: From the Horse’s Mouth: Petraeus on Israel

From the Horse’s Mouth: Petraeus on Israel

Max Boot
Contentions/Commentary
24 March '10

(One has to be careful to always look around before running with a claim. This was a classic, with Max Boot being one of the few with the proper understanding of what was said from the start. The Biden quotes behind closed doors, may also not have been any better, and have been challenged)

Back on March 13, terrorist groupie Mark Perry — a former Arafat aide who now pals around with Hamas and Hezbollah — posted an article on Foreign Policy’s website, claiming that General David Petraeus was behind the administration’s policy of getting tough with Israel. He attributed to Petraeus the view that “Israel’s intransigence” — meaning its unwillingness to give up every inch of the West Bank and East Jerusalem tomorrow — “could cost American lives.” His item received wide circulation though it may be doubted whether, as he now says, “It changed the way people think about the conflict.”

I tried to set the record straight with two Commentary items (see here and here) in which I suggested, based on talking to an officer familiar with Petraeus’s thinking, that Perry’s item was a gross distortion —in fact a fraud. I noted that in Petraeus’s view, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was only one factor among many affecting U.S. interests in the region and that Israeli settlements were far from the only, or even the main, obstacle to peace. I even suggested — again, based on inside information — that the 56-page posture statement that Central Command had submitted to Congress, which stated that the Arab-Israeli conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” was not the best indicator of his thinking. Better to look at what he actually told Congress — in a hearing he barely mentioned Israel (until prompted to do so) and never talked about settlements at all.

This brought hoots of derision from commentators on both the Left and the Right, who claimed that I was putting words into Petraeus’s mouth — that I was, in Joe Klein’s phrase, taking a “flying leap.” Predictably piling on were Andrew Sullivan, who said I was “glossing over” what Petraeus said, and Robert Wright, who claimed that, “by Boot’s lights, Petraeus is anti-Israel.” Diana West added a truly inventive spin, by suggesting that Petraeus was a protégé of Stephen Walt, who was his faculty adviser many years ago at Princeton before the good professor won renown as a leading basher of the “Israel Lobby” and the state of Israel itself. It was from Walt, Ms. West claims, that Petraeus imbibed his “Arabist, anti-Israel attitudes.”

So who was off-base here: those of us who tried to explain the nuances of General Petraeus’s thinking or those bloggers and commentators who tried to suggest that he is a strident critic of Israel?

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: From the Horse’s Mouth: Petraeus on Israel

Love of the Land: Were the Oslo Accords a state of mind?

Were the Oslo Accords a state of mind?

Dr. Alex Grobman
Special to The Jewish State
05 February '10

Finding a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict has been a constant source of frustration for American administrations. Each new U.S. president assumes he can resolve this intractable dispute either through the sheer force of his personality or his unique understanding of the problems in the region.

The Oslo Peace Accords -- which were officially signed at a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13, 1993, in the presence of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and U.S. President Bill Clinton -- is among the most glaring example of how American presidents are naive about how to settle the conflict.

In "Doomed to Failure?: The Politics and Intelligence of the Oslo Peace Process," Ofira Seliktar, a professor of political science at Gratz College and adjunct professor at Temple University, analyzes the environment in which the Oslo Accords evolved, and the reasons why the agreement failed. The downfall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991 were viewed by the Israeli peace activists and their supporters in the West as a sure sign that the climate was ripe to start the Oslo negotiations that lead to the Declaration of Principles.

Shimon Peres, the most vigorous proponent of this view, believed that a new Middle East had emerged that would prevail over the "irrational" and "tribalist" attitudes like extreme nationalism and religious fundamentalism among the Arabs throughout the region. Once peace was achieved, peace activists expected there would be an added bonus: Israel would probably abandon its own "tribal-particularistic culture shaped by the ultraorthodox and national religious Zionists in favor of a more universalistic-secular creed."

Seliktar describes how the negotiations began, the principles upon which they were based, and the Labor party's attempt to implement the accord even as Yasser Arafat's legitimacy continued to be repudiated. She explores how the Likud government attempted to effect a midcourse modification of the agreement, and Labor's efforts to circumvent and ignore PA blatant violations of the interim provisions of the Accord in order to achieve a final peace settlement.

Those who want to understand the way in which Israel predicts and manages political change will find this book of special interest. Seliktar shows us why the Oslo Accords were doomed from the start.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Were the Oslo Accords a state of mind?

Love of the Land: Time's McGirk Sides With Opponents of Jerusalem Archeology

Time's McGirk Sides With Opponents of Jerusalem Archeology

Ricki Hollander
CAMERA
10 February '10

Tim McGirk, Time Magazine's Jerusalem bureau chief, is notorious for his lack of impartiality on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Time and again, he has departed from the code of journalistic ethics by failing to “distinguish between advocacy and news reporting,” and by misleading readers with false information. In a Feb. 8, 2010 article entitled “Archaeology in Jerusalem: Digging Up Trouble,” McGirk once again replaces objective reporting with advocacy journalism, this time promoting opponents of archeological excavations in the City of David.

Jerusalem's past, present and future is a subject of controversy that arouses passionate opinion and positions on both sides. One of the main obstacles to previous peace‑making efforts has been the issue of dividing Jerusalem and control over its holy sites. Muslim denial of Judaism's historical and religious ties to Jerusalem, the Waqf's illegal construction on the Temple Mount, and the violent response to Jewish archeological digs have long stymied Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. (See "The Battle Over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount".) While the strongest opposition to the archeological excavations taking place in Jerusalem comes from Palestinian and Muslim leaders who for political reasons deny a Jewish historic bond to the city's holy sites, opposition has also come from pro‑Palestinian activists who oppose Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem's holy basin and from revisionist or minimalist archeologists who reject the Bible as a guide to the history of ancient Israel.

Support for the archeological studies come not only from right‑wing Jewish nationalists but from archeologists, historians and scholars throughout the world who believe that the discoveries support biblical accounts of a united Davidian monarchy.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Time's McGirk Sides With Opponents of Jerusalem Archeology

Love of the Land: Kicking the Palestinian Habit

Kicking the Palestinian Habit

P. David Hornik
FrontPageMag.com
02 February '10

Conspicuous for its absence in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last week was any mention of what is variously called the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Middle East peace process. Israeli analyst Yoram Ettinger suggests that this “reflects a US order of priorities and, possibly, a concern that mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict does not advance—but undermines—Obama’s domestic standing.”

Conceivably, a similar premise underlies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent demonstrative acts in favor of settlement in the West Bank. Last week, just after a meeting in Jerusalem with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, Netanyahu marked the tree-planting holiday of Tu Bishvat by planting trees in public ceremonies in the Jerusalem-area West Bank settlements of Kfar Etzion and Maale Adumim. He capped it off on Friday with a tree-planting ceremony in Ariel, a settlement somewhat deeper in the West Bank in Samaria. There Netanyahu suggested that the settlement was a crucial part of Israel:

“Everyone who understands the geography of Israel know how important Ariel is. It is the heart of our country. We are here where are forefathers were, and we will stay here.”

And on Sunday Benny Begin, son of the former prime minister and a member of Netanyahu’s inner security cabinet, took part in a cornerstone-laying ceremony in yet another West Bank settlement, Beit Hagai, and said:

“The state of Israel and the people of Israel have interests in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and in Jerusalem, which are not only security-related, but based on an ancient affiliation.”

Considering that in November Obama harshly criticized Israel for planning to build within a neighborhood of Jerusalem, also conspicuous for its absence, so far, is any public U.S. rebuke of Netanyahu or Begin for these gestures.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Kicking the Palestinian Habit

Love of the Land: Leveling the Playing Field: An order of ten both ways

Leveling the Playing Field: An order of ten both ways

Richard Landes
Augean Stables
15 December 09

I have often tried to argue that the situation is the Arab-Israeli conflict is not only exaggerated by the media, but inverted, and that statistics play a critical role in this process.

Now we have two key pieces of evidence of how this works.

Exhibit A: Exaggerate Israeli-inflicted damage by an order of ten.

Palestinians constantly make wild statistical claims, as in when Mahmoud al Zahar of Hamas accuses Israel of killing 8000 in the first, “peaceful” intifada, when the Israelis and the Palestinians killed about 1000 each.

Or when al Zahar accuses Israel of imprisoning one quarter of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian “human rights” NGO, Adalah gives a number to the fraction: 700-750,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons since 1967. This figure, absurd by any careful statistical analysis – was cited by an Adalah representative who testitifed before the Goldstone Commission. Again the figure is off by an order approaching ten.

But the Goldstone Report took the figures and rounded them down by a mere 50,000 (making the real number of prisoners since 1967 a statistical error):

¶1444. It is estimated that during the past 43 years of occupation, approximately 700,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been detained under Israeli military orders. Israel argues that these detentions are necessary on grounds of security

And now, Martin Kramer noticed that in the Goldstone report, the number of factories knocked out by Israel resulted in 40,000 jobs lost, when the original report only stated 4,000.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: Leveling the Playing Field: An order of ten both ways

Love of the Land: Obama Administration and Arab-Israeli Peace Process: Grinding to a Total and Humiliating Halt

Obama Administration and Arab-Israeli Peace Process: Grinding to a Total and Humiliating Halt

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

1 October 09

The newly elected Fatah Central Committee—the one that was supposedly made up of young, reform-minded moderates but actually isn’t—has told Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas that he should absolutely not negotiate with Israel unless all building of apartments anywhere on the West Bank or in east Jerusalem comes to a complete halt.

That’s not going to happen.

This means there won’t be direct negotiations, totally contradicting President Barack Obama’s absolutely clear and “firm” statement at the UN that talks much, should, and will begin immediately.

It should be remembered that this whole construction on settlements freeze idea was started by Obama himself, thus giving the Palestinians an excuse not to talk. Israel refused (Pie in Face #1). Later he backed down a bit, saying that Israel should get something in exchange for the settlement freeze, but then Arab states refused (Pie in Face #2). So he backed down again, while pretending that somebody had offered to do something.

But while Israel is eager to negotiate (not because it expects anything will be achieved), the Palestinians flatly refuse (Pie in Face #3) and keep escalating their refusal.

Israel offers a compromise in which it makes real material concessions; Palestinians remain completely intransigent. Is there a pattern here?

Obama tried to solve the problem by working out some partial freeze with Israel, an idea to which the Israeli government has responded positively. But the Palestinians simply reject such a compromise. They don’t want a medium-sized unilateral Israeli concession but will only accept a very large unilateral Israeli concession, and then only as a basis for demanding more unilateral Israeli concessions.

So what are Obama’s options at this point?

Option 1: Go back to having a confrontation with Israel demanding it freeze construction and get nothing in return. That’s not going to happen.

Option 2: Criticize the Palestinian stand and pressure it (after all, the United States is providing all of its money or helping to raise it among allied countries) to go to talks. That’s not going to happen.

Option 3: Pretend everything is going well, have officials run around as if something is getting done, develop some new photo opportunities, and hope no one notices. Yep, that’s the one.

After nine months in office and after having declared it would hit the ground running on Israel-Palestinian issues and get peace very fast, the Obama Administration has achieved nothing. In fact, it has set back the process and is getting less done than the supposedly criminally passive Bush Administration.

Love of the Land: Obama Administration and Arab-Israeli Peace Process: Grinding to a Total and Humiliating Halt

Love of the Land: One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy

One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy

by Daniel Pipes
danielpipes.org
September 16, 2009

The Obama administration has established an alarmingly naïve and dangerous record on Arab-Israeli issues, leading me to worry about spectacular policy failures ahead. But it has initiated one innovative and positive policy deserving high praise.

Instead of Israel making yet more unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, in late May Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu called to "bring Arab states into the circle of peace." U.S. special envoyGeorge Mitchell and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak picked up on this and developed plans to integrate those Arab states into the diplomatic process. In mid-July, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that "Arab states have a responsibility … to take steps to improve relations with Israel, and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel's place in the region."

A month later, Barack Obama declared his hope that "we are going to see not just movement from the Israelis, but also from the Palestinians around issues of incitement and security, from Arab states that show their willingness to engage Israel." According to Foreign Policy blogger Laura Rozen – later confirmed by the White House – Obama "sent letters to at least seven Arab and Gulf states seeking confidence-building measures [CBMs] toward Israel." (Those states include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.)

In one such letter, sent on July 7 to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Obama expressed his hope that Arab states will take steps to end Israel's "isolation" in the Middle East and that "Morocco will be a leader in bridging gaps between Israel and the Arab world." Examples of CBMs include Arab states opening trade office in Israel, allowing Israeli planes to traverse its airspace, issuing tourist visas to Israelis, and Arab officials meeting with Israeli leaders.

This appeal found a mixed Arab reception. On the positive side, Bahrain's crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, suggested that "All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance" and Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh committed his government "to creating the right atmosphere" and supporting the U.S. "vision." An unnamed Arab diplomat offered that "In return for a symbolic compromise on the settlements, some Arab states will be willing to pay with some symbolic gestures."

Diplomatic smiles waned when Saudi king Abdullah "launched a tirade" at Barack Obama.

In contrast, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia rejected Obama's appeal for CBMs vis-à-vis Israel during a presidential visit in early June. Rozenreports that the Saudi monarch "launched a tirade during Obama's long meeting in Riyadh." It went so badly that Saudi officials "later apologized to the U.S. president for the king's behavior." Likewise, Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit asked rhetorically, "Is normalization possible as long as the building in settlements continues? The answer is no, of course." Arab League chief Amr Moussa deemed it "impossible to speak of normalization when Israel rejects any significant measure."

Negative responses notwithstanding, the involvement of the Arab states that can offer benefits to Israel should limit the harm inflicted by do-gooding diplomatic "peace processors."

Almost two decades ago, in a Wall Street Journal article of June 1990, I called for including the states. I noted there a remarkable symmetry in which "Palestinians want from Israel what Israel wants from the Arab states—recognition and legitimacy. Thus, Palestinians seek concessions from Israel and Israel seeks concessions from the Arab states."

I suggested yoking together the parallel frustrations that "Israel cannot get what it wants from the Arab states, and the Palestinians cannot get what they want from Israel." The U.S. government should, I proposed, "link concessions to Israel by the Arab states with Israeli concessions to the Palestinians." That is, when the Arab states give Israel something it wants, Israelis should then—and only then—be expected to give something in turn to the Palestinians."

As an example, I proposed that when the Saudis end their economic boycott of Israel, Israelis in return increase Palestinian access to underground water on the West Bank. This balanced approach, I suggested, "places the burden of the initiative squarely on the Arab states—where it should be."

After the long, sterile, and counterproductive detour of exclusively Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, it is gratifying to see an attempt finally to bring the Arab states into the negotiations. I still maintain that thePalestinians need be defeated before negotiations can usefully take place, but involving the Arab states improves the balance and reduces the potential for damage.

Love of the Land: One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy