47 of 51 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 14, 2003
By Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine (Paperback)
Like the work of Arieh Avneri, Howard Sachar, Connor Cruise O'Brien, Efraim Karsh and Martin Kramer, Battleground is a magnificent piece of reporting on Middle East history, whose most salient facts revisionists have unfortunately papered over during the 29 years since it was first published.
This book recounts the beginnings of a new 55-year Arab jihad war against the Jewish state. Katz elucidates critical parts of the historical puzzle, including this centerpiece: In 1919, less than two years after the Balfour Declaration, Emir Faisal of Syria and Iraq--who along with his father the Sharif Hussein of Mecca were then the only recognized Arab leaders in the world--declared the plan for a Jewish national homeland in all of Palestine as "moderate and proper." (Of course, it was and remains merely an extension of the jihad initiated when the Jewish people rejected Mohammed's claim to be a prophet.)
The book shows that by international vote of the League of Nations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the world community adopted a plan to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine--which included all of current day Israel and Transjordan.
One may here read that history, and the treaties between Chaim Weizmann and the Emir Faisal of Iraq, as well as letters supporting this plan by both he and his father, Sharif of Mecca.
"everyone knows, Palestine does not exist."
An Arab League leader
For the record, this book cites a great deal of primary source material from Arab leaders themselves. Much of it, furthermore, contradicts current-day Arab sentiments and claims. As one Arab League leader admitted, for example, "everyone knows, Palestine does not exist."
Katz also shows that although the Paris League of Nations meeting accorded all of Palestine to the Jewish people, Britain unilaterally and illegally granted more than 80% of original Palestine to the Arabs, creating current day Jordan.
In short, Katz shows that the 1919 League of Nations vote to adopt the plan did not (as conventional wisdom now wrongly supposes) unilaterally impose a decision on the Arab peoples of the Middle East without their input. In fact, the League of Nations acted as direct result of a 1919 Arab treaty with Jewish leaders.
King Faisal's approval of plans for a National Home for the Jews was significant not least for its policy--and inclusion of current day Israel and all of current day Jordan. In 1919, the Emir Faisal wrote--and numerous scholarly, studies and population figures substantiate this point--there were few Arabs and many Jews in Palestine, and King Faisal saw the importance of recognizing the rights of the Jewish people to their homeland.
The book also shows that the Jewish people did not--as another common misconception holds--"steal" the land of Israel. On the contrary, beginning in the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish Agency and many private groups and people purchased land (usually swamps and desert) from private absentee Arab landowners, often at wildly inflated prices.
Katz also carefully establishes the actual number of Arab refugees from the 1948 war against a nascent Israel that 7 Arab nations began in 1948. The correct number is 480,000, a number that Katz shows Arab leaders at the United Nations admitted at the time. Gradually, over the years, he also demonstrates, that number has been falsely inflated--a fact that even the United Nations admits. The "refugees" now include hundreds of thousands originally from other states, and their heirs.
Neither does Katz omit the nearly 1 million Jewish refugees booted from 22 Arab and Muslim lands between 1920 and 1978 with nothing but the shirts on their backs. (The dark motivations for mass ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab Middle East are exposed by Malka Hillel Shulewitz and Itamar Levin and Rachel Neiman in two books, The Forgotten Millions and Locked Doors.) Including the children and grandchildren of those Jewish refugees from Arab lands would raise their number today to more than 4 million, who together now account for more than half Israel's population.
And finally, Katz shows the central problem that has plagued Israeli-Arab relations since long before Israel was founded in 1948. Most Arab nations--from which the majority of people now known as Palestinian actually immigrated--have never recognized even the considerably reduced version of the Jewish state. Rather, they continue a permanent state of jihad war against non-Muslim infidels, rather than admit the Jewish people a right to self-determination, or a state governing the land in which Jewish inhabitants have remained since before the Romans sacked the second Temple in 70 A.D.
This book corrects reams of false propaganda that obscures the past and the Jewish right to a state in Israel.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Dispels a number of myths about the Arab-Israeli conflict, December 4, 2004
By Jill Malter (jillmalter@aol.com) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine (Paperback)
I think it's interesting to read history books by supporters and opponents of Israel. The ones by Israel's foes generally contain a surprising amount of misinformation. And that may be why books such as this one do not. Katz finds it easiest to support Israel by refuting antizionist lies, and he does so by telling the truth.
Katz traces the origins of the Arab war against Israel. That means supplying background material on the Jews of the Levant prior to modern Zionism. That helps us all realize that Jews had an important connection to and presence in the Levant during the many centuries between the defeats by the Romans and World War One. And it makes it clear that Jerusalem was not an Arab city in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century but virtually the only Asian city with a Jewish majority.
The book exposes many antizionist fabrications about the history of the region. Sometimes, antizionists tell us that Jerusalem is a holy city for the Arabs. But the author shows us that Jerusalem has been important to the Arabs only recently, when the Jews have ruled it. It is important now, because it is the Jewish capital, and because it would give the Arabs more esteem were they to deny the Jews their own capital city.
The author also goes into some detail about the role of Great Britain in the history of the region from the end of World War One until Israeli independence. He mentions the revelations of Richard Crossman about the intentions of Britain's foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, to destroy the Jews of the region rather than act as an honest broker between the Jews and Arabs. And Katz shows how Britain acted as an active participant in the confrontation, with the explicit purpose of preventing the establishment of a Jewish state by force. That includes the infamous White Paper of 1939, which drastically limited Jewish immigration to the region just when it was most needed for those attempting to avoid death at the hands of the Germans.
I think Katz is at his best in discussing a very prevalent lie we all see today, namely that Arabs have at least as much of a right to steal Israeli land as the Israelis do to keep it. And that the reason is that there is an Arabic-speaking subpeople that can live only on Israeli land.
We've seen this argument before. When Germans wanted to occupy Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, they pretended to do so on behalf of the German-speaking "Sudeten" people. These were Germans who happened to live in Czechoslovakia. But there was no symmetry between the desire of Czechs to enjoy human rights, protected by their government, and the desire of many Germans to deny human rights to the Czechs. And once the Germans obtained Czechoslovakia, the pretense of a Sudeten people was abandoned.
The author makes us aware of a similar problem today. While antizionists may imply that there is a huge Arab population that can live only on Jewish land, that's simply not the case. Katz explains that when Arabs controlled the entire West Bank from 1948 through 1967, not even allowing Jews to live there at all, there were no demands for a separate Arab state there. And he makes us realize that even an Arab victory against the Jews of the region would not produce peace: the Arabs would continue to fight against each other for the spoils. In addition, I think that since the Jews have not been the source of the problem, removing them will not solve it.
The author quotes a few Arabs who feel there will not and should not be peace in the region as long as Israel continues to exist as a Jewish state. And this is a major point. Many people have the misimpression that since there are more Arabs than Jews, the Arabs have a right to oppress or destroy the Jews. Or at least that history is on the side of the Arabs, who will get what they want whether they have a right to do so or not.
But I think readers of this book will come away from it aware that Israel is a nation like any other. And that it is land-poor, not land-rich. In peacetime, Israel, like the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, simply will not be defeated. To get rid of such nations, small as they are, would require a major crime. Obliterating the human rights of the Czechs, Dutch, or Hebrews would be a crime as well. Tacit approval of these crimes would set a very poor precedent for everyone, and thus such crimes are by no means inevitable.
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