Palestine Betrayed (by the Palestinians)

by Norman Berdichevsky (September 2012)

PALESTINE BETRAYED
by Efraim Karsh
Yale University Press, New Haven
342 pages, 30 photos, 5 maps, appendices and notes

Such views regarding the HAC were corroborated early on by the Syrian historian Qustantin Zuraiq and the Palestinian leader and spokesman Musa Alami that it had become clear even after the invasion of the country by the armies of the surrounding Arab states that the masses who had placed trust in their leadership were thoroughly demoralized by its ineffectiveness, disorganization, self-interest, and corruption.

It quickly diminished when Faisal was expelled from Mecca and was compensated by the British with his desert kingdom in Transjordan (in spite of the fact that the land both east and west of the Jordan River were promised as a Jewish National Home) and his clan was given a major role to play in Iraq and in Palestine. No Palestinian Arab spokes-person today is ready to admit that the same first prestigious Arab national leader with a recognized international stature befriended the Zionist movement, welcomed Jewish settlement in Palestine, and insisted that there was no irreconcilable barrier to future friendship and cooperation between the two peoples. Faisal proclaimed:

The enormous gap between such a statement from the most prominent Arab nationalist leader in 1920 to the subsequent extremist leadership of the HAC under the ultra-reactionary Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini is the true narrative of the betrayal of Palestine and the promise of becoming the most developed and prosperous country in the turbulent Middle East. What is novel for the reader today is the revelation that it was largely among traditional, rural, and conservative Muslims and of course, among the Bedouin that the Balfour Declaration and Jewish settlement were initially welcomed. The Arabs took advantage of the new considerable opportunities to sell marginal land to the Jews and take advantage of improvements in trade, transportation, administration, industry, health, education, and welfare.

Important information from first-hand sources follows the actual fighting between irregular Arab forces before the U.N. Partition Resolution in November 1947, the proclamation of the State of Israel in May 1948, the invasion of the country by the regular Arab armies immediately afterwards, until the cessation of hostilities in January 1949. The picture that emerges differs completely from the contemporary nakba view that dominates Arab thinking.

Chapters five through nine present a wealth of documented detail of five major facets of the hostilities and diplomatic maneuvering. They are:

1. The unpreparedness of the Jewish underground forces to undertake combat in large formations with heavy weapons against the array of regular Arab armies and the total lack of air cover.

5. The attempts to backslide by the American State Department and abandon the Jews to their fate rather than risk alienating important economic and strategic interests and alliances with the surrounding Arab states.

And so it was that in the four months of fighting that followed the passing of the partition resolution vast numbers of Palestinian Arabs fled their homes even though the Jews were still on the defensive and in no position to drive them out. (p. 237)

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