Letters
Palestine: whose country?
Sir: How strange that Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial is 'so highly praised by the American intellectual community' and so savagely belittled by Charles Glass (Books, 2 March). She does not claim to be a professional historian and in a work conceived on such a large scale, the odd generalisation or abbreviated quotation is inevitable. In fact, the Gilmours have already catalogued some weeks ago in the London Review of Books every minor blemish they could find in this book. Yet, all their and Mr Glass's quibbles do not even begin to touch the validity of her main thesis. Some of her themes may not be 'new' but the fact remains that, so far, their importance has not been understood and they are curiously absent from the unend- ing but oversimplified public debate on the Palestinians. Thus: 1. Since 1948, 830,000 Jews fled from Arab countries. Of these, 580,000 settled in Israel, where they were absorbed, whereas their Arab counterparts in this de facto exchange of populations were kept in refugee camps as political pawns by the Arab countries in which they sought refuge. 2. It is a fact that the increase in the Arab population of Palestine between 1918 and 1948 cannot be explained by natural growth. A substantial number of Arabs immigrated into Palestine to take advan- tage of the economic opportunities created by the Jewish influx. The precise numbers of these newcomers cannot be ascertained, but the significance of this population movement has been, so far, overlooked.
3. It is a fact that in the 19th century, Palestine was extremely under-populated and largely as arid as Judea and Samaria still are at present. The odd fertile patches like Nablus do not change the desert character of the land.
4. Moslem culture and attitudes have been fundamentally hostile to the Jews over the centuries and this fact cannot be redeemed by reference to occasional periods of tolerance.
Mrs Peters's central argument is a huma- nitarian one: that 60 years of violence only brought the Palestinians misery, dispersal and defeat. The time has come to shift the emphasis from sterile nationalism to the unspectacular business of living in peace. Her real crime is to remind us that the Palestinians are not the only ones who suffered from the great geo-political up- heavals that followed the second world war. Millions of others lost their homes and lands but did not turn to terrorism nor try to monopolise the compassion of the world. Perhaps the Palestinians too might have enjoyed by now the benefits of a more comfortable existence had their Western champions been a little less embattled.
Lionel Bloch
9 Wimpole Street, London W1
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