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I jn HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY IN EXODUS AND OTHER NOVELS M. Muneer S. Asbahi A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OE PHILOSOPHY August 1973 BOWUNG GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Il ABSTRACT Nine American popular novels that use the Arab-Zionist conflict as a setting were examined in this study with the purpose of determining how objective is the image of the conflict they present. The examination focused on the historical details and the ideological arguments contained in these novels. In order to determine the authenticity of the historical details, they were contrasted with non-fictional historical accounts written by Western, Arab, and Israeli authors. On the other hand, the arguments advanced explicitly or implicitly in the novels were examined to determine the soundness of their historical bases, their logical consistency, their universal applicability, and their fairness in representing the views of the conflicting parties. The study showed that the novels present oversimplified, biased versions of the history of the various developments of the conflict. Due to the omission of certain historical details and the use of others that are highly questionable or definitely inaccurate;; the "history" offered in these novels is unfair to the Arabs. While there is hardly any attempt in the studied novels to represent the Arab point of view, there is an extensive, often zealous, presentation of the Zionist argument. The various arguments advanced to justify the Zionist position, however, are based on the novels’ biased "history" and are characterized by lack of profundity, self-contradiction, and poor logic. Moreover, most of -these arguments appeal to the reader's sentiments rather than to his intellect. The Zionist/Israelis are individualized and Jewish suffering is highly dramatized. Meanwhile, the Arabs are hardly individualized and the suf fering of the Palestinian Arabs is generally ignored. The examined novels present an image that absolves the Israelis from any responsibility for the tension in the Middle East?and condemns the Arabs as irrational aggressors. This image, however, is based on a biased and deformed account of the Arab-Israeli conflict. III TABLE OF CONTENTS Eage PART ONE: INTRODUCTION..............................................................................1 PART TWO: THE HISTORY................................................................................ 26 I. The General Image of the Struggle Prior to 1948 ...................................................................... 29 II. The 1948 War........................................................................... 44 III. The Palestinian Refugees.............................................63 IV. The War of June 1 967...................................................... 78 PART THREE: THE IDEOLOGY ................................................................ .87 I. The Moral Arguments ................................................. 92 II. The Superiority Argument........................................ 11 6 III. The Image of the Arabs............................................ 1 28 IV. Superiority and Imperialism .............................. 1 63 V. Survival or Expansion?............................................. 183 VI. The Arab Side ................................................................ 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY 222 PART ONE INTRODUCTION On April 16, 1973, the NBC Monday Night Movie was Judith, the setting of which is described in TV Guideeas "Israel’s 1948 battle for survival." Nine days later the same network telecast a prime-time drama special, The Going Up of David Lev, The listing of this special in TV Guide reads: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem lend colorful backdrops to this drama saluting Israel's 25th anniversary. Brandon Cruz plays a boy who is seeking infor mation about the death of his father (In the 1967 War}; Topol ('Fiddler on the Roof') is the warm hearted cabbie who helps. (In addition to Topol and Cruz, the special featured such stars as Claire Bloom and Melvyn Douglas.) On May 6, NBC made another "salute" in a special, expanded (one hour) edition of Meet the Press, in which three top Israeli officials—Foreign Minister Abba Eban, Deputy Premier Yigal Allon, and Premier Golda Meir—were interviewed. ABC'also had a special, expanded edition of Directions on the same day featuring a "tour of Israel on the eve of its 25th anniversary." The segments of the program included an interview with David Ben-Gurion, and a segment showing "scientists in the Negev Desert attempt to make the wasteland bloom." On Sunday May 27, Rachel's Children, a concert special celebrating the same occasion 2 3 was aired by WWJ-TV, Detroit’s NBC outlet.In addition to these special programs, the Israeli anniversary was celebrated on regular news, variety, and talk shows. These shows illustrate the attitude of American television and mass media in general towards Israel, an attitude that clearly affects the position of these media in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That position is further exemplified in a recent news item on NBC. In a report about an exchange of prisoners between Syria and Israel, the viewer witnessed the Israeli prisoners as individuals and saw their families rushing to meet them with tears and embraces. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was interviewed. The reporter told the viewers that all the Israeli prisoners claimed that they had been tortured by the Syrians. The viewer, however, saw nothing of the Syrian prisoners or their families, heard nothing of their stories about their imprisonment, and was offered no interview with any Syrian official. This is one example of the pro-Zionist bias which constantly covers all news stories of the Middle East conflict. •1 See the program listings in TV Guide, The Detroit Edition for Channels 4- and 13, 9:00 p.m. , April 1 S, 1973 7vol. XXI, no. 15, p. A-40); Channels 4 and 13, 8:30 p.m., April 25, 1973 (vol. XXI, no. 17, pi\A-70); Channels 4 and 13, 12:00 noon, Channel 7, 1:00 p.m., Channel 24, 11:15, p.m.—May 6, 1973 (vol. XXI, no. 18, pp. A-20, A-22 and A-32); and for Channel 4, 3:00 p.m., May 27, 1973 (vol. XXI, no. 21, p. A-22). Life Magazine, which had ceased publi« cation, published a special issue on "The Spirit of Israel" on the same occasion. 4 Further examples abound. An editorial on WWLF-TV, NBC’s station in Springfield, Mass., broadcast on October 1 and 2, 1970, commented on the hijacking of three airlin ers by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The editorial made some suggestions on how to deal with future hijackings. Among these suggestions are: 3. No person or persons of Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian or Iraqi nationality be allowed to board aircraft; 4. All persons of these nationalities resident in the affected countries be deported forthwith; 5. The government to impound all bank accounts of Arab nationals and, on a pro-rata basis, deduct from the credit balance an amount equal to the value of the aircraft destroyed; 6. As a somewhat drastic measure,llsrael could round up all Palestinian Arabs within the reach of its armed forces and start executing relatives of Pales tinian extremists. 8. There is, of course, the final resort, namely what I call Operation Moses. This is, quite simply, an Israeli raid to blow up the Aswan dam and drown every Egyptian downstream. In addition to ridding the world of a large number of irrational people, ? this action would be a real boon to archeologists. Although this is an extreme example, the mere fact that it was aired without serious consequences is very significant. One may speculate on what would have happened had a similar editorial, concerning a national group other than the Arabs, been broadcast. An article on the American television coverage of the Middle East conflict shows that this coverage is sometimes deliberately deceptive. One of the examples cited in the o "An Inflamatory Broadcast," Middle East International, I, 6 (September 1971} , p. 31. 5 article concerns the April 13, 1971, edition of CBS's Sixty Minutes. The program had a segment on the Middle East in which the Israeli Premier, Defense Minister and Intelli gence Chief were interviewed. Mike Wallace closed the segment by saying that the Egyptians had been contacted to set arrangements for interviews with the Egyptian President, Defense Minister and Intelligence Chief, but that no reply had been received from them. The article points out that actually the Egyptians were contacted on Saturday, April 10, only three days before the airing of the program. Thus, the Egyptian officials were given no chance to respond What Wallace said was literally true, but it certainly would create a false impression in .the mind of the viewer. The one-sided coverage is not limited to television. Kenneth Love, the Middle East correspondent of the New York Times during the Suez crisis of 1956, writes in his book Suez: the Twice-Fought War that the paper failed to publish an interview he had with President Nasser, in which the President disclosed his efforts to avoid an escalation of the crisis. Nasser explained that he had suggested that the forces of each of the Egyptian and Israeli sides be withdrawn one kilometer from the Armistice line, and that when Israel rejected the proposal, he unilaterally ordered a pull-back of the Egyptian troops. While the interview Anonymous, "Trouble on the Tube," Middle East Interna tional . I, 6 (September 1971), p. 31. 6 failed to appear in the Times, Love writes, "distorted versions of Nasser's efforts to pacify the frontier were splashed across New York’s front pages under headlines representing him as a warmonger.The same attitude was evident in American newspapers in the period of the 1967 War. Harry N. Howard writes, "Broadly speaking . the American press seemed imbalanced . during the critical period in the Middle East."^ In a statistical study of the coverage of seven Amer ican newsmagazines of the Middle East conflict in May and June 1967, Michael W. Suleiman lists the attributes chara cterizing Israel and the Arab countries in the news items of these magazines.