Letters from Readers a Statement of Aims

Letters from Readers A Statement of Aims

In sponsoring COMMENTARY, the American Jewish Com- "Whose Palestine?" To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: mittee aims to meet the need COMMENTARY is to be com- To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: for a journal of significant mended for opening its pages to a "Whose Palestine?" by Erich candid discussion of the contro- thought and opinion on Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac [July] is versy surrounding Joan Peters's Jewish affairs and contem- a valuable addition to the growing From Time Immemorial and, in porary issues. The opinions literature on Joan Peters's From particular, for forthrightly ad- and views expressed by COM- Time Immemorial. Some of the dressing the very grave allegations exegeses of the book over the last of misrepresentation that have MENTARY'S contributors and year have unhappily had the ap- been leveled against the book. In editors are their own, and do pearance of a political witchhunt. this respect, the article by Erich not necessarily express the Com- Attention has thus been diverted, Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac committee's viewpoint or position. sometimes for motives unrelated pares very favorably with, say, the The sponsorship of COMMEN- to any concern for scholarly accu- New York Review of Books which racy, from the main theses of the elected to shield its readers from TARY by the Committee is in book and has been concentrated, so "indelicate" a subject.... Fur- line with its general program for obvious tactical reasons, on a thermore, despite its evidently to enlighten and clarify small number of population statis- sharp disagreement with both the public opinion on problems tics about which demographic ex- tone and substance of my charges, perts can legitimately disagree. the Isaacs' article fairly acknowl- of Jewish concern, to fight The main theses thus have disap- edges my specific contribution to bigotry and protect human peared from view and need to be the controversy.... rights, and to promote Jewish reiterated as a healthy corrective. The Isaacs do, however, take cultural interest and creative There was a continuous Jewish great exception to my findings. achievement in America. presence in Palestine. British gov- They purport that (1) my scholar- ernments after 1922 did not abide ship is flawed, (2) even if it weren't, by the obligation of the Balfour there is still no basis to my allega- Declaration and the League of Na- tions of "fraud," "hoax," etc., and tions Mandate to foster a Jewish (3) even if everything I had writ- AMERICAN JEWISH National Home. Some British offi- ten were true, the central theses of COMMITTEE cials who wanted their government From Time Immemorial are, none- to honor its obligation suffered a theless, "generally sound." I will sad fate. There was substantial discuss each of these points in turn. Theodore Ellenoff, President Arab migration into the Mandate 1. The Isaacs cite two examples territory, especially into those areas of my allegedly flawed scholarship. settled by Jews. This was unim- Let me note straightaway that if peded and unacknowledged by the this is the best they can do, then British who did, in contrast, im- Joan Peters's book is, at the very The Commentary pose severe restrictions on Jewish least, a disgraceful piece of scholar- Publication Committee immigration. Britain did remove ship, since, in various periodicals three-quarters of the total area during the past two years, I have Donald M. Blinken, Chairman from the Mandate by setting up identified dozens of gross misrepre- the emirate of Trans-Jordan, which sentations in From Time Imme- in its present form of Jordan can morial. (Much of this material will Morris B. Abram logically be regarded as the Arab appear in a forthcoming collection Norman E. Alexander state in Palestine. Some Arab lead- to be published by Verso press.) Edward E. Elson ers, especially the Mufti of Jeru- But, as it happens, in neither of Stephen Friedman salem, established a relationship the instances cited by the Isaacs with the Nazi regime and encour- was I in error. Lawrence Goldmuntz aged its persecution of Jews. The The Isaacs first allege that I "in- Mark Goodson number of Jewish refugees from correctly" added 40,000 Arabs to Robert H. Haines Arab lands in the late 1940's was at one of Miss Peters's demographic Bess Myerson least equal to the number of Pales- projections and then accused her tinian Robert L. Pelz Arabs displaced from areas of "not accounting for them prop- held by Israel. erly." Let me first briefly rehearse Ned Pines Underlying these theses is the the argument. Miss Peters claims Frederick P. Rose simple fact that the essence of the to plot the population movements Gordon S. Rosenblum Arab-Israel conflict is the refusal of indigenous Palestinian Arabs Michael Saperstein of the Arab world, except now between the years 1893 and 1947. Egypt, to admit the legitimacy and She first takes the 1893 population Nanette Scofield reality of the existence of Israel. figures for each of the five regions Henry Sherman No solution is possible until that into which she has divided Pales- John Slawson reality is acknowledged. tine (Areas I through V) and then Laurence A. Tisch MICHAEL CURTIS projects what the population in Rutgers University each of these regions would have New Brunswick, New Jersey - been in 1947 had growth been ex- 2 LETTERS FROM READERS/3 clusively the result of natural in- estimates are available," who were closed . . . is that . . . tens of thou- crease. She then compares these either recruited by private con- sands of "Arab illegal immigrants" projections with the actual 1947 tractors or else "entered individu- [were] recorded as having been census figures for each of the five ally." The Survey then suggests "brought" into Palestine.... In regions (minus all immigrants and figures for the number of Arabs addition, other unestimated "con- nomads) to establish the magni- who remained in Palestine after siderable" numbers immigrated "un- tude of "in-migration" for each re- October 1944, to which I will re- officially" or as "individuals" during gion, that is, the number of indig- turn presently. Miss Peters's sum- the war, according to the report (p. enous Palestinian Arabs who had mary description of this section in 379, all emphases in original). migrated into (or out of) Area I, the Survey reads as follows: The latter sentence refers unmis- Area II, and so on (see p. 256 of What the official Anglo-American Miss Peters's takably to the second category of text for an explicit Survey of 1945-46 definitively account of her method). dis- Arab immigrant workers: note, for For Area I, my calculations tally almost precisely with her own and also with those of Philip Hauser, the demographer who has certified Miss Peters's finding for Area I in an appendix: Take a great airline 92,300 (1893 population) X 2.7 (factor of natural to a great country. increase) 249,210 (projected 1947 pop- Take Lufthansa to Israel. ulation) 417,300 (actual 1947 popula- tional minus immigrants and nomads) +168,090 (net in-migration to Area I) Yet if the same computations are made for Area IV, the resulting figure is 40,000 greater than the one listed in Miss Peters's table. The Isaacs' criticism is clearly mis- placed. What is more, the Isaacs are deafeningly silent on the crucial context in which I took note of this discrepancy, namely, that Miss Peters ignored all the demographic changes in Area IV because, if taken into account, they would render her actual findings at best trivial. This point was the subject of a detailed communica- tion, "The Strange Case of Area IV," which I submitted some two years ago to the scores of periodicals, including COMMENTARY, that had acclaimed Miss Peters's demographic study (none of which, alas, published it). Likewise, fully one- half of my In These Times review was taken up with an elucidation of this point. Yet the Isaacs curi- ously omit any discussion of it in their article. The Isaacs also fault me with When you travel to Israel- from the U.S. to your desti- misrendering the findings of the or to any of the 150 cities in nation. Ifyou want fine Anglo-American Survey of Palestine 77 countries we fly to-you kosher food inflight, simply can enjoy world-renowned tell us when you make your on Arab immigration into Palestine Lufthansa service and reservation. Ask your travel during World War II. The docu- dependability all the way agent about us. ment in question divides this Arab 9 Lufthansa 680 Fifth Avenue, immigration into two categories: OneWorld TradeCenter (Lobby), first, the 3,800 Arabs who were NewYork, N.Y.Tel. (718) 895-1277 brought in under "official" arrangements and, second, the "considerable numbers," of which "no 4/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 example, the quotation marks a "technical" problem, since both totally unruffled, replied: "I never around "considerable," "unofficial- the seventh hardback printing and wrote that." ly," and "individuals," and the the paperback edition do contain 3. The Isaacs conclude their de- italics in "unestimated." The "tens "corrections." The explanation... is fense of From Time Immemorial of thousands" of Arabs "recorded not hard to find: if all the "errors" on a singularly low-key note: "De- as having been 'brought' into Pales- I identified were "corrected," noth- spite its lapses, then, Joan Peters's tine" must then refer to the first ing would remain of the fabulous book offers a generally sound category-those who entered "un- "scholarly" foundation on which thesis." We have clearly come a der official arrangements." Yet the Miss Peters built her "thesis." The long way from those first heady Survey records only 3,800 such im- Isaacs practically admit as much. days when From Time Immemo- migrant workers. Moreover, Miss They describe Miss Peters's nine- rial was being touted as a "revela- Peters completely misrepresents teen (or more) falsifications of one tion" (Barbara Tuchman), "the the Survey's tabulations of Arab paragraph in the Hope Simpson historical truth about the Middle immigration. For example, she Report, for instance, as an uncor- East" (Lucy S. Dawidowicz), des- first lists the 3,800 Arabs who en- rectable "lethal systemic error." tined to "change the mind of our tered Palestine with official permis- What does this mean if not that generation" (Martin Peretz), and sion (p. 378) and, further on, the this "error" goes to the very heart so on for two hundred reviews roughly 4,000 illegal immigrants of Miss Peters's argument, exactly ranging from awe to ecstasy. But who were employed by the War as I wrote in my original In These how sound is Joan Peters's thesis? Department and the Royal Air Times piece? I have in front of me Haaretz's Force in Palestine (p. 379). But Let us now turn to the matter account (June 15, 1986) of an inter- she also splices these two groups of "deliberate deception." The national conference at Haifa Uni- together and catalogues as a third, Isaacs offer an ingenious, if scarce- versity, the focus of which was separate group "nearly 10,000 rely convincing, explanation of the Joan Peters's From Time Imme- ported foreign workers .... " (p. above-mentioned "error," repeated morial. According to Haaretz, vir- 378). Astonishingly, the Isaacs more than nineteen times in Miss tually all the participants dismissed credit Miss Peters's handling of Peters's text. Yet they do not even Miss Peters's demographic theses this document. attempt to account for the second and the most authoritative scholar Finally, nothing in the Survey's "error" in From Time Immemorial in attendance, Yehoshua Ben-Arieh text supports the conclusion that that they concede-and with good of Hebrew University, denounced substantial numbers of Arab im- reason. the Peters enterprise for discredit- migrants remained in Palestine at Miss Peters writes that, according the "Zionist cause." the end of World War II. Indeed, ing to an anonymous "thirty- Even more to the point, the the Survey explicitly (and consis- year archivist-a specialist in the Isaacs seem unaware that Miss Pet- tently) concludes that "Arab illegal Foreign Office and Colonial Office ers's own data stunningly refute immigration for the purposes of records on the Middle East for the all her demographic "arguments." settlement is insignificant." Yet the Public Record Office," the British Consider the following: Isaacs themselves make the perti- "[n]ever kept track" of Arab im- * According to Miss Peters's nent point that Miss Peters's thesis migration into Palestine. To sub- demographic study, Palestine's depends crucially on evidence that stantiate this extraordinary claim, Arab population expanded natur- Arabs not only entered Palestine she goes on to cite the 1935 annual ally by a factor of at least 2.7 be- but also took up permanent resi- Report to the League of Nations tween 1893 and 1947. Miss Peters dence there. in which, she avers, "only 'Jewish puts Palestine's Arab population 2. The Isaacs acknowledge that immigration into Palestine' was at 466,400 in 1893. Multiplying 2.7 Miss Peters's "handling of mate- catalogued; that was the only head- by 466,400, we get 1,259,280. Pales- rials . .. is flawed" and that "even ing" (p. 275). In fact, the British tine's total Arab population stood some of Finkelstein's specific criti- report in question meticulously and at 1,303,800 in 1947. Natural in- cisms, setting aside his accusations exhaustively tabulated every con- crease therefore accounts for all of deliberate deception, are well ceivable aspect of Arab immigra- but at most 44,520 of the Arabs in taken." Before taking up the evi- tion into Palestine on nine con- Palestine in 1947. Yet Miss Peters dence of "deliberate deception," I secutive pages. Miss Peters could contends that a minimum of hun- should like to make a preliminary hardly have overlooked these tabu- dreds of thousands of Arab immi- observation. The Isaacs rightly lations since the comparable statis- grants settled in Palestine during point out that all my findings were tics for Jewish immigration appear these years. brought to the attention of Miss on the very same pages in parallel * The case Miss Peters mounts Peters's publisher, Harper S&Row, columns. Every annual British re- for massive illegal Arab immigra- within months of the book's publi- port on Palestine-and Miss Peters tion into Palestine nullifies her cation. The Isaacs also readily con- purports to have scrutinized thir- "thesis" on Arab in-migration. cede that at least certain of my teen of them-contains identical Miss Peters's own demographic criticisms are "well taken." Yet exhaustive tabulations of Arab im- study conclusively demonstrates Harper & Row . . . steadfastly re- migration under the exact same that Arabs could not have both fused to correct, in either the seven chapter heading, "Immigration and immigrated and in-migrated in sig- subsequent hardback printings of Emigration." The Isaacs breezily nificant numbers to Area I (the From Time Immemorial or in the chalk up the "error" to "careless- "main areas of Jewish settlement"), paperback edition, any of the doz- ness." Personally, I much prefer as she claims. (On this point, see ens of egregious errors I spotted. (I Miss Peters's defense. When I my unpublished manuscript, Pro- will gladly make available to queried her on this point during tocols of Joan Peters.) interested readers the relevant cor- a London radio broadcast, citing * Miss Peters asserts that in 1893 respondence.) This was clearly not her text verbatim, Miss Peters, some 60,000 Jews and 92,300 non- LETTERS FROM READERS/5

Jews inhabited the "Jewish-settled view I found that argument most they were not forcibly evicted by areas" of Palestine. (For the pre- disturbing, but from the angle of the Israeli army, and she quotes 1948 period she uses the phrase historical analysis, Joan Peters's several sources confirming this "Jewish-settled areas" to designate treatment of the demographic pro- view. In my article I drew atten- the region of Palestine that later cess which has taken place in Pales- tion to the publication of the became Israel; cf. p. 264: "[W]hat tine since the late 19th century is "Daled Plan" of the Haganah (the is now Israel, i.e., Jewish-settled even more misleading. Jewish fighting forces in Palestine) areas.") Since 38,000 of the non- I would like to stress three points in which the possibility of eviction Jews were Christians, Jews were which were the kernel of my arti- was contemplated, but the Isaacs "perhaps" a "marginal majority." cle on From Time Immemorial in preferred to ignore it. Therefore, But, according to Miss Peters's the New York Review of Books I would like to elaborate a little own table in the back of the book, (January 16, 1986) and of my letter on that point. not 92,300, but fully 218,000 non- replying to the correspondence on In February and March 1948 the Jews resided, in 1893, in the slice my article (New York Review of Haganah went through its most of Palestine that became Israel. Books, March 27, 1986). These points dangerous experience. The Arabs Not too long ago, I described were not refuted by the Isaacs. had succeeded in gaining the up- From Time Immemorial in the 1. The Isaacs agree that Miss per hand in the "battle for the pages of the (London) Times Lit- Peters's figure for non-Jews living roads," by cutting the transporta- erary Supplement as "the most in the "Jewish-settled areas" of tion and physical connection be- spectacular . . . disinformation ef- Palestine in 1893 (about 92,000) is tween the Jewish center in Tel fort ever mounted by Israel's self- neither an official Ottoman figure Aviv and the areas to the north styled 'friends' abroad." Nothing I nor that of the French geographer and Jerusalem and the areas to the read in the Isaacs' article per- Vital Cuinet but "Miss Peters's es- south. The Haganah lost three big suades me to reconsider or qualify timate." This is a most important convoys-the Yehiram, Huldah, that judgment. Permit me to sug- confession. Furthermore, in a foot- and Nebi Daniel-and with them gest that, rather than indict the note the Isaacs add that, rather the majority of its makeshift ar- bearers for bringing the bad news, strangely, Miss Peters arbitrarily mored cars. Only toward the end COMMENTARY would do better to chose which subdistricts (kazas) of of March did it succeed in reliev- reflect on what this extraordinary Ottoman Palestine should be in- ing the situation. episode reveals about the state of cluded in her definition of the To prevent a repetition of that American intellectual culture. Jewish-settled areas. To that I dangerous state of affairs should NORMAN G. FINKELSTEIN would like to add that Miss Peters the regular Arab armies invade New York City omits another subdistrict, Hebron, the newly founded state of Israel, in which, according to the same the Haganah's high command then To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: Cuinet, 1,072 Jews lived. Miss Pe- prepared a strategic plan designed "Whose Palestine?," Erich Isaac ters does not explain that omission, to ensure the territorial linkage of and Rael Jean Isaac's article in de- but one can rather easily guess the the Jewish areas. It was learned fense of Joan Peters's book, leaves reason: the Hebron subdistrict con- from the bitter battles of February that book as exposed to criticism tained 92,600 Muslims, and if she and March that a hostile Arab vil- as it has ever been. I do not want had included it, the number of lage along the road was a source to repeat my ideological debate non-Jews would have perforce of danger to the transportation with Miss Peters about the nature been much higher than the figure system. Consequently, the plan proof Zionism and the parallel move- stated in her book. vided that "each village must be ments of population, although in We are left, therefore, with a surrounded and searched. In case opposite directions, which took very weak foundation for the claim of resistance the armed force [in place during the 1948 war. I would that in the "Jewish-settled areas" it] must be destroyed and the pop- only like to stress once again that of Palestine the population up to ulation must be expelled beyond her presentation plays into the 1947 quintupled whereas in other the borders of the state." A similar Arabs' hands: if both Jewish immi- parts of the country it only more provision was made for Arab urban grants to Israel from Arab coun- than doubled, because even Cui- quarters. tries and Palestinian Arab refugees net's figures and the official Otto- That document was published left their traditional abodes against man figures (and both, for different as Annex 49 to the third part of their will, as a result of pressure reasons, which I explained in my volume three of The History of exerted upon them, the best solu- New York Review pieces, actually the Haganah (in Hebrew, Tel Aviv, tion to their plight would lie in underrate the Muslim population) 1972, pp. 1955-59). Miss Peters does the return of all of them to their give us at least double Miss Peters's not deal with this but simply ig- original places. And, indeed, since figure for non-Jews living in "Jew- nores it. Her defenders could at the mid-70's this has been the offi- ish-settled areas" in 1893. The sig- least have claimed that the actual cial position of Iraq, Yemen, Libya, nificance of this mistake was not developments of the war proved Morocco, etc. Only by underlining fully appreciated by the Isaacs. that the plan had not been carried the different character of the Jew- 2. Miss Peters argues that since out. But they, too, ignore the ish immigaiion to Israel, only by a great many of the Arabs living in whole question. I think the Isaacs stressing that the Jewish immi- these "Jewish-settled areas" were preferred to remain silent because grants were returning to their his- simply newcomers, they did not re- an analysis of the actual develop- toric home ("Ascending to Zion"), main during the 1948 war but ments indicates that the plan was will we be able to refute the equa- rather returned to their original indeed carried out. In order to as- tion of Arab refugees with Jewish places in the Arab parts of Pales- sure the safety of transportation immigrants. tine or even beyond the borders of along the coastal shore (from Tel From an ideological point of Palestine. She also maintains that Aviv to Haifa) and thence to Jeru- 6/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 salem and to the Negev in the sence of British authorities who, estimate of the Jewish population south, most of the Arab villages maliciously of course, would have proposed by the French geographer along these roads were destroyed encouraged Arabs to immigrate to Vital Cuinet in 1895. She dismisses and their population expelled. the Jewish state. This point, a cru- the Ottoman figures for the Jews be- These facts are not new, and cial one in my view, was totally cause, she says, "the Ottoman census Miss Peters could have dealt with overlooked by the Isaacs. apparently registered only known them. She could not, of course, Many other small factual mis- Ottoman subjects; since most Jews have known of the work of Israeli takes or false allegations made by had failed to obtain Ottoman citi- historians which has been published Miss Peters have been exposed by zenship, a representative figure of only recently, such as Tom Segev's many reviewers so that even some the Palestinian Jewish population 1949-The First Israelis (1985) and of her defenders have had to admit could not be extrapolated from the Benny Morris's articles in the Mid- that she committed "numerous ex- 1893 census." dle East Journal (Winter 1986) and amples of sloppiness" or that she This may sound plausible, until Middle Eastern Studies (January "quotes carelessly, uses statistics one discovers, first, that Cuinet's es- 1986). These studies, based on Is- sloppily, and ignores inconvenient timates are generally considered to raeli archival material, prove what facts" (New York Review of Books, be unreliable, and, second, that Pro- I argue above. But the Isaacs, hav- March 27, 1986). I wonder if the fessor Kemal Karpat of the Univer- ing written their article not before Isaacs would do the same. sity of Wisconsin, whose analysis of the end of March 1986, should YEHOSHUA PORATH the Ottoman census Miss Peters re- have known better. Jerusalem, Israel lies on, does not find the census esti- It is impossible to maintain the mate of the Jewish population to be traditional Israeli view that in 1948 To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: inaccurate in the way she claims. there were no expulsions, even While Erich Isaac and Rael Jean large-scale ones, of Arabs. It is Isaac have discussed the merits and demerits of Joan Peters's From Thus in his article Mr. Porath in much more useful in the long run no way takes issue with the 1893 to face the real situation and ac- Time Immemorial, they have not Ottoman census or with Farrell's adequately dealt with the criticism count for it than to deny the un- study based on that census, but ra- deniable. The 1948 war (for Is- of that book by Yehoshua Porath, Peters should professor of Islamic and Middle ther implies that Miss raelis, the War of Independence, Eastern Studies at the Hebrew have used it for Jews as well as for of course) was launched by the University in Jerusalem, which ap- non-Jews. (I will not here argue Arabs who rejected the United the merits of Cuinet except to say Nations partition solution. Many peared in the New York Review of Books. The Isaacs say that his at- that other demographers do not Arabs, mainly town dwellers, left tack was long awaited by those share Mr. Porath's views of him. because they could not endure the Justin McCarthy, for example, in worsening conditions in their eager to do in Miss Peters and her his article "The Population of towns. But many other Arabs were book. The purpose of this letter is not to defend or to attack Miss Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878- forcibly expelled by the Israeli 1914," Asian and African Studies army out of sheer military consid- Peters's book, its thesis, or its schol- 1981, calls Cuinet arship, but to ask whether Mr. 15, No. 1, March erations. Those who began the war Porath's criticism is fair and meets "the best known and most reliable are responsible for its consequences, the standards one would expect European author on Ottoman pop- including the expulsion of Arabs from a scholar damning an author's ulation.") from places where their continued work. In turning to Farrell's article, presence could have constituted a Miss Peters states in her book one finds that Farrell, using figures mortal danger to the young state developed by Kemal Karpat, gives that in 1893 there were living in census figures for of Israel fighting for its survival the "main areas" of Jewish settle- the 1893 Ottoman against almost overwhelming odds. ment in Palestine 92,300 non-Jews Muslims and Jews for all of Pales- This to my mind is the true ex- at most and almost 60,000 Jews; tine as 371,969 Muslims and 9,817 planation. and that if the first group were Jews. After certain "corrections" 3. The Isaacs still cannot believe divided between Christians and have been made for "undercount- that the Palestine Arab population Muslims, the Jews would outnum- ing," the figures become 419,311 could have doubled itself during Muslims and 10,746 Jews. ber each part-or, as she puts it, the thirty years of the British Man- "the Jews were at least as numer- These statistics (particularly the date by the sheer force of natural comparison of Miss Peters's figure increase. Let me remind them that ous as the Muslims." In his article, Mr. Porath claims of almost 60,000 Jews with the cen- a population can double itself in that Miss Peters's "very tendentious sus figure of 9,817 Jews in 1893) thirty years if its average annual reasoning on this point has already were picked up and repeated by rate of natural increase is 2.45 per- been exposed," and he refers his Anthony Lewis in his column in cent. And the actual average an- readers to a criticism of Miss Pe- the New York Times for January nual rate was very close to that ters's book by one Bill Farrell in 13, 1986, where he praises Mr. Por- figure; it rose from 2.1 percent in the Journal of Palestine Studies ath's article in glowing terms and 1923 to 3.1 percent in 1947. Fur- (Fall 1984), based primarily on an states triumphantly that "Miss thermore, in my article I drew the Peters's evidence is cooked. That readers' attention to the fact that analysis of the 1893 Ottoman cen- is what a growing number of schol- sus. arly critics have said. It is what I in Israel since 1948, during an Mr. Porath goes on to say: equivalent period of thirty years, believe." the Arab population not only dou- What she [Miss Peters] has done, to Miss Peters also refers in her bled but more than tripled itself. put it briefly, is to compare the fig- book to certain statistics by the And that phenomenon took place ures for non-Jews in the 1893 Otto- sociologist Arthur Ruppin on the under Israeli control-in the ab- man census of Palestine with the number of Jews in Palestine. In LETTERS FROM READERS/7

the article to which Mr. Porath di- also no longer suggests that Miss gives no specific year for this rects his readers, Farrell calls Rup- Peters's figure of almost 60,000 estimate, but it happens to be a pin "unreliable" and dismisses him Jews in 1893 is far off the mark. figure for the year 1915 (Ruppin, and his statistics saying: In his letter, Mr. Porath more- Syrien Als Wirtschaftsgebiet [Harz over pays tribute to Arthur Rup- Berlin/AWien, 1920] pp. 11-16). Arthur Ruppin, upon whom Miss pin, calling him "an outstanding It is strange that Mr. Porath Peters also relies, was a Zionist who demographer and sociologist" who should use Ruppin's name in con- went to the Middle East around the cannot be accused of "superficial nection with the estimate, because turn of the century to scout out the work" and whose estimates are in that book Ruppin states that the territory. He wrote with a clear po- "plausible" and based on "thor- figures come mainly from official litical purpose. Ruppin had no way ough analysis." This is the same Ottoman sources and that he makes of counting the population, and, as man disparaged by Farrell in the no claim for their accuracy. In fact, all European observers, he cannot article to which Mr. Porath had they appear to be figures from the be considered an objective source. previously referred his readers. 1914-1915 Ottoman census as ad- The New York Review subse- Arthur Ruppin (1876-1943) was justed by Ruppin's estimate for quently published Mr. Porath's let- a towering figure in the history of Jews. (According to the Survey of ter answering critics of his article. modern Palestine. He came to Pal- Palestine 1946-47, Vol. 1, p. 144, the In the course of this letter he rath- estine in 1907 and from that time figure 689,000 comes from "Turkish er surprisingly states: until his death he directed Jewish sources.") But strangest of all is settlement. He was a world-re- that Mr. Porath should have turned I never claimed . . . that the 1893 nowned statistician and sociologist to Ruppin's obscure, hard-to-come- Ottoman census figure of the num- and a full professor at the Hebrew by book for this information when ber of Jews living in Palestine University. the figure is on p. 425 of Miss Pe- (9,817) is correct; nor do I accept Mr. Porath's comments on Rup- ters's book, where she gives the that the Ottoman figure for the pin are welcome. However, he uses 1915 population of Palestine as Muslims (371,959), also cited by Ruppin's name for an odd pur- 604,300 non-Jews and 85,000 Jews, Miss Peters from an article by K. pose, namely, to lend authenticity for a total of 689,300. Karpat, is correct. to a total population estimate for Ruppin might better have been Palestine of 689,275 persons. He quoted on the question of the al- In his letter, Mr. Porath now takes issue with the Muslim count, claiming that attention has not been given to the fact that in 1893 only Muslims were subject to conscription and thus Muslims would try to avoid the census. This, however, overlooks the fact that since the census was the principal means to obtain conscripts, the Ottoman authorities would, and did, take special pains to see that all Mus- lims subject to conscription were registered. But it is with the figures for Jews that we are most concerned here. Mr. Porath in his letter now finds that "[t]he Jews were certainly undercounted in that [1893] census . . ."-and for the very reason given by Miss Peters. She stated that she did not rely on the 1893 Otto- man census for the Jews because the census apparently registered only known Ottoman subjects and most Jews were not Ottoman subjects. Mr. Porath now asserts that the count for Jews was wrong because "all the Jewish newcomers were foreign nationals who cher- ished their privileged status under the capitulatory regime and would have refused to have anything to do with the census authorities." Thus, having first cast doubt on Miss Peters's reasons for not using the 1893 Ottoman census for Jews, Mr. Porath now concedes that her reasons were valid. He himself gives no figures for Jews, but he 8/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 leged displacement of the Arabs by displaced by the creation of Israel Arab land sales caused the dis- the Jews. In The Jews in the Mod- in 1948 were not Arabs of long- placement of Arab peasants from ern World (1934) Ruppin wrote: term residence, but Arabs who had the lands they traditionally taken up temporary residence in worked. Many of those displaced The Palestine census of 1931 has primarily Jewish-settled areas (p. by Arab land sales, whether they fact that the proved the remarkable 256). Thus, the massive numbers sold land themselves or had land Arab population has increased in of Arab refugees created by the sold "over their heads" by large the districts where Jewish immi- establishment of the state of Israel land owners, became migratory grants have settled, and has re- in 1948 are much less than Arabs laborers and were attracted to Jew- mained stationary, or decreased, claim, according to Miss Peters, ish capital and development. Many where there was no Jewish immi- and they cannot be characterized others who were agricultural labor- gration. Obviously, so far from dis- as true refugees or Palestinian ers, tenants, manure carriers, plow- placing the Arabs, the economic ac- Arabs. men, threshers, and shepherds who tivities of the Jews have created ad- This is where From Time Im- worked the land before Jewish ditional possibilities for the Arabs memorial misrepresents the social land purchase later became per- also. and political history of 19th- and diem workers, or Miss Peters's mi- When Mr. Porath referred his 20th-century Palestine. First, Jews gratory laborers in Jewish-settled readers to Farrell, he knew that too immigrated to Palestine and areas and ultimately the state of Farrell's statistics, at least as to the ultimately created the state of Is- Israel. number of Jews in Palestine in rael. Would Miss Peters suggest Besides these errors of interpre- 1893, were wrong, and that Far- that the Jews who came to Pales- tation and fact, the core issues for rell's remarks about Arthur Rup- time after 1882, 1917, or 1948 had the historian are the research pin were also wrong. Yet he di- no right to settle there because sources and methods employed. rected his readers to Farrell with- they had not been permanent resi- Miss Peters's work reveals a star- out warning or qualification. The dents for a prolonged period of tling lack of rigor in using the erroneous statistics as to Jews were time? available source material. There then disseminated in Anthony Second, short of knowing the are glaring errors of omission and Lewis's widely-read column, togeth- population of individual Arab perhaps commission. After hearing er with Lewis's comment that Mr. towns and villages in Palestine in Miss Peters speak four times in a Porath's article was "devastating 1948 as compared to 1922 or 1931 weekend to various Jewish com- on Miss Peters's methods," and with when censuses were carried out, it munal organizations and gather- the nasty insinuation of fraud. On is virtually impossible to state ings in Atlanta in late September analysis, however, it is Mr. Porath's categorically how many Palestin- 1984, my opinion was reinforced methods that appear questionable. ians were temporary, semi-perma- that she lacked a familiarity with Subject to debate though Miss nent, or permanent residents. Oth- the key primary sources she claims Peters's book and its thesis may be, er scholars, like Martin Kramer to have used. and though there may be justi- (the New Leader, May 14, 1984), Though From Time Immemorial fication for Mr. Porath's criticisms have already correctly questioned displays a bulging bibliography, on some points, the manner in Miss Peters's misuse of the tenuous more than 1,800 footnotes, and 400 which he sought to torpedo Miss 1893 Ottoman census figures. Her pages of text, poundage alone is Peters's work in the respects noted statistical acrobatics for determin- not a criterion for assuming excel- here should, I believe, be unac- ing the permanency of the Arab lence, accuracy, or proof of an au- ceptable to any fair-minded person. population in Palestine are not thor's assertions. Miss Peters may LAWRENCE R. ENO based upon a credible data base. claim that she has not written and New York City Third, when Jews immigrated to had no intention of writing a schol- Palestine they purchased land from arly book, yet she carefully "drops" To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: resident and non-resident owners, the names of some of the most au- Erich Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac sometimes displacing local Arab thoritative Middle East historians in "Whose Palestine?" have, like peasants. Many Palestinian Arabs in her acknowledgments. She has Yehoshua Porath in the New York themselves sold land directly to cultivated the assumption that be- Review of Books, begun to correct Jewish immigrants. Palestinian cause individuals are helpful in the unfortunate but growing im- Arab notables repeatedly lined the execution of research, they are, pression that Joan Peters's book their pockets quietly, but screamed by extension, also automatically From Time Immemorial is a legiti- "unfair" publicly to the British ad- supportive of one's findings. The mate work of scholarship with ac- ministrators in London and Jeru- adulation accorded her work by a curate findings. The Isaacs have salem about the development of raft of enthusiasts on the jacket correctly focused on Miss Peters's the Jewish National Home. The cover of the book seems cleverly piling-on of statistics, her misread- land-owning political leadership designed to imply that her findings ing of source materials, and her which led the Palestine Arab na- have a cloak of legitimacy from biased interpretation of apparent tional movement in the 1920's, very reputable individuals. fact. But the Isaacs are too gentle 1930's, and 1940's was deeply and In general, Miss Peters has relied in their criticism of her book. continuously involved in the land- mostly on official published mate- Their limited censure only begins sale process to Jews. Palestinians rials, selected secondary sources, to scratch the surface of Miss directly aided the fulfillment of the archival materials (to a lesser de- Peters's misuse and abuse of her Zionist dream of creating a Jewish gree), and on the archival findings sources. state. (See my recently published of others. If one applies the crite- Miss Peters's main assertion is The Land Question in Palestine, rion of sources used, the findings that approximately 36 percent of 1917-1939, University of North and scholarship of this book are the Palestinian Arab population Carolina Press, 1985.) unsound. More than any other single force on earth, groups, classrooms and community centers- America's foreign policy will determine what kind of participated in our Great Decisions program. world we and our children live in. The Great Decisions book provides objective And every one of us can influence that policy. background on eight key foreign policy issues. That's what the nonprofit, nonpartisan For- Discussions help you form your views; you eign Policy Association is all about: working f express them on opinion ballots, which to develop the kind of informed public :::...:: FPA presents to Washington officials. opinion that will help our government F O R E I G N To find out more, call us now at make enlightened, responsible foreign P O L I C Y (212) 481-8450. Or write to Foreign policy decisions. ASSOCIATION Policy Association, Department A, Last year alone, more than 250,000 :::::1918::::: 205 LexingtonAve., NewYork, N.Y. 10016. Americans across the nation-in discussi Donatonns are fully tax deductible. 10/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986

Miss Peters failed to use impor- This simple point would have riod is the Colonial Office (CO) tant and available archival sources. been confirmed several times for 733 series. This crucial correspond- She failed to use critical non-En- her had she systematically used the ence from 1921 to the end of the glish sources. She failed to use cru- files of the Jewish Agency's Politi- Mandate reveals how British policy cial English-language sources. The cal Department and the Jewish was made on virtually all matters footnoting method and support of National Fund which contain the concerning Palestine and the evo- assumptions made are lackadais- copious assessments made by Jew- lution of the Jewish National ical, careless, and unprofessional. ish land and settlement experts Home, particularly on the four From what appears in Miss Pe- during the Mandate. major issues of constant tension: ters's bibliography and footnotes, The private candor of men like Jewish immigration; Jewish land there is very little evidence that Menahem Ussishkin, Yehoshua purchase and Arab land sales; the either Hebrew- or Arabic-language Hankin, Yaakov Thon, Avraham Palestine Arab majority's quest for sources were used extensively. She Granovsky, Berl Katznelson, and self-determination; and Britain's may have employed others to as- others who engaged on a daily desire to maintain its strategic sist in translating foreign-language basis in the Jewish nation-building presence in Palestine at the least material, but to write on the ori- process in Palestine would have possible cost in manpower and gins of the Arab-Israel conflict with rounded out Miss Peters's interpre- financial burden to the British tax- the authoritative nature of her as- tation of how Arab tenants and payer. Of the more than 1,800 foot- sertive findings without an appar- agricultural workers displaced by notes in From Time Immemorial, ent ability to use the language of Jewish land purchase were encour- not more than 2 percent cite the the region is a serious shortcoming aged through monetary compensa- CO 733 series! When Miss Peters for some, and for others just schol- tion to resettle far from existing does cite the CO 733 series for the arly unacceptable. or future Jewish settlements. 1940's, she does so almost exclusive- If Miss Peters had used just-pub- When Miss Peters does refer to ly because another author cited lished Hebrew materials such as sources in foreign languages she this important record group. candid memoirs of the Jewish na- usually states in her footnotes that More substance is added to tion-builders, her distorted con- she is citing a source mentioned by doubt Miss Peters's rigor and famil- clusions about the origins and another author. This is an accepta- iarity with the source material in movement of the Palestinian Arab ble convention except when done her citations of the CO 733 series, population would have been clari- so frequently that one questions which are often incomplete and fied. She should have read the per- whether Miss Peters saw or read the therefore of no use to anyone who sonal diaries of Chaim Arlosoroff, original foreign-language source wants to check her assertions and Moshe Sharett, David Ben-Gurion, material herself, or merely relied thus her conclusions. For each file Joseph Weitz, Arthur Ruppin, upon another's judgment. Through- in the CO 733 series there is a and others to understand the social out the book, Miss Peters selective- number which follows CO 733 and dynamic causing Arab in-migra- ly uses data culled by other re- then a reference number following tion and internal migration within searchers to support her assertions. that, so that an accurate and Palestine during the Mandate. What is astonishing is the num- precise citation would read CO Miss Peters in her acknowledg- ber of times in her footnotes Miss 733/191/77211, but Miss Peters on ments claims that she used the doc- Peters uses a primary source in de- pp. 519 (fns. 7, 10, 12, 14) and 547 umentation at the Central Zionist fense of an assertion, and then notes (fns. 4 and 10) gives us only two of Archives in Jerusalem. But her that the original source is cited in the three components of the cita- footnotes give virtually no indica- a secondary source which she em- tion, such as CO 733/27137. With tion that she utilized this vast and ployed. Of the more than 1,800 this information it is impossible to rich archive with source material footnotes, hundreds of Miss Pe- find the source she is citing. Simi- in German, Hebrew, French, and ters's supporting claims are stated larly in her use of the Foreign Arabic. Miss Peters would have as "cited by" or "cited in." There Office Record Group 371 series on learned from reading these numer- is no reason a writer cannot adopt Palestine, she repeatedly gives only ous, incredibly detailed, and secret such a procedure for accumulating a partial listing of the files. On pp. internal memoranda of Jewish information, but secondary sources 534 and 535 from fn. 45 to fn. 74, Agency departments and affiliated and the existing body of literature only one citation is in its complete organizations about how Jewish must be utilized judiciously. form. land-settlement organizations plan- Miss Peters even failed to use the It is impossible to check Miss ned to handle Arab populations most important available English Peters's claims and assertions or displaced by Arab land sales and archival and secondary sources. to reconstruct the use of her source Jewish land purchases. And the ones chosen were used spar- materials because her footnoting is Jews purchased land mainly in ingly and selectively. Miss Peters repeatedly inconsistent, inaccurate, the coastal and plains regions of very smartly protects herself against and incomplete. By any standard Palestine in which Arab peasant criticism for not using all the neces- of measurement, the author's very cultivators were sometimes in resi- sary source material when she says intermittent use and inexact foot- dence. After a purchase, these cul- in her explanatory first footnote of noting of these two sources is un- tivators and their families some- Chapter 13: "The records repro- acceptable even for popular litera- times moved eastward where they duced in this book . . . are by no ture. To omit or misuse such im- settled their families, but more means all-inclusive." If the records portant source material is most often than not they continued to she used are not all-inclusive, then glaring to any serious student of work in the newly developing Jew- her findings must be treated in the the Mandate period and the his- ish-owned areas, mostly in the same tentative manner. tory of modern Israel. valley and plains regions, commut- The central British archival doc- There are other examples in the ing on a daily or weekly basis. umentation for the Mandate pe- use of English sources where Miss LETTERS FROM READERS/II "THE EUROPEAN Economic Commun- ity is toying with new regulations that Peters could have given a more about the population of Palestine would limit certain American imports. complete and accurate picture. She in the period before 1948. Rather Repre- underused the important 1931 than clarifying the complexities of The Office of the U.S. Trade Census for Palestine; she failed to the Arab-Israel conflict's develop- sentative announces that, in retalia- read thoroughly the Chancellor ment, this book will add to the tion, it is toying with regulations that Papers at Rhodes House at Oxford; layers of meta-truths that already would restrict the import of European and she did not read or under- abound in the literature. wine, cheese, and mineral water, and stand the important research by From Time Immemorial is not a say good-bye to I For a free copy of the Haim Gerber, Ylana Miller, Ra- serious book; its sources and con- yuppie parties. We current issue of National clusions are tendentious and in- Review write to Dept. chelle Taqqu, Alexander Scholch, have never under- C-8. 150 East 35th and others on population and so- complete. Those who read it should stood bureaucrats." Street. New York, N.Y. ciety in 19th- and 20th-century understand that from the outset. 10016. Palestine. KENNETH W. STEIN Miss Peters became too depend- Emory University ent on officially published British Atlanta, Georgia LOVE & TRADITION sources and insufficiently skeptical MARRIAGE BETWEEN of their accuracy. The British, as To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS others have often done, "cooked Two years ago I was asked by by Egon Mayer their statistics" to coincide with a the Jewish Book Council for a predetermined conclusion for a joint review of two books with a Renowned sociologist explores the purpose. The Isaacs similar subject, From Time Im- reality of intermarriage and provides particular sound advice to all involved. very carefully point out how Miss memorial by Joan Peters and The Peters failed to read or understand Claim of Dispossession by Arieh 'Treats this oft-discussed subject brilliant- ly... Must reading." clearly the 1930 Hope Simpson Re- Avneri. I wrote that Avneri was a - Israel Singer, World Jewish Congress port. Miss Peters should have been "must read" for anyone interested equally skeptical of the data collec- in the history of Jewish settlement cloth/322 pp./$17.95 tion and therefore the findings of in Palestine. He provided impor- call toll-free at 1-800-221-9369 or the tant and intelligible statistics on order through Plenum Publishing, the Landless Arab Inquiry, 233 Spring St. New York, NY 10013. French Reports, the Johnson- the migration of Arabs into areas of All major credit cards accepted. $17.95 Crosbie Report, and the Survey of Jewish settlement. Joan Peters cov- Palestine which are flawed, but ered the same ground, I wrote, in tPIesiui nevertheless used by Miss Peters as convoluted, hard-to-follow tables. benchmark assumptions for her Her book, I said, was badly written conclusions. Data were repeatedly and poorly edited.... WERNER ERHARD AND ASSOCIATES presents collected by all sides, sometimes Daniel Pipes, who reviewed the DIALOGUES WITH published, sometimes "cleansed" of Peters book in COMMENTARY, has DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC LEADERS damaging evidence, and other times described it recently as "an appall- This lecture will provide a forum of opinion, tough- just quashed because of their po- ingly crafted book," marred by "ec- minded debate and commentary to illuminate key litical implications. Ulterior mo- centric footnotes and a polemical, public issues of our time. tives prevailed in this earlier pe- somewhat hysterical undertone." William F. Buckley, is a polite Jr., author, televi- riod, too, to bolster historical Eccentric footnotes sion host, colum- legitimacy, national dominance, way of saying that Miss Peters nist and editor of and strategic control of Palestine. gives us no fewer than 120 pages "The National Re- In the end, there is little evi- of footnotes to impress us with her view," is one of the most highly visible dence of scholarly fidelity in Miss diligent "scholarship" but that men in America Peters's method. She does not dem- many of the minor and most of the today. His rigorous onstrate care or diligence in the major citations, as the Isaacs and spirited, often contro- treatment of official sources. Her other critics have found, simply do versial commentary is a vigorous force book is shoddy both in its work- not stand up to examination. in politics today. manship and in its attention to Several months after the Jewish Werner Erhard of nuance. Miss Peters does not let Book Council published my criti- Werner Erhard and either all of the available source cal review, it awarded the Peters Associates, lec- material or all the facts get in the book a prize in the Israel category. turer, consultant, way of her conclusions. It is partic- I was surprised. I asked one of the businessman and founder of five non- ularly troubling to see a research judges why she hadn't voted for profit organizations style accepted where chapters are the Avneri book or for one of sev- that address such seemingly written by taking care- eral other good books on Israel global concerns as fully chosen chunks of previously that I had named. All of them had hunger, youth at risk and interna- accumulated information and then been written by Israelis. I was told tional development. only American authors are dexterously' manipulating them for that October 25th purposes of authenticity and de- eligible for Jewish Book Council KEY PUBLIC ISSUES OF OUR TIME sired outcome. awards and that no other book of The danger that such a book has consequence on an Israeli subject Dialogues is part of an ongoing series with distinguished public leaders and is satellcast live from for scholarship and the enormous had been published by an Ameri- San Francisco to 24 major c ties across the country. body of literature on the origins of can author in 1984. I agreed that Starting time varies for each time zone across the nation: 2 00 4:30 PM (PST) 4 00 6:30 PM (CST) the Arab-Israel conflict is that stu- there was nothing else worth con- 3:00 5:30 PM (MST) 5:00-7:30 PM (EST) dents and others seeking philo- sidering by an American writer. Tickets are $30.00 each. Topurchase t ckets call Werner Erhard and Associates sted n your local tele- sophical nourishment will cite her Under the peculiar conditions of phone directory or wr te: "Dia ogues," 765 California findings as conclusive evidence the Jewish Book Council, Joan Street, San Francisco, CA94108. 12/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986

Peters received a prize by default. Mandatory era. By way of substan- Palestinians who are citizens of The Isaacs take me to task for tiation, the Isaacs point out that Israel. Every sixth voter in Israel stating that the Peters book is a Avneri comes to the same conclu- is a Palestinian Arab. In a few "Herut polemic." My first hint of sion. years, according to Israeli demog- the anti-Labor bias of the book was One hundred thousand Arab mi- raphers, it may be one out of five. the foolish assertion, repeated sever- grants is an insignificant percent- They will not be blown away by al times, that Jewish employers in age of the number of Arabs in Pal- Joan Peters's rhetoric or Meir Mandatory Palestine were forced estine when the British left in Kahane's racism. The Jews and to hire Arabs because of British re- 1948. If that is all Miss Peters Arabs in Israel must learn to live strictions on Jewish immigration. claims, what was all the fuss together in peaceful coexistence. It was the word "forced" that hit about? How could 100,000 Arab The School for Peace at Neve me in the gut. I am not an expert migrants "demonstrate," as Saul Shalom, which is about five years on Jewish employment in Pales- Bellow bellows on the book jacket, old, has done yeoman work in tine, but I was a reporter on the "that, on the Palestinian issue, [thel bringing together Israeli Arab and Palestine Post from 1934 to 1937 experts speak from utter ignor- Jewish youth, erasing stereotypes, and I have some knowledge of ance"? How could the news of and instilling the seeds of peaceful how Jewish employers acted then. Arab migration, first brought to coexistence. COMMENTARY would There were pockets of Jewish un- light by the Jewish Agency evi- do better to devote an article to a employment. The Histadrut tried dence before the Royal Commis- description of this pioneering to find jobs for unemployed Jew- sion fifty years ago, "reformulate," school, which recently hosted Cath- ish labor by carrying on a struggle according to Paul Cowan on the olics and Protestants from North- for avodah Ivrit, the employment book jacket, "the terms of the de- ern Ireland who came to Israel to of Jews, and not Arabs, in Jewish bate on the Middle East"? Above learn about Neve Shalom's innova- enterprises. This campaign was all, how could it "change the tive methods, than to publish an sometimes violent and largely un- course of events in the Middle East" article on a poor and harmful two- successful. -the words of Barbara Tuchman year-old-book. Those Jewish employers who on the book jacket and Martin The Isaacs deny that the book preferred to hire lower-paid Arabs Peretz elsewhere? is harmful. They write that de- in order to save a pound or two Contrary to what the Isaacs now spite Miss Peters's egregious errors, were the financial backers of the say, the publisher's blurb inside her book has performed a valuable anti-Histadrut parties, the Revi- the jacket and the ads for the book service. For a contrary opinion, may sionists and the General Zionists. tried to give the uninformed read- I quote Justin McCarthy, chairman These parties have evolved into er the impression that the number of the history department of the the Herut and the Liberals, now of "native" Arabs was negligible University of Louisville? The Ken- united in the Likud coalition. Miss and that the Arabs have no legiti- tucky professor attended an aca- Peters's assertion that these Jewish mate rights in Palestine. demic conference on Palestinian employers were forced to hire low- Would it be correct to say that demography at Haifa University er-paid Arabs may be part of what the publishers, Harper & Row, and in June. Miss Peters was invited, I Leon Wieseltier has described in a the galaxy of luminaries they col- am told, but did not attend. Ac- prize-winning article in the New lected for the jacket blurbs and cording to the Jerusalem Post, Mc- Republic (November 11, 1985) promotional ads, have committed Carthy said: "Her figures have as a Herut campaign to rewrite a fraud on the reading public? been cited by American Zionists the history of Jewish settlement, The associates of the Isaacs in and now that they are being dis- eliminating or distorting the Hista- Americans for a Safe Israel, who proved they will hurt Israel be- drut's major role. vigorously promoted this book, cause critics will say 'you lied about In all of Miss Peters's seven years would not agree. Harry Louis Sel- this; you probably lie about other of research, she could find no rec- den, to give just one example, things too.'" ord of the campaign for avodah wrote in the Washington Jewish I would like to add a personal Ivrit, which was a major cause of Week: "In some 600 pages of dili- word to the Isaacs. I witnessed the strife in the Yishuv for many years. gently researched and meticulously invasion of Haifa by the Hauranis In her 120 pages of footnotes and documented narrative [Miss Pe- in the 1930's, which, as Miss Peters her 36 pages of index, the word ters] establishes beyond any doubt points out, was condoned by the Histadrut cannot be found. that . . . [the Palestinians] are noth- British authorities. Unskilled Hau- Miss Peters may have attempted ing more than parvenu squatters." rani laborers were welcomed in the to rewrite history. Two years after Miss Peters cannot escape the Jewish sector, notwithstanding His- her book was fraudulently pro- blame for Selden's conclusion. She tadrut opposition, just as unskilled moted into best-sellerdom and long never calls the Arabs "squatters," workers from the West Bank and after the hard-cover edition has but this is the impression she tries Gaza are the construction workers, been remaindered, the Isaacs have to leave her readers with. dishwashers, and garbage collectors come along to rewrite Joan Peters. There are now close to four mil- in Israel today. The Hauranis They attribute to her the state- lion Arabs who call themselves squatted in tin shacks without wa- ment that Jewish settlers in Pales- Palestinians. Over two million are ter, sanitation, or municipal ser- tine did not displace native Arabs. under the jurisdiction of Israel. vices on public land on the out- All that Miss Peters claims, accord- To deny them any legitimate rights skirts of Haifa. On a much smaller ing to the new interpretation by to the land prohibits any basis for scale, the Haurani camp resem- the Isaacs, is that about 100,000 the settlement of the conflict. bled Crossroads outside Capetown Arabs (or fewer than 20,000 heads Of particular interest to me as which the South African authori- of families) were added to the na- chairman of the American Friends ties keep trying to destroy. tive Arabs by migration in the of Neve Shalom are the 750,000 The British finally bulldozed the LETTERS FROM READERS/13 smelly Haurani encampment as a myth of the Palestinian Arabs as a must realize that the conflict be- health hazard, but only after the nation living on its soil "from time tween Israel and the Arabs is not Syrian drought ended and most of immemorial," and is therefore a going to be resolved, even in part, the Hauranis went home to plow profound contribution to the cur- by whether there were more Jews their fields. Those who remained rent debate on the Middle East. or more Arabs in some part of Pal- in Haifa found better accommoda- Still, one would have hoped that estine in 1880 or 1920. It is not go- tions. the Isaacs would have highlighted ing to be resolved, even in part, by Today, over 100,000 Palestinians the fact that the screams of the how many of the local Arabs had from the West Bank and Gaza cross book's detractors and their arith- grandfathers who emigrated from into Israel daily to find work. metical sleight-of-hand were delib- some part of Syria in 1934. (How Many of them, for instance the erate diversionary tactics to present many angels can dance the hora on waiters and chambermaids in Is- From Time Immemorial as a book the tip of a pin?) raeli hotels, have been working in only about numbers. By hewing to The critical fact for politicians the same place for many years. that numerical frame of reference is that the Arabs living in Pales- Some of them even have tenure. for so much of their article, the tine believe that they are Pales- But none of them lives in Israel. Isaacs-unintentionally, to be sure tinians. Whether historians deter- There are no squatter camps on -- dance to the tune set by the mine that their ancestors came the outskirts of Israeli cities. Israeli smear campaign. Though stating from Syria or were born locally is law forbids workers from the terri- at the outset that several themes not going to change that belief. tories to stay overnight in Israel. of equal importance are set forth Can someone really believe that if They must commute from their in From Time Immemorial, the it were demonstrated without a homes daily. The bus trip can Isaacs then focus on the popula- doubt that all the Arabs in Pales- add up to four hours to the work- tion study, which constitutes only tine are descendants of immigrants ing day and the fare can be a good- about one-fourth of the book. from some other place, these Arabs ly slice of their wages. They devote an inordinate amount would then give up their claim to Enemies of Israel have likened of space to numerical items, most be Palestinians and their claim to this regulation to South Africa's of which make no fundamental dif- Palestinian territory? apartheid law on controlled resi- ference-a discrepancy of two or Let's stop arguing about whether dence. They are wrong and will be three thousand in population, be- there is, in fact, a Palestinian peo- wrong so long as Israel does not ing of such small magnitude, is of ple ... and get on with settling the annex the territories, and the no overall significance. problem rather than arguing about Arabs from the territories remain Moreover, before publication which historian is correct. Political guest workers with no residence Miss Peters checked her demo- leaders-and commentators-must rights. graphics with Philip Hauser, one deal with perceptions as they are, But annexation of the territories of the world's most eminent demog- and not as we would like them to for security and national reasons raphers. One would have thought be. is the chief plank of Americans for the Isaacs would have reported that ROBERT J. SCHREIBER a Safe Israel, of which the Isaacs From Time Immemorial contains Stamford, Connecticut are leading members. If the terri- demographic notes discussing and tories were annexed, only an ac- approving its demographic meth- To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: tual apartheid regulation could odology, prepared and signed by Last fall I helped organize a talk prevent these Arabs from living Hauser. by Joan Peters on the campus of closer to their jobs. Only an apart- One thing is clear from all the the University of Virginia, and was heid regulation could prevent the disinformational pieces about From most disappointed when there were rise of squatter camps of tin and Time Immemorial ... and from no effective responses to later de- plastic on the outskirts of Israeli the excellent article by the Isaacs: nunciations of her in the national cities. the very truth about what is in the press. This has now been rectified This is the lesson I have learned book can be manipulated and al- by "Whose Palestine?" from the Haurani invasion of the tered in much the same way that If Yehoshua Porath and others 1930's that Miss Peters makes so the myth of the "Palestinians from wish to continue to claim that much of. I recommend it to the time immemorial" has itself been Arab migration to Palestine has Isaacs. propagated. been insignificant, the ball is in JESSE ZEL LURIE HERBERT TARR their court to produce some demo- Pleasantville, New York Brooklyn, New York graphic evidence for this hypoth- esis, rather than continued ipse To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: dixit statements to this effect. "Whose Palestine?" by Erich Whether Joan Peters's book is JONATHAN S. MARK Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac contains correct in its major theses is totally Charlottesville, Virginia a superb analysis of the carefully irrelevant to the peace process in crafted campaign of disinforma- the Middle East. Were a settle- ERICH ISAAC and RAEL JEAN ISAAC tion directed against Joan Peters's ment to be decided by some objec- write: From Time Immemorial by a small tive judicial body, and if that deci- Michael Curtis has touched on a coterie of political zealots led by sion were to be based, at least in vital issue and the letters to COM- Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. part, on claims of prior occupation MENTARY bear out its validity. The Dissecting the disingenuousness of the land, the questions addressed major theses of Joan Peters's book and speciousness of the smears, by Miss Peters and the Isaacs would have been lost in a welter of the Isaacs conclude, rightly, that be important-perhaps even cru- charges that have little or nothing Miss Peters's book, with its nearly cial. to do with what she has written. 2,000 citations, has exploded the But even the most naive observer Given this fact, it is important to 14/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 remember her theme at the outset: cused on alleged U.S. responsibility falsified presentation (pp. 378-79) of as her title, From Time Imme- for starting the cold war. Now that the-for her purposes-crucial sec- morial, underlines, she is seeking revisionist history has been dis- tion of the Survey in which this to counter the impact of a propa- credited in this country, it has be- quote appears is in a class all its ganda campaign which claims gun to flourish in Israel, one of its own. that the Arab-speaking people of themes being the alleged primary Palestine are an autochthonous Jewish responsibility for the Arab We pointed out that the Survey population, a nation that survived exodus in 1948. provided evidence of far more than innumerable invasions, including If for Mr. Porath Miss Peters's 3,800 immigrants. And lo and be- that of the biblical Hebrews, until book provides an avenue into re- hold, Mr. Finkelstein's letter indi- its dispossession first by Zionist set- visionist history, for Jesse Zel Lurie cates that he too knows that his tlers and then by the forces of the it offers an excuse to continue a original statement was false, for he nascent Jewish state. stale ideological campaign against now talks of the Survey's reference To emphasize this is not to deny the Revisionist and General Zion- to an additional 4,000 illegal im- that From Time Immemorial has ist parties of the pre-state Yishuv, migrants employed by the War De- serious flaws. These (contrary to and to warn darkly of the conse- partment and the Royal Air Force. Yehoshua Porath) we made no at- quences should Israel annex terri- He also now concedes the Survey's tempt to minimize. Indeed, some of tories conquered in 1967, again a references to "considerable num- the problems we pointed out had subject on which Miss Peters's book bers" for which "no estimates are eluded Miss Peters's earlier critics. is wholly silent. available" recruited by private con- But the flaws of the book, for all tractors or entering "individually." too many of its critics, have be- To COMMENT specifically on indi- His quarrel now seems to be with come the occasion for the release vidual letters: Norman G. Finkel- Miss Peters's use of the word "re- of hostilities toward Zionism, to- stein denies our allegation that he corded," and the implication he ward Israel, toward political par- has incorrectly added 40,000 Arabs derives from her text that tens of ties or movements within Israel to Miss Peters's demographic pro- thousands entered "under official and world Jewry, in some cases to- jection for her Area IV. But this is arrangements." ward Judaism itself. And there is precisely what he does. He ignores Miss Peters can indeed be a ferocity in some of the attacks the fact that nomads were included faulted, here as elsewhere, for over- that has little to do with concern in the 1893 population figures but blown rhetoric and a sloppy use of for standards of scholarship. In separated out in the 1947 figures. language. But, as the context of her his letter, Norman G. Finkelstein, Area IV, which included the remarks makes clear, her intention for example, refers to his unpub- Negev, had a sizable population was to emphasize that at the very lished manuscript Protocols of Joan of nomads (48,000), which is listed time Britain was barring the gates Peters. The very title is a cruel clearly and properly by Miss Peters of Palestine to the Jews of Europe, defamation, implying that Miss in separate columns for 1947 on tens of thousands of Arabs, wheth- Peters has written a version of the p. 425. It is only by ignoring these er under official or unofficial ar- Protocols of the Elders of Zion. nomads that Mr. Finkelstein comes rangements, were entering Pales- That forgery, widely circulated in up with an alleged figure of 40,000 tine to fill labor needs resulting the Arab world, continues to be Arabs that Miss Peters has not ac- from the war. (And indeed the Sur- used to legitimize the extermina- counted for. (He comes up with vey unintentionally highlights Brit- tion of the Jews. Mr. Finkelstein, 40,000 rather than 48,000-the ain's appalling behavior while Hit- by his use of the title, implies that number of nomads-because he ler enacted his Final Solution. Miss Peters has written a forgery wrongly multiplies by 2.7, rather The Survey declares that "His whose intent is to extinguish Pal- than by 2.795, the growth factor Majesty's Government decided, on estinian Arabs. Similarly, the title Miss Peters uses.) grounds of policy, not to facilitate of his published article (in the far- As for the Anglo-American Sur- in any way immigration of Jewish Left In These Times) is "A Spec- vey of Palestine, the other illustra- or other refugees from Germany or tacular Fraud." Joan Peters, a jour- tion we used in our article of Mr. territory occupied by Germany. nalist who undertook a massive Finkelstein's unfair attack, it is in- This was interpreted to mean that scholarly effort involving the tech- structive to look at his original no facilities for Palestine were to niques of several disciplines, an comments in In These Times on be granted to any person who left undertaking that would have Miss Peters's use of the Survey. He Germany or German-occupied ter- daunted highly trained specialists, offers quotations from Miss Peters ritory after the date of the outbreak is not credited with a capacity for on one side, his own observations of the war.") Ironically, the first mistakes-only with malignant in- on them on the other: persons to be killed by British bul- tent to deceive and misrepresent. lets after the outbreak of World Yet if inaccuracy bespeaks fraud, Peters: What the official Anglo- War II were two refugees aboard what is one to say of the "mistakes" American Survey of 1945-46 definite- the Tiger Hill, which ran the Brit- (of which more shortly) in Mr. ly disclosed . . . is that . . . tens of ish blockade of Palestine. Finkelstein's own article and let- thousands of "Arab illegal immi- Moreover, our reading of the ter? grants" [were] recorded as having Survey does indeed support the For Mr. Porath, Miss Peters's been "brought" into ... Palestine... conclusion that the 10,000 workers book provides an excuse for an ex- (p. 379, emphasis in original). constituted a separate group. The ercise in revisionist history. Amer- Survey puts that number under the ican fashions come to Israel late, Finkelstein: (a) a good illustration of heading of "those working for con- often only after they are already how Peters handles figures-"3,800" tractors engaged on military ... or out of fashion in the land of their recorded Arab immigrants becomes in other civil employment," a cate- birth. Here revisionist history fo- "tens of thousands"; (b) Peters's gory it specifically differentiates LETTERS FROM READERS/15 from "Those employed directly by Even if 70,000 Arabs had migrated living in Palestine "from time im- the War Department and the Royal from Area IV to Area I and then memorial." Air Force," whose numbers it re- become refugees, her case would Mr. Finkelstein devotes much ports separately. not have been "trivial." space in his article to an allegedly On balance, who then would In practice it is most unlikely sinister plot by Miss Peters to seem guilty of misrepresentation? that this happened. The nomads "hide" those 70,000 migrants be- Miss Peters, because of her awk- of the Negev did not become sed- cause she provides a table in which ward use of language? Or Mr. entary dwellers in the Mandatory she "forgets" to add the in-mi- Finkelstein, who in his original ar- period and thus did not become grants from Area IV. But the pur- ticle cites as one of Miss Peters's out-migrants to Area I. There were pose of that particular table is to "crude and shameless falsifications" peasant villages in the northern show how many Arab in-migrants that the Survey's 3,800 Arab immi- Negev but these were largely set- came into the areas that became grants had become "tens of thou- tled by Egyptian fellahin. This Israel, and not where they came sands"? area experienced little natural from. Since Area IV does not show Mr. Finkelstein makes a major growth, in part because of its mis- Arab in-migration it is not in- issue out of Joan Peters's Area IV, fortune in serving as a frontier cluded. Mr. Finkelstein's criticism even seeking to publish an article zone between the feuding Qaisi is foolish. on the alleged 110,000 "missing mi- and Yamani factions. The Galilee As for Mr. Finkelstein's expla- grants" from this region, which, had an important Christian popu- nation for the failure of Harper & he claims, render her case "trivial." lation component, which meant Row to make changes in subse- First, as we have seen, Miss Peters that in practice its natural growth quent editions of the book as a re- is correct in calculating 70,000 po- rate was lower than that of purely sult of his criticisms, much of the tential out-migrants, since Mr. Muslim areas. Thus it is unlikely blame is his. It was obvious to any- Finkelstein, in his recalculations, that there would have been even one that Mr. Finkelstein had no in- ignores the nomads, and her Area 70,000 in-migrants to account for. terest in improving the book. The IV, which comprised chiefly the There were no doubt some refu- few criticisms that had merit were Negev and western and central gees who came from Area IV, al- the more easily ignored because Galilee, had a large number of though, needless to say, this did of the vicious tone of the attack Bedouin (mainly in the Negev). not necessarily mean they had been and the heavy admixture of false,

The Salisbury Review A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT Britain's Most Talked About Conservative Journal (especially on the left) "The Salisbury Review's small circulation understates its influence. One can see it in Ministers' waiting rooms, in Oxford and Cambridge colleges, in the odd Embassy" (Martin Walker, The Guardian). "The Salisbury Review - an all male organ of Tory aesthetes heavily boosted in The Times and enjoying...the patronage of the Prime Minister" (Raphael Samuel, The New Statesman). "The grouping of authoritarian conservatives around The Salisbury Review are not hovering on the fringes of the Conservative Party ... they are close to the centre of power" (Anthony Arblaster, New Socialist). Under the editorship of Roger Scruton, The Salisbury Review has established itself as Britain's foremost journal of conservative opinion. Distinguished contributors to its pages have included F.A. Hayek, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, P.T. Bauer, Otto von Habsburg, Vaclav Havel,Jeane Kirkpatrick, Antony Flew, and Humberto Belli. Published quarterly, $25 (12) annually. Cheques should be made payable to Sherwood Press Ltd, 88 Tylney Road, London E7 LY. 16/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 even absurd, charges. Mr. Finkel- of his own scholarship and Miss half of that period while Palestine stein claims that if the errors were Peters's alleged "fraud." But when was under Turkish rule. To put it corrected nothing would remain of he gets to this (No. 3), Mr. Finkel- in perspective, the average annual Miss Peters's thesis, and that we stein avoids the subject. We are growth rate for developing coun- admit this when we refer to the back to Miss Peters's population tries in the period from 1850-1900 many references to the Hope Simp- projections for her Areas I through was 0.53 percent and from 1900- son Report as a "lethal systemic V. And here Mr. Finkelstein sim- 1920 was 0.52 percent, much below error." Says Mr. Finkelstein: "What ply fails to comprehend what Miss the rates for industrialized coun- does this mean if not that this 'er- Peters has done. (In all fairness, tries of that time. If we remove ror' goes to the very heart of Miss Miss Peters's presentation leaves from consideration the high growth Peters's argument... ?" What we much to be desired.) Mr. Finkel- rate of 1922-47 (the product of gov- wrote was that by constantly re- stein argues that Miss Peters's pro- ernment health services, plus ef- ferring back to the Hope Simpson jections almost fully account for fects of Jewish sanitation and Report, Miss Peters converted a Palestine's Arab population in health measures, plus immigra- "confined mistake, easily correct- 1947 by natural increase, thus nul- tion), we obtain an average annual able in a later edition of the book," lifying her argument for substan- growth for the Ottoman period of into a lethal systemic error. The tial immigration. (He finds her fig- 1.2 percent. This strongly suggests error does not go to the heart of ures account for all but 44,520 of very high Arab immigration in the her argument-this, we tried to the Arabs in Palestine in 1947 by 1890's and first decades of this cen- show in our article, has ample sup- natural increase.) tury. port. It is only because of Miss First of all, there are no missing When it comes to the substance Peters's propensity to repeat her- 44,520 Arabs to be accounted for of Miss Peters's thesis-high rates self that the error does substantial by immigration. Mr. Finkelstein of Arab in-migration and immigra- damage to her text, which would once again multiplies by 2.7 in- tion into the predominantly Jew- indeed require considerable re- stead of by 2.795, the growth factor ish areas-the best Mr. Finkelstein writing. Miss Peters uses. can do is to quote from a report in We scarcely like to dignify Mr. What Miss Peters does, as Mr. Haaretz about a conference at Finkelstein's charges of deliberate Finkelstein should have realized, Haifa University. But while Mr. deception by rebuttal. He allows is to divide the number of Arabs Finkelstein may have Haaretz be- that we offer an "ingenious" ex- in western Palestine in 1947 by the fore him, we have the conference planation for Miss Peters's misin- number in the same area in 1893 papers before us. And nothing terpretation of the passage in Hope -that gives her a value of 2.795 could be further from the truth Simpson. Actually our explanation which she calls natural growth. than to say, as Mr. Finkelstein was simple: Miss Peters walked in- Now the components of popula- does, that "virtually all of the par- to a trap set by Hope Simpson for tion growth are fertility, mortality, ticipants dismissed Miss Peters's quite different purposes. Hope in-migration, and out-migration. demographic theses." The only Simpson had no sympathy for the Change of population over time is conference paper to refer specific- Zionist enterprise (at the end of the result both of natural increase ally to Miss Peters's book was given World War II he was still arguing (the balance between birth and by Arnon Soffer, a geographer who that any Jewish desire for national death) and net migration (the bal- heads the Arab-Jewish Center of existence could be amply fulfilled ance between in-migration and out- Haifa University. Far from dismiss- in the Soviet province of Biro- migration). The factor of 2.795 by ing Miss Peters's thesis, Soffer con- bizhan) and wanted Jewish immi- which the population of 1947 is firms it. It is Mr. Porath's demo- gration stopped. He disposes of the larger than the Ottoman census graphic thesis that he rejects. Thus, awkward (for him) problem of population of 1893 does not tell us in his concluding remarks Soffer Arab illegal immigration by an in- to what extent the growth was by says: "The facts brought forth here genious maneuver: smuggling in natural increase and to what ex- as to the scope of the Arab migra- two paragraphs under the heading tent by migration. To obtain rea- tion to the city of Haifa, the matter "Evasion of the Frontier Control" sonable values for immigration it of Bedouin penetration into Pales- in the section on Jewish immigra- is necessary to deduct reproductive tine, and the waves of Egyptian tion. It was very easy for Miss change values from the growth fig- migration all point to a rejection Peters to be misled into thinking ures. Though this was presumably of Yehoshua Porath's arguments Hope Simpson is still referring done (see Philip Hauser's remarks, concerning the cessation of Bedouin to Arabs when immediately fol- pp. 427-28), the method by which penetration and natural increase as lowing this he jumps to the case of relevant birth and death statistics being the decisive factor (at least the pseudo-traveler. were derived, especially for the pre- for the coastal plain)." And this is As for the other error which Mr. Mandate years, is not explained. what he has to say about Joan Pe- Finkelstein finds clinching proof of Here, as in other parts of the book, ters's thesis: "All these findings un- "deliberate deception," no one tighter editorial guidance might derscore the fact that the coastal seeking to "disinform" would re- have prevented some of the ques- plain, like the other plains, [was] fer the reader to a source which tions raised. empty of population on the eve of would make the mistake painfully The growth factor of 2.795 cor- Zionist settlement.... At least as obvious. responds to an annual natural far as this important sector of Pal- Mr. Finkelstein says at the out- growth rate of 1.95 percent for estine, then, Joan Peters is right: set of his letter that we argue that 1893-1947 (determined either by the area was empty, the Arab pop- the central theses of From Time compounding or exponential ulation there is relatively new." Immemorial are "generally sound" growth formulas). This would be A number of the other confer- and he promises to take this mat- an extraordinarily high figure for ence papers, without referring to ter up after dealing with the issue an undeveloped country in the first Miss Peters, reinforced her argu-

18/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 ment. Thus papers by geography fute her claims, "fell into a trap tion of absorbing large numbers professor David Grossman of Bar on several issues." of Israeli Jews, and have no worries Ilan University and anthropologist Mr. Finkelstein cites Yehoshua that their propaganda ploys will be Gideon Kressel of Ben-Gurion Uni- Ben Arieh as "the most authorita- taken seriously by former Jewish versity provided new material on tive scholar in attendance." He has residents in their right minds. Egyptian immigration to 19th-cen- no reason to single him out from Mr. Porath's ostensible concern tury Palestine. Daphne Tsimhoni's the other contributors except that for the good name of Zionism be- paper, "Demographic Trends of (he might think) Ben Arieh would comes even more suspect as we the Christian Population of Pales- agree with him about the Peters move to his elaboration of the tine during the Mandatory Period," book. We have not spoken to Ben Haganah's "Daled Plan," upon reinforced Miss Peters's argument Arieh, but judging from his paper, which much of the revisionist his- by showing that "rather than tak- which reinforces Miss Peters's the- tory claiming Jewish responsibility ing the usual form of migration sis of the emptiness of the land set- for the Arab exodus of 1948 is from villages to towns, the major tled by Jews, there is little reason based. We have here what looks urbanization trend of Christians to believe he has common ground much more like an effort to bes- during the Mandate manifested it- with Mr. Finkelstein. mirch Israel's good name than to self in migration from the inland, Mr. Finkelstein concludes with preserve it. In his original article traditional small towns to the ex- the claim that Miss Peters asserts in the New York Review of Books panding economic centers of the there were 92,300 non-Jews in the Mr. Porath is careful to say that coastal towns, Haifa and Jaffa, or Jewish-settled areas in 1893 while the existence of the plan did not to the capital, Jerusalem." There her own table shows there were constitute evidence that it was car- were three papers on Arab migra- 218,000 non-Jews "in the slice of ried out. But now, in his letter, he tion to Haifa, by Joseph Vachnitz, Palestine that became Israel." This goes further and says "an analysis Yossi Ben-Artzi, and Mahmoud is a neat sleight of hand. Miss Peters of the actual developments indi- Yazbak, the first of these summing makes it clear that she is talking cates that the plan was indeed car- up the reason for this special focus: about her Area I when she speaks ried out," and there were "large- "Of all towns in Palestine, Haifa of 92,300 non-Jews, and not all the scale" expulsions of Arabs. absorbed the largest number of area that became Israel (which in- Actually the plan was part of the Arab migrants-most of them vil- cludes her Areas II and IV). general Haganah effort, before the lagers." Based on his many errors, we creation of the state, to secure com- Whence then- did this total mis- would, were we to follow his own munications along strategic arter- interpretation of the conference example, raise a cry against Mr. ies. Mr. Porath himself admits in arise, fostered not only by Messrs. Finkelstein of "fraud," "hoax," his original article that the plan Finkelstein and Lurie (neither of and "misrepresentation." But at only talked of expelling Arabs whom was there), but by Arthur least in part he seems to be guilty where they engaged in violent op- Hertzberg (also not there), who less of deliberate deception than of position to the Haganah, and in brought up the conference in the ignorance. While we are willing to his letter provides a reasonable ac- New York Times Book Review as give him the benefit of the doubt, count of why it was so important a way of attacking Miss Peters in the familiar injunction comes to for the nascent state to secure stra- a review of another, unrelated mind: "Physician, heal thyself." tegic continuity. Nonetheless, his- book? Fred Gottheil of the Univer- torians of Israel's War of Inde- sity of Illinois, who attended the WITH REGARD to Yehoshua Porath: pendence are by no means con- conference, has an explanation. Mr. Porath now claims that his vinced (Mr. Porath was right the During the informal closing sym- worries about Miss Peters's book first time) that the plan was car- posium Miss Peters's book was dis- stem from his "Zionism"-her pre- ried out. The vast majority of the cussed and some participants were sentation plays into Arab hands. Arabs who left came from Haifa, critical (this served as the source The reason he offers is astonish- Jaffa, Tiberias, etc. without refer- both of the Haaretz article and ingly silly. If both Jews and Arabs ence to Plan Daled. Frightened, de- one in the Jerusalem Post), al- left their traditional homes "as a moralized, their leaders having fled though others, himself included, result of pressure exerted upon early on (not a single member of defended the book. them," says Mr. Porath, "the best the Arab Higher Committee was To understand the reactions of solution to their plight would lie left in Palestine as of March 1948), Israeli scholars to the book it is in the return of all of them to their the Arabs were for the most part necessary to keep in mind that original places." But why should eager to leave for areas under the there are two issues: Miss Peters's this follow? Why should not the control of fellow-Arabs as the Jews thesis and her scholarly perform- best solution lie in each group's took over. Even in places like ance. There are Israeli scholars being absorbed in its place of Haifa, where there was a strong who fear that the credibility of the refuge? Does Mr. Porath seriously effort by the Jewish leadership to thesis will be undermined by her believe that because Hindus and persuade the Arabs to remain, it mistakes. Soffer noted that Miss Muslims were both forced from was unavailing. Peters deserved some of the criti- their traditional homes in 1947, Nataniel Lorch, the military historian and author cism her book received, but cred- the "best solution" is to send 9 mil- of Israel's lion Hindus (and their descend- War of Independence, points out ited it with "renewing the dis- ants) from India back to Pakistan the obvious-that it is the natural cussion revolving around the and Bangladesh and to send 7.5 inclination of any sane person, demographics of Palestine from the million Muslims from Pakistan whenever a battle is going on, to second half of the 19th century and I million from Bangladesh be somewhere else. Lorch notes the on." He also noted that her critics, back to India? Obviously Iraq, pressures exerted by Jews seeking in trying to produce proof to re- Libya, Yemen, etc. have no inten- to leave Jerusalem when it was un- LETTERS FROM READERS/19 der siege. There were also Jewish ence R. Eno's letter. Although we that his book offers some corrobo- refugees as a result of the war: not had noted in our article that Mr. ration of Miss Peters's thesis. He one Jew stayed behind in territor- Porath had left the impression that notes, for example, that in 1931 ies captured by the Arabs. Lorch the Ottoman census figures of 1893 there "was already a noticeable in- asks: "One wonders what role was for Jews were correct (later deny- crease of males migrating from the played by Arab projection of pat- ing he believed this), we had failed central range to the coastal plain" terns of conduct. Did they expect to follow Mr. Porath's devious path and that while population density that their fate under Jewish rule which Mr. Eno so expertly uncov- increased 25 percent in the central would not be different from that ers. range from 1922 to 1931, the coastal which would have befallen Jews if plain's population density increas- the situation were reversed?" WITH REGARD to Kenneth W. Stein: ed 50 percent in the same period.) But whether or not Plan Daled Most of Mr. Stein's rather pompous Mr. Stein's interpretation of his was carried out, why does Mr. Po- criticism involves complaints that material is that the Zionists "ma- rath place so much emphasis on it? Miss Peters did not use (or "un- nipulated the British bureaucracy If we did not talk about Plan derused" or "failed to read thor- in Palestine" and "were enorm- Daled, it was not out of embarrass- oughly") all the available source ously successful at nullifying at- ment over its supposed evil essence, material, did not understand the tempts to curtail the development as he suggests, but because we failed intricacies of footnoting archival of the national home." As for the to see its relevance to Miss Peters's material, did not show equal Arabs, "there was little that a gen- thesis. We still do. In this case, skepticism for all English reports erally poor, unorganized, unedu- Miss Peters's book has simply pro- and collections of data, and did cated, unsophisticated, and splint- vided an occasion for the venting not know the languages of the re- ered Arab community could do to of the idea current in certain Israeli gion. defend itself." All this is from the coteries that there was a pristine Yes, it would have been better "conclusions" of the book. Would "pure Zionism" exemplified by one if a distinguished scholar had un- anyone dream from this that the of the forefathers-Ahad Haam is dertaken the task that was left by end result of this "enormously suc- a favorite-before its corruption by default to an amateur. But when cessful" effort was the British those less pure, and above all by Mr. Stein accuses Miss Peters of White Paper of 1939, the end to the state. The animus that some misrepresenting the social and po- land sales and the end to Jewish make no bones about, Mr. Porath litical history of 19th- and 20th- immigration? While Miss Peters feels the need to disguise. And so, century Palestine, we find his rea- did indeed make errors of inter- when he is through with his talk soning weak. Since most Jews im- pretation in the course of her book, of the need to recognize that there migrated to Palestine, Mr. Stein ar- they are as nothing compared to were large-scale expulsions of Arab gues, one could equally well claim the massive and amazing misinter- civilian populations, he piously an- that they had no right to settle pretation that lies at the heart of nounces that "those who began the there. Surely this is willfully to Mr. Stein's study. war are responsible for its conse- miss Miss Peters's point. The Jews One cannot help feeling there quences." set out to recreate their ancestral is something else at work here that Moreover, while we are accused national home in what was at the feeds such extraordinary misper- of failing to talk about Plan Daled, time a largely depopulated land. ceptions, some sort of fashionable whose connection to the Peters After World War I that effort had "progressive" ideological filter book is, to put it charitably, tenu- the international sanction of the through which historical events ous, we wonder why Mr. Porath League of Nations and was to be are passed. Zionist organizations chose to ignore our discussion of carried out under the guidance of made their purchases from land- Arieh Avneri's The Claim of Dis- the British Mandatory government. owners (the very term causes de- possession, which in many respects To this was added, as Nazism ga- licious shudders of revulsion), not bears out Miss Peters's thesis, and thered force, what Jabotinsky from the tenants who "worked" with which we assume he is at least called the claim of starvation (as the soil. (Never mind that those familiar, given Avneri's acknowl- against what he called the claims tenants, after the sale, often put edgment of his help in the fore- of appetite of the Arab world, with forth ludicrous claims and de- word. (Although we have not been its multiplicity of states). But as mands extorting additional sums taken to task for this, we were the need grew, so did the unwill- beyond those allocated for their wrong in saying that Miss Peters's ingness of the British to carry out resettlement.) What would the book antedated Avneri's; this was the terms of the Mandate, and Zionist land-purchasing agents have true of the English, not the He- eventually they slammed the doors had to do to satisfy the cranky con- brew, edition.) Of course a popu- shut to Jews. science of modern chroniclers like lation can double-or even triple Mr. Stein in his The Land Ques- Mr. Stein? Presumably they should -in thirty years. The question is tion in Palestine, 1917-1939 offers have given up their idea of a na- what happened, not what can hap- a remarkably muddled interpreta- tional revival and a return of the pen. And while there is no question of these events. His focus is Jewish masses to Zion. They should tion the Arab natural growth rate on Jewish land purchases and the have come to Palestine not to sat- was high during the Mandate, Arab (and British) effort to stop isfy their own needs, not to secure there is a large body of evidence them. As his letter indicates, he the physical survival of the Jews, that there was significant Arab im- provides exhaustive evidence that but as facilitators for Arab class migration into Palestine (as well virtually all Arab leaders, while warfare and "anti-imperialist" as some out-migration) during that declaiming publicly against land struggles. period. sales to Jews, privately persisted in But the best exposure of Mr. selling land to the Zionist organi- WITH REGARD to Jesse Zel Lurie: Porath's double game is in Lawr- zations. (His letter fails to mention Here we are back to pre-state ideo- 20/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 logical battles wth a vengeance, as "100,000 Arabs (or fewer than is to thank people who have been Mr. Lurie finds evidence of nefari- 20,000 heads of families) were of help in some way while taking ous intent in Miss Peters's asser- added to the native Arabs by mi- upon oneself all blame for the de- tion that Jewish employers were gration in the Mandatory era." But fects in one's work. This pro-forma "forced" to hire Arab labor (that Avneri wrote that "the country ab- sentence Miss Peters fails to in- word "forced" hit him "in the sorbed 100,000 legal and illegal clude, but surely those who have gut"). To imagine that Miss Peters, Arab immigrants and their off- criticized Miss Peters on this score who can at most be accused here spring." Given the high rate of -and, in the pages of the Ameri- (as elsewhere) of oversimplification, natural increase that everyone con- can Historical Review, criticized is part and parcel of a "Herut cam- cedes in the Mandate period, and those who were thankedl-are fully paign to rewrite the history of Jew- the tendency of young males to mi- aware of the convention. ish settlement" suggests that Mr. grate in search of work, the num- Mr. Lurie concludes his letter Lurie's obsessions have overcome bers would have been very much with a series of free associations. his common sense. (Incidentally, higher by 1948. This does not in- Miss Peters is to be held respon- Mr. Lurie, with his emphasis upon clude immigration prior to 1920. sible for a review (?) letter (?) pub- Arab-Israel understanding, could And Miss Peters focuses equally on lished in the Washington Jewish be expected to show greater ambi- "in-migration," the movement from IWeek. We are apparently also to valence about "avodah Ivrit." the predominantly Arab part of be held responsible for it because Whatever its virtues from a Zion- western Palestine (which became it is written by an "associate" in ist viewpoint, it was the occasion the Jordanian "West Bank" in Americans for a Safe Israel, Harry for much tension between Arab 1948) to the Jewish-settled area. Louis Selden. We know of Mr. Sel- and Jewish workers. For Arabs it Both Messrs. Lurie and Stein den's contributions to the emerg- was a campaign to put them out of profess to find something sinister ence of Israel. He figures promin- work, and their indignation was in the publisher's promotion of the ently in Yitshak Ben Ami's Years not eased by the claims of the left book. Mr. Lurie talks of its being of Wrath as co-chairman, during wing of Zionist labor leaders that "fraudulently promoted into best- and immediately following World they were being saved from "ex- sellerdom." Mr. Stein objects to War II, of the American League ploitation.") Miss Peters's reference to authori- for a Free Palestine. However, we Mr. Lurie's "proof" that Miss tative Middle East historians in her have not met Mr. Selden and if he Peters is part of a campaign to acknowledgments and talks of the is active in Americans for a Safe downgrade the Histadrut boils enthusiastic blurbs on the jacket Israel, we are not aware of it. He is down to his assertion that in all her cover as being "cleverly designed certainly entitled to his interpreta- 120 pages of footnotes and her 36 to imply that her findings have a tion of Miss Peters's book, but we pages of index, the word Histadrut cloak of legitimacy from very rep- don't see what his comments re- cannot be found. But inspection utable individuals." This is ab- garding it have to do with her or of the index shows that neither are surd. Harper 8c Row behaved as us. If she is responsible for every "Revisionists," "General Zionists," any publisher would, featuring on interpretation of her book, is she or even "Religious Parties" men- the jacket endorsements from peo- to be held responsible for Mr. tioned. The only reference to a ple enthusiastic about the book. Finkelstein's interpretation as well? "Labor party" in the index is to There would have been fraud only Mr. Lurie's? Mr. Stein's? Edward the British Labor party. The pre- if individuals had been falsely Said's? state Zionist parties and move- quoted, and no one has ever made What really seems to bother Mr. ments are simply not part of the any such claim. A number of the Lurie is that he feels Miss Peters's subject of her book. book's defects, as both Messrs. book interferes with finding a set- Mr. Lurie's view of the book as Lurie and Stein should be sophis- tlement of the Arab-Israel conflict. a "Herut polemic" is the more ex- ticated enough to realize, may well That is also what bothers him traordinary because the theme of have contributed to its success. The about Americans for a Safe Israel. Miss Peters's book, as we noted in oversimplification, the repeated Mr. Lurie seems to feel he has the our article, is more in tune with highlighting of a few dramatic key to a settlement in the School traditional Labor ideology. The points, the high-pitched rhetoric- for Peace at Neve Shalom. While foremost concern of Revisionist nonfiction best-sellers on complex one can sympathize with his hopes, Zionism was with achievement of subjects frequently have these char- it is difficult to share his view that international legitimation for Jew- acteristics. Messrs. Lurie and Stein's personal contact, even friendship, ish national rights in Palestine and quarrel is properly with public along lines where there is com- with using political means toward (and journalistic) taste. One sus- munal conflict, will solve that con, that end. Labor placed much more pects the meticulous scholarly flict. Such efforts have a very long emphasis on the settlement of the study called for by Mr. Stein would history, and an equally long his- land and the rights derived there- not have been accorded anything tory of heartbreaking failure. Alas, from, the theme underlying From like as much attention. one suspects that Neve Shalom will Time Immemorial. As to the charge that Miss Peters be even worse than useless, perpet- Although Mr. Lurie starts his improperly associates distinguished uating and encouraging among letter with strong praise for Arieh historians with her work by thank- Jews a species of masochism famil- ing them in her acknowledgments, iar to us in this country among Avneri's book, he did not read it she makes clear the limitation of those groups who find the United carefully. He claims that by using their involvement. She thanks Elie States guilty of obstructing peace Avneri as confirmation for Miss Kedourie, for example, for direct- and justice worldwide. Peters's thesis we have provided a ing her to the locations of certain As far as Mr. Lurie's references new interpretation according to papers and Martin Gilbert for "ref- to the Hauranis and apartheid are which the insignificant number of erence clues." The usual procedure concerned, he apparently believes Overcrowded classes. Where bigger isn't better. Imagine trying to divide your time equally reduced. A student in a class of 40 will score among 30 or 40 employees a day. 10 points lower on national tests than the same This is the daily dilemma teachers face in student would in a class of 20. overcrowded classrooms. They must spend more We've also seen that smaller classes decrease time with the low achievers, extra time with the discipline problems. And they increase a student's brightest students, leaving little time for the rest self-esteem while also increasing a teacher's job of the class. satisfaction. In most schools, a student gets hours of Reducing class size is a primary goal of the daily instruction. But when a child needs special NEA. We know it is one of the surest ways of getting encouragement or one-on-one teaching, she or he education back in the picture and on the track of is lucky to get ten minutes of individual excellence. And that is our goal. attention a day. t In over 128 years, that's never Regardless of grade level or ability, wavered. We stand for excellence in every students achieve more as class size is E classroom, for every child. National Education Association THE SUBJECT IS EXCELLENCE c 1986 National Education Assoclation 22/COMMENTARY OCTOBER 1986 that the addition of the Arabs of The Arabs are aware that history achieved these goals in exchange Judea and Samaria to the popula- matters. This is why they have de- for a commitment to broaden hu- tion of Israel would pose more veloped the myth of a Palestinian man rights, including the emigra- serious problems than would be people in their land "from time tion of Jews and others. posed by turning them over to Arab immemorial." Traditionally Jews Since then, American-Soviet sovereignty. The dilemmas posed placed great emphasis on remem- trade has expanded and the U.S. by Israel's Arab population for the bering what had passed: in Deu- has become as dependent upon So- future of Israel are real, whether teronomy alone there are repeated viet markets to sell American grain within or without the borders of injunctions "Remember and forget as the USSR is upon American 1949. A variety of approaches was not" (9:7), "Remember the days of products to modernize its industry. considered long before the Zionists old" (32:7), "Thou shalt well re- But once the U.S. was hooked, and were left with a fraction of the ter- member" (7:18), "Thou shalt not with detente in decline, the Soviets ritory promised them, ranging forget" (5:17). Today, it seems, reneged on their Helsinki commit- from population transfers (which, many Jews have forgotten to re- ments and smashed the organiza- incidentally, were advocated by member. tions established to monitor the many Zionist Labor intellectuals agreements. Jewish refuseniks and and became, much to their amaze- IN RESPONSE to Jonathan S. Mark: other dissidents were imprisoned ment, a plank in the British We too believe that the ball now or exiled.... Labor party's platform in 1944) to belongs in the other court. For several years now, however, a bi-national state. This is not a the Soviets have been pursuing nu- topic that can be adequately ad- Anti-Communism clear arms control with the West. dressed here, and it has nothing to Anticipating a summit conference do with Miss Peters's book. One To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: with President Reagan, the Soviets might, in passing, point out that I would like to commend David began early in 1985 to float rumors those who see analogies between Horowitz ["Nicaragua: A Speech of the possibility of increased Jew- Israel and South Africa care little to My Former Comrades on the ish emigration to Israel in exchange whether the territories are formal- Left," June] for his intellectual for an end to American Jewish ly annexed or remain under Israeli courage in repudiating his earlier "criticism" of the USSR and for military rule. pro-Communist views, and for his Israeli "flexibility" in negotiations realization that firm anti-Commu- over the Golan Heights. There was To Herbert Trr: We focused nism is the only sane position for the added condition that the emi- primarily on Miss Peters's popula- the Western democracies. In this, grants go to Israel rather than the tion study because, as we said in Mr. Horowitz is in the tradition of West and the hint that relations our article, that has been seen as the great anti-Communists of the between Israel and the Soviets its major contribution. As for 20th century, who also underwent would be renewed. Philip Hauser's demographic notes, profound conversions: Arthur Of course, the rumored deals the responsibility for the execution Koestler, Whittaker Chambers, and were fraudulent. They were simply of a research design lies with a Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.... a ploy to prevent the subject of book's author. Mr. Horowitz will no doubt be Jewish emigration from surfacing attacked by today's fellow-travel- in the summit negotiations .... IN RESPONSE to Robert J. Schreiber: ers, but he should nevertheless be The American Jewish community Mr. Schreiber takes the view that proud to embrace his new posi- swallowed the Soviet bait and the questions of historical reality are tion, knowing the empirical evi- ploy succeeded. Pre-summit Ameri- a form of irrelevant casuistry. What dence is on his side. can Jewish efforts to raise the sub- matters is present belief: if the WILLIAM DOINO, JR. ject of Soviet violations of the Hel- Arabs believe they are Palestinians, Weston, Connecticut sinki Accords were minimal .... it is this perception alone that has The nonsensical Soviet condition practical relevance. While we would Soviet Jewry that emigrants go to Israel placed certainly not deny that perceptions responsibility for the prospective of reality have political relevance, To THE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY: deal in the province of USSR- to treat perceptions as the only Contrary to what Allan Kagedan Israel negotiations, so the Ameri- reality worth examination is to em- maintains in "Gorbachev and the can Jewish leadership stood aside bark upon a path that we doubt Jews" [May], the decline of Jewish waiting and hoping for something Mr. Schreiber would want to fol- emigration from the Soviet Union good to happen. Nothing did, .... low very far. To take one example: was not determined exclusively by although early the next year world the sect of Black Hebrews believes internal considerations.... The Jewry was rewarded with the re- they are the original Jewish people freedom of Soviet Jewry to emi- lease of Anatoly Shcharansky. This and those who call themselves Jews grate was determined largely by was done to maintain Soviet cred- today are usurpers. Is only what the power of the Jewish commu- ibility for future "deals." . . . they "believe" relevant? To be nity in the West to make Soviet There was, however, a whisper sure, the Black Hebrews are a small fulfillment of human-rights pledges of sincerity in the Soviet proposals. sect, without political clout, so Mr. a condition of securing concessions Having two million Jews with Schreiber might say that their per- from the West. which to sweeten the pot, the So- ceptions do not in fact matter. But During the 70's the Soviets sought viets were seeking to deal them- let us suppose this sect made mas- the legitimation of their World selves into the Middle East peace- sive converts among the blacks of War II land acquisitions and ex- making poker game. They were Africa and the U.S. Would the his- panded trade with the U.S. Their baiting the hook with their pro- torical validity of their claims then efforts culminated in the Helsinki posals, but were prepared to wait become inconsequential? Accords of 1975 in which they until the demand for Soviet Jews LETTERS FROM READERS/23 in Israel would bring them the focused on these concerns, how- off of Jewish emigration is uncon- price they want. The Soviet nego- ever, because I believe they play a vincing. tiating principle is the exchange of vital role, which has been largely There is still a third hazard in Soviet Jews-along with "peace"- neglected by Western commenta- dismissing Soviet internal condi- for Israeli land given to Israel's tors, in the making of Soviet emi- tions as a key factor in the Krem- enemies.... gration policy. Like such commen- lin's emigration decisions: it leads In the meantime, the oppression tators, Jerome Green provides a to the demoralization of Western of Soviet Jews goes on. The Soviets scenario for Soviet decisions on supporters of Soviet Jewry when will continue to sell, renege, and emigration that is devoid of any no deals are struck for long periods resell Jews as often as necessary to reference to domestic concerns. of time. And from the Soviet per- placate Western Jewry without frit- While few would deny that East spective, nothing could be better tering away the bulk of their Jew- Germany's emigration policy-il- than a decline in Western devo- ish hostages for anything less than lustrated most visibly by the Ber- tion to steady, patient work on be- a major voice in the Middle East. lin Wall-relates to internal po- half of Soviet Jews. Such work They have been successful in re- litical control, or that domestic should include raising the credibil- cent years because Western Jewry economic conditions affect Can- ity issue, as Mr. Green mentions, has been fearful of risking its pow- ada's immigration policy, somehow, and, I would add, tying trade to er and position and would rather when it comes to Soviet emigration emigration. deal in the back rooms. policy regarding Jews, only foreign As for USSR-Israel relations, Mr. Nevertheless, despite a willing- policy is said to count. Not only is Green refers to reported Soviet ness to deal in Realpolitik if it this inaccurate, it has negative con- proposals as "fraudulent," but must, Israel ought not to be forced sequences for the campaign on be- then finds in them "a whisper of to decide between retaining its half of Soviet Jews. For example, sincerity." This apparent contra- land, which it can ill afford to give if one believes that a negotiated diction can be explained if one up, and the freedom of Soviet Jew- deal is an ever-present possibility, takes into account internal Soviet ry. Besides, if Israel publicly sur- requiring only diplomatic finesse concerns regarding emigration. renders to the principle of trading to be consummated, then it is easy The meetings between Soviet and land for Soviet Jews, it will be to fall victim to wishful thinking Israeli diplomats Mr. Green refers abandoning the principle of emi- each time a high-level U.S.-Soviet to were, it seems, exploratory. gration as a human right. The So- meeting is convened. Mr. Green That is, a wide range of issues was viets will then be relieved of their gives one illustration of this kind discussed, with the Soviet diplo- moral obligations under the Hel- of thinking when he states (exag- mats empowered neither to pledge sinki Accords.... geratedly) that American Jews were nor to deliver on emigration. In Moreover, given Soviet lip-ser- misled by rumors in 1985 of a fact, the Soviet Union would like vice to human rights and the need "deal" regarding Soviet Jewish nothing better-Arab reaction per- for a positive image in the U.S..... emigration. mitting-than to construct a rela- the principle of emigration as a A second danger inherent in tionship with Israel from which human right promises to be an even such a misreading of Soviet think- discussion of emigration is ex- more powerful lever than' deals in- ing is that, if the USSR is held to cluded. Israel sees things different- volving the exchange of land.... be always, or often, amenable to ly. This assessment has since been And because it is with the United serious negotiation, then it is natu- confirmed by the meeting of So- States that the Soviets are now ral to look for a party to blame viet and Israeli diplomats held in seeking nuclear arms control, it is when little progress occurs. Mr. Helsinki last August. the American Jew who has more Green points a finger at American Of course, as Mr. Green suggests, leverage vis-A-vis the Soviets than Jews and their leaders who, he for Israel to compromise on issues does Israel.... claims, not only "swallowed the basic to its security in the service For these reasons, American bait" of Soviet-inspired rumors but of virtually any cause, including Jewry must assume responsibility "stood aside" before the 1985 Ge- the Soviet Jewish one, would be for freeing Soviet Jewry.... In- neva submit "waiting and hoping self-destructive. Yet there may be stead of allowing the Soviets to use for something good to happen." other areas of give-and-take. the promise of freeing Soviet Jews He also asserts that American Jews Among them could be the reported as leverage to silence Western Jews, have generally confined themselves Soviet wish to send prospective Americans must use Soviet failure to advocating the Soviet Jewish Jewish emigrants directly to Israel, to live up to treaty obligations cause "in the back rooms." To the a condition Mr. Green describes as leverage to secure freedom for contrary, however: through a as "nonsensical." If by this Mr. Soviet Jews ... plethora of organizations, Ameri- Green means unfair, unrealistic, or JEROME GREEN can Jews can be fairly said to have Machiavellian, I agree. But, as I tried the back room, Los Angeles, California the front pointed out in my article, for rea- room, and indeed the sidewalk in sons of Marxist/Leninist ideology ALLAN KAGEDAN writes: their efforts to assist Soviet Jews, Nowhere in "Gorbachev and the before, during, and after the Ge- and because of the wish to limit Jews" did I say or imply that the neva summit. This does not mean the impact that any future Jewish rate of Jewish emigration from the that more should not be done, but emigration might have on Soviet Soviet Union is determined exclu- Mr. Green's blaming of American society at large, Soviet motives for sively by internal considerations. I Jews for the USSR's continued cut- making such a proposal are clear.