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Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine

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Many books have been written about the history of israel and the conflict in the Middle East. Everyone of those authors had an agenda, and Samuel Katz has one, too. His, seems to be: "I'll give you the key to research this issue for yourself, to find out the truth and to be amazed at how distorted the common understainding of this (Israel-Arab) conflict, really is."

In fact, you will find that Mr. Katz provides aboundant links to documents, interviews, witnesses and other articles. The great majority of the evidence Mr. Katz is using, is of Arab provenience. Most importantly, he gives you the means, through detailed documenting of the sources, to check them out for yourself. This is very important, because this conflict's facts have been grossly and tendentiously manipulated. At first, of course, the reader might experience some strange mixture of disbelief and anxiety. This should not last too long, though, depending on your personal education and experience. For me, it was quite acceptable, knowing how the events that lead to the annexion of the Finnish Karelia by Russia, were fabricated, and accepted by the UN because, well, Finland was small and Russia so big and powerful.

History is, perhaps, written by the more powerful but even the mightiest of the powers can't completely erase all traces of truth. This book talks about the conflict in Palestine by giving the reader the opportunity to find those traces and to be the judge. It's also a very easy to read, enjoyable and immersive reading. Of course, checking the sources is a more laboriious but also more rewarding task which I personally urge every reader to undertake, to whatever extent he/she might be comfortable with. A must-have for everybody who wants to be educated on an important aspect of modern history, both scholar and layman.

Having read virtually everything in print on this subject--I can say that Battleground is perhaps the best single text on the subject of Israel/Palestine. Its biased comments are extremely minor (hard to find on either side). People forget that Jews were not in any position to brutalize anyone, until very recently--though they had been brutalized virtually non-stop, throughout history. Today, on the death of Yasser Arafat, it is appropriate to mention that after reading Battleground, anyone who sheads a tear for the inventor of modern terror, simply uses the "Arab Cause" as a "stick--by which to beat the Jews".

Like the work of Arieh Avneri, Howard Sachar, Connor Cruise O'Brien, Efraim Karsh and Martin Kramer, Battleground is a magnificent piece of reporting on Middle East history, whose most salient facts revisionists have unfortunately papered over during the 29 years since it was first published.

This book recounts the beginnings of a 55-year Arab jihad war against the Jewish state. Katz elucidates critical parts of the historical puzzle, including this centerpiece: In 1919, less than two years after the Balfour Declaration, Emir Faisal of Syria and Iraq--who along with his father the Sharif Hussein of Mecca were then the only recognized Arab leaders in the world--declared the plan for a Jewish national homeland in all of Palestine as "moderate and proper."

The book shows that by international vote of the League of Nations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the world community adopted a plan to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine--which included all of current day Israel and Transjordan.

One may here read that history, and the treaties between Chaim Weizmann and the Emir Faisal of Iraq, as well as letters supporting this plan by both he and his father, Sharif of Mecca.

For the record, this book cites a great deal of primary source material from Arab leaders themselves. Much of it, furthermore, contradicts current-day Arab sentiments and claims. As one Arab League leader admitted, for example, "everyone knows, Palestine does not exist."

Katz also shows that although the Paris League of Nations meeting accorded all of Palestine to the Jewish people, Britain unilaterally and illegally granted more than 80% of original Palestine to the Arabs, creating current day Jordan.

In short, Katz shows that the 1919 League of Nations vote to adopt the plan did not (as conventional wisdom now wrongly supposes) unilaterally impose a decision on the Arab peoples of the Middle East without their input. In fact, the League of Nations acted as direct result of a 1919 Arab treaty with Jewish leaders.

King Faisal's approval of plans for a National Home for the Jews was significant not least for its policy--and inclusion of current day Israel and all of current day Jordan. In 1919, the Emir Faisal wrote--and numerous scholarly, studies and population figures substantiate this point--there were few Arabs and many Jews in Palestine, and King Faisal saw the importance of recognizing the rights of the Jewish people to their homeland.

The book also shows that the Jewish people did not--as another common misconception holds--"steal" the land of Israel. On the contrary, beginning in the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish Agency and many private groups and people purchased land (usually swamps and desert) from private absentee Arab landowners, often at wildly inflated prices.

Katz also carefully establishes the actual number of Arab refugees from the 1948 war against a nascent Israel that 7 Arab nations began in 1948. The correct number is 480,000, a number that Katz shows Arab leaders at the United Nations admitted at the time. Gradually, over the years, he also demonstrates, that number has been falsely inflated--a fact that even the United Nations admits. The "refugees" now include hundreds of thousands originally from other states, and their heirs.

Neither does Katz omit the nearly 1 million Jewish refugees booted from 22 Arab and Muslim lands between 1920 and 1978 with nothing but the shirts on their backs. (The dark motivations for mass ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab Middle East are exposed by Malka Hillel Shulewitz and Itamar Levin and Rachel Neiman in two books, The Forgotten Millions and Locked Doors.) Including the children and grandchildren of those Jewish refugees from Arab lands would raise their number today to more than 4 million, who together now account for more than half Israel's population.

And finally, Katz shows the central problem that has plagued Israeli-Arab relations since long before Israel was founded in 1948. Most Arab nations--from which the majority of people now known as Palestinian actually immigrated--have never recognized even the considerably reduced version of the Jewish state. Rather, they continue a permanent state of jihad war against non-Muslim infidels, rather than admit the Jewish people a right to self-determination, or a state governing the land in which Jewish inhabitants have remained since before the Romans sacked the second Temple in 70 A.D.

This book corrects reams of false propaganda that obscures the past and the Jewish right to a state in Israel.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I think it's interesting to read history books by supporters and opponents of Israel. The ones by Israel's foes generally contain a surprising amount of misinformation. And that may be why books such as this one do not. Katz finds it easiest to support Israel by refuting antizionist lies, and he does so by telling the truth.

Katz traces the origins of the Arab war against Israel. That means supplying background material on the Jews of the Levant prior to modern Zionism. That helps us all realize that Jews had an important connection to and presence in the Levant during the many centuries between the defeats by the Romans and World War One. And it makes it clear that Jerusalem was not an Arab city in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century but virtually the only Asian city with a Jewish majority.

The book exposes many antizionist fabrications about the history of the region. Sometimes, antizionists tell us that Jerusalem is a holy city for the Arabs. But the author shows us that Jerusalem has been important to the Arabs only recently, when the Jews have ruled it. It is important now, because it is the Jewish capital, and because it would give the Arabs more esteem were they to deny the Jews their own capital city.

The author also goes into some detail about the role of Great Britain in the history of the region from the end of World War One until Israeli independence. He mentions the revelations of Richard Crossman about the intentions of Britain's foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, to destroy the Jews of the region rather than act as an honest broker between the Jews and Arabs. And Katz shows how Britain acted as an active participant in the confrontation, with the explicit purpose of preventing the establishment of a Jewish state by force. That includes the infamous White Paper of 1939, which drastically limited Jewish immigration to the region just when it was most needed for those attempting to avoid death at the hands of the Germans.

I think Katz is at his best in discussing a very prevalent lie we all see today, namely that Arabs have at least as much of a right to steal Israeli land as the Israelis do to keep it. And that the reason is that there is an Arabic-speaking subpeople that can live only on Israeli land.

We've seen this argument before. When Germans wanted to occupy Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, they pretended to do so on behalf of the German-speaking "Sudeten" people. These were Germans who happened to live in Czechoslovakia. But there was no symmetry between the desire of Czechs to enjoy human rights, protected by their government, and the desire of many Germans to deny human rights to the Czechs. And once the Germans obtained Czechoslovakia, the pretense of a Sudeten people was abandoned.

The author makes us aware of a similar problem today. While antizionists may imply that there is a huge Arab population that can live only on Jewish land, that's simply not the case. Katz explains that when Arabs controlled the entire West Bank from 1948 through 1967, not even allowing Jews to live there at all, there were no demands for a separate Arab state there. And he makes us realize that even an Arab victory against the Jews of the region would not produce peace: the Arabs would continue to fight against each other for the spoils. In addition, I think that since the Jews have not been the source of the problem, removing them will not solve it.

The author quotes a few Arabs who feel there will not and should not be peace in the region as long as Israel continues to exist as a Jewish state. And this is a major point. Many people have the misimpression that since there are more Arabs than Jews, the Arabs have a right to oppress or destroy the Jews. Or at least that history is on the side of the Arabs, who will get what they want whether they have a right to do so or not.

But I think readers of this book will come away from it aware that Israel is a nation like any other. And that it is land-poor, not land-rich. In peacetime, Israel, like the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, simply will not be defeated. To get rid of such nations, small as they are, would require a major crime. Obliterating the human rights of the Czechs, Dutch, or Hebrews would be a crime as well. Tacit approval of these crimes would set a very poor precedent for everyone, and thus such crimes are by no means inevitable.

Samuel Katz provides an excellent service in describing, truthfully, how the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict really began and just as importantly, why it continues.

It is so refreshing to be provided with an in-depth analysis of the bitter hostilities and a factual account that will destroy and tread underfoot the propaganda, the myths, distortions, fabrications and outright lies that have served to deceive the public at large of what the situation in the Middle East is really all about.

The descriptive and relevant title which includes 'Fact & Fantasy' can never be more appropriate than when dealing with an issue such as this, where the erosion of truth has occurred at a monumental rate in recent years, especially since the onset of the two 'Palestinian intifadas'in 1987.

I possess the second edition of this book with a foreword in 1977 by then Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel. He summarises his opinions of this book by stating "...we shall continue to use truth as a main weapon. I hope that this book will play an even larger part in spreading the truth than it has done in the past."

The British Sunday Times newspaper is also quoted in the introduction from an issue in 1972, "...On some occasions, deliberate lies have been devised to bury a truth that powerful people wanted hidden...."

I cannot but only agree with Menachem Begin's every word 'spoken' by the Sunday Times. When matters such as these come to the surface, people with integrity will want to know why this deceit exists, the agendas of those who would perpetrate these policies and above all the real truth behind the lies. This book serves that purpose !

We see through Katz's writings the hypocritical, biased policies of my own British Government in the region, fuelled by self interest and their own agenda in the region.

Palestinian terrorism, refugees and a detailed history through the decisive events of 1948, 1967 and 1973 are all covered in this excellent book which has thankfully now been re-released. Samuel Katz does not rest there, but also delves into the history of the region and the Jewish presence in Palestine.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Suffice to say, please get yourself a copy. (If you are a politician, get two and give one to a colleague!)

Kindest regards & thanks for listening.

This excellent and highly readable narrative traces the origins and course of the Arab-Israeli conflict from the history of the Ottoman period, through the birth of Israel, the 1967 and Yom Kippur Wars. It places many problems in perspective, like the refugees on both sides, the origins of the dispute and the restoration of the land.

The most shocking revelation is the part played by the British Foreign Office throughout the 1920s up until the establishment of Israel in 1948. The role of the UK was highly ambiguous to say the least. Further disillusionment came in the revelations of the role of the US State Department, particularly the delay in sending assistance to Israel during the 1973 war.

It seems that Israel cannot really trust any other government to safeguard its people, not even allies. As played out in the 20th century the game of realpolitik shows that any state puts it own interests first.

The book demolishes many romantic myths, such as the so-called war of Arab liberation against the Ottoman Empire. In truth, no such thing ever occurred in any real sense and the myth of Lawrence of Arabia is thoroughly exposed for the fraud that it is.

Katz also documents the real cause of the conflict, which should be clear by now to the objective observer. It is not about land or about a Palestinian state, but about the destruction of Israel. He details the propaganda war against Israel in its various manifestations.

There was the one conducted by the Soviet Union until its collapse in the early 1990s, there is the one conducted by Liberal/Left media like the BBC and the New York Times from the beginning, and there is the relentless campaign of hatred in the Arab media.

Western politicians and media have ignored this last one, so crass, so blatant and so downright evil, for many decades. In our Internet age, however it cannot be concealed anymore. The continuing bias against Israel is explored by Stephanie Gutmann in her book The Other War.

Battleground does a tremendous job of providing the verifiable facts in a highly readable text. In reading this book, I once again realized that Israel is a miracle, established by the hand of Providence. Despite all the betrayals and broken promises, the olive tree was planted and is thriving.

And Zionism is the only one of the great ideological "isms" that was successful and bore good fruit. If it had not been for the many obstacles and betrayals, many of those who perished in the Holocaust would have found refuge in Israel. The book Auschwitz And The Allies by Martin Gilbert documents this shameful history in great detail. The enormity of the betrayal fills one with revulsion and despair.

But Israel has already become a blessing to the world, as shown in the book Israel In The World: Changing Lives Through Innovation, by Douglas and Helen Davis. For further understanding of the background to the conflict, I recommend Dream Palace Of The Arabs by Fouad Ajami.

And for further disturbing revelations, this time relating to European policy towards Israel, the book Eurabia by Bat Ye'or is essential reading. But there is no better book than Battleground to expose the lies, the distortions and the root causes of the conflict. The book concludes with indices of relevant documents, a bibliography and an index.

Mr. Katz helps defend Israel against common lies todl in the western media by avowed Arab terrorists. It confronts the lie that Israel unfairly occupied the west bank and Gaza. It confronts the idea that the innocent arabs were forced to flee thier homes in 1948. Many myths are crushed in this short read.

I have a copy of the 1977 edition of Battleground by Samuel Katz.
But truth does not change. If something was true 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago, it is still true today.
This treasure presents the truth clearly about the Arab-Israeli conflict and it's routes in a fascinating, illuminating, clear and compelling way.
It is more relevant than ever today, when the truth is becoming more and more obscured, in the hysterical outrage against the tiny Jewish State, that is shamefully and sickeningly becoming the norm.
Katz traces the close ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, for the last 4000 years, and how the Arab claim of being a people `driven from their homeland is a hoax'. However, as the ideological mentor of Palestinianism, Adolph Hitler, said, a lie if repeated oft enough becomes known as the truth. We certainly cannot rely on the anti-Israel hate-mongers in the world media, and leftwing academia to clarify what the reality is and has been, Their task has been to obscure the truth, and together with the United Nations, Red China, the Third world power blocs led by South Africa and Cuba, most of the EU, and the Islamic world are now saying as we read in verse 5 of Psalm/Tehillim 83, "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, so that Israel's name will not be remembered anymore!"

Katz blows each myth and untruth which the enemies of Israel repeat, out of the water , one by one , until one becomes amazed at the clarity of the truth and outraged at the perfidy that is going on against the Jewish State , in her struggle for survival.
He points out how their has ALWAYS been a presence in the Land of Israel ("Palestine") unbroken since 1700BCE, including between the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 AD and the rebirth of the Jewish state in the 20th century. Of the Jewish communities in Hevron, unbroken from 1500 until the Arab massacres of the Jews there in 1929, and the unbroken, ancient Jewish communities in Safed, Tiberius and elsewhere and of what the Jews in Israel have been up against since the Arab massacres of Jews, instigated by "Palestine's" British colonial masters in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1939. As well as the world communities perfidious injustice against Israel since 1948, and the Goebbelesque propaganda against Jews in Israel, in the Arab world, in order to pave the way for the genocide which they have planned for so long against the Jewish people.

He outlines the hypocrisy of the world outcry, and in the United Nations, against Israel, a tiny democracy which strives for peace and justice, by the then Soviet Union, Red China, the myriad of Third World dictatorships, and also Britain, France and the US State Department. Indeed, they more things change the more they stay the same, it seems, when one looks today at the gathering of the occupiers of Tibet, the creators of genocide in Sudan and Zimbabwe, the bloodthirsty tyrants of Syria, Libya, Cuba, Red China , Vietnam , Iran etc howling in outrage , in the supposed name of `peace ` and `justice' against Israel.

He also details the sickening trail of Palestinian terror carried out by Fatah, under the direction of Yasser Arafat. Since this book was written in 1977, Arafat has ordered the murders of hundreds of thousands more people, and yet has gained world popularity. What a nightmarish reality.

The book raises many questions too. Why do leftists wildly denounce the only democracy in the Middle East , simultaneously taking the side of some of the world's worst dictatorships. And why do leftwing ideologues , if they are so opposed to imperialism , interpret the return of the Jewish people , to their ancient homeland as an act of colonialism.

If you want to make sense of the truth behind the Arab-Israeli conflict, or rather the campaign of the Arabs and their supporters to drown the Jewish state in blood, Battleground by Samuel Katz, is where you should start.

A simply amazing distillation of a comprehensive study of Palestine. You will be amazed what you thought you knew turns out to simply be completely digested propaganda. I would recommend reading the ten or so pages of appendices FIRST. They include: Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, Proposals of Paris Peace Conference, 1919; Outline of Tentative Report and Recommendations of the Intelligence Section of the American Delegation to the Peace Conference, in accordance with instructions, for the President and the Plenipotentiaries, January 21, 1919; and Feisal-Frankfurter Correspondence (below)

Paris Peace Conference

March 3, 1919

Dear Mr. Frankfurter:

I want to take this opportunity of my first contact with American Zionists to tell you what I have often been able to say to Dr. Weizmann in Arabia and Europe.

We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together.

The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.

With the chiefs of your movement, especially with Dr. Weizmann, we have had and continue to have the closest relations. He has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need for cooperation of the Arabs and Zionists, have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movements. Some of them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry, and our aims to the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make capital out of what they call our differences.

I wish to give you my firm conviction that these differences are not on questions of principle, but on matters of detail such as must inevitably occur in every contact of neighbouring peoples, and as are easily adjusted by mutual good will. Indeed nearly all of them will disappear with fuller knowledge.

I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of civilised peoples of the world.

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

(Sgd.) Feisal

For anyone wishing to read a history of the Middle East conflict, THIS is the book to read. I have read others, but none go as deep as Battleground. Of the books I've read about the conflict, Battleground is the only one that gets to the absolute bottom of it: Great Britain's horrific double-cross of the Zionists, following the announcement of the Balfour Declaration. Katz documents how a small group of British officers, which included the officer who came to be known as Lawrence of Arabia, used propaganda, outright lies and bribery to stir up animosity that hadn't previously existed between most Arab and Jewish Palestinians. He documents how the British went far beyond providing military support to the Arabs to actually participating in ground and air attacks against the Jews to thwart the Jews from rebuilding their homeland in Israel. And that's just the first 60 pages or so.

Battleground is not a boring history. The writing is clear and accessible, with plenty of humor, irony and action to keep you on the edge of your chair. You won't want to put this one down.