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Bitter Harvest: A Modern History of Palestine

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Sami Hadawi's book is written from a Palestinian refugee's perspective and is a much-needed view for those of us who live in the US and have to hear the Israeli view of the conflict over and over again. Hadawi examines his own ties to the country now called Israel and relates the tragic tale of a people displaced by a stronger military force initially backed by powerful European states, the UN, and then later the world's only superpower, the United States. He covers everything from the history of the region and Palestinian life before the coming of the Zionist colonists/conquerors to the present conflict and what the Palestinians have gone through. Hadawi refrains from too much criticism of Israel though and instead focuses upon the results of the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel as well as the imperialist occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israeli forces and fanatical Israeli settlers/squatters. Some of what he writes about is personal and about families displaced and homes destroyed and the indifference of the world towards the plight of the Palestinians. Personally, I have mostly read Jewish-American and Israeli historians from both sides of the conflict and Hadawi's voice is something that is needed to counter-balance what is known about this sad situation that continues to be a major focus of American foreign policy concerns. Hadawi's words are filled with sadness that we can almost visualize such as his memories of his home in what is today Israel. What we learn from this book is that there are two people with ties and attachments to the land called Israel and the Occupied Territories. Only one people have all the rights and all the guns. If you are open-minded and want to see this conflict from a new POV that isn't given extensive coverage by the American media then you should make an effort to read this book.

It is always best to get two sides before coming to a decision. Palestinian and Israeli conflict stands at the center of all other issues in the Middle East. There are still few Americans that treat the Palestinians as if they part of the human race. Palestinian people are exposed to degrading cruelty. We read of political assassinations. Their homes are destroyed. They live in Apartheid. American Government acts as if this is natural, or even acceptable. The Palestinian movement does not have enough individuals in the USA to help bring about a change in US policy in the region.
The truth is Israel will only be secure when there is security and justice for the Palestinian people. The Peace movement in Israel understands this and the means through which a just and equitable peace can be secured for Palestinians is central to their program. Israelis fate is closely tied to the fate of the Palestinians. There are two nations and one country. Like any other settler state the settlers and the ingenious people must be reconciled within that one country. To restate this point Palestinians have an equivalent "not a superior" claim to the land, all the land, than the Israelis. Many American intellectuals are supporters of regional Manifest Destiny, settlers against the indigenous people of this region. These speakers of half-truth can never understand any "settler state" that cannot act in good faith with out first examining her soul.
Until now this has been a one sided struggle because Israel is a major recipient of US military aid, and little more than a client state for the Washington Empire. Because of the interference of Washington justice for both Palestinians and Israelis is denied. We are in the mist of an apocalyptic war.

The subtitle of _Bitter Harvest_ is "A Modern History of Palestine", but it really should be "A Long Anti-Zionist Screed". The book really focuses very little on the people or leaders of Palestine. Instead it closely documents the misdeeds of the Israelis. While no sane person would argue that the Palestinians don't have plenty of grievances with Israel, Hadawi lets his pro-Palestinian mindset hijack the work, turning a history into an indictment.

I don't think it is particularly factual about those Israeli misdeeds, either.

On page 9, Hawadi states, "The first signs of unrest between Arab and Jew occurred in 1920 when Zionist designs on the Holy Land became apparent." What he really means is that the Arabs were still at rest. This ignores, for example, that Beha-a-Din, the Turkish governor of Jaffa, ordered the expulsion of all Russian Jews living in his city in 1914. Seven hundred were forced out in just the first day. In 1915, working as the "secretary for Jewish affairs" for Djemal Pasha, the same Beha-a-Din closed the Anglo-Palestine Bank, as well as the Zionist newspapers and schools. No unrest indeed.

On page 280, talking about the cease-fire between Israel and the PLO in 1981 just before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he states that "...all PLO guerilla attacks against Israel had completely ceased..." and that "The PLO had scrupulously respected the cease-fire...". Yet the immediate catalyst for the invasion of Lebanon was the murder in London of the Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov by a member of the Palestine National Liberation Movement. Of course, the PNLM is not the PLO, so his facts are correct in a certain way, but the meaning he conveys, of unprovoked Israeli aggression, is obviously false.

In fact, as far as I can tell, he omits every single fact that would possibly show the Palestinians in a less than perfect light. There is only oblique reference to the 1973 war. The hijacking that led to the raid at Entebbe is never mentioned. He describes the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics as "the Munich incident of September 5, 1972, in which eleven Israeli and four Palestinian commandoes lost their lives" - making it sound as if they were all in a bus accident or something. There is no mention at all in his book of the 400,000 or so Jewish refugees that were tossed out of the Muslim countries after the 1967 war.

Even worse, Hadawi tells us almost nothing about the Palestinian people, their character, their leaders (Arafat is only mentioned on three pages of the book and two of these are single sentences) or their aspirations (with of course the exception of their aspiration to throw the Jews out and take back Palestine). He spends a grand total of a page and a half discussing the nature of Palestine, its area, the qualities of its land, the distribution of the population, their pursuits, they way they lived before the Jews arrived and so on. Even in this limited description, he manages to add in a couple of digs at the Zionists.

Hadawi also uses some sources that I consider questionable or at least obscure. He quotes private conversations, obscure university professors, and even an anonymous letter to an American newspaper. In one place (page 85) he puts a quote in the text that in the footnotes he proves is impossible to verify and on shaky ground to start with.

If you want to read a book that fills you in on every grievance that the Palestinians have ever had with Israel, then this is the book for you. If you're looking for a simple history as told from the Palestinian point of view, you'll find this book lacking.

You can read all about it! When Arabs committed acts of war against Israel, causing this small nation to decide to defend itself, it was really a premeditated expansionist plot by Israel! And when Israel asked Arabs for peace, it was proof that this small nation that needed peace to exist in the Middle East in fact preferred war and death!

When Israel, in wartime, made a mistake and killed some allies, that was a deep and sinister plot too! And when it liberated Eastern Jerusalem, which had been the de facto Jewish capital for millenia, this was actually an international crime.

Oh, there's more. When Canada commits the sin of trading with Israel, Hadawi threatens it, saying that Canada needs the Arab world far more than the Arab world needs Canada. This book boasts about the Arab boycotts of Israel, the Arab success in passing the infamous "Zionism-racism" slander in the United Nations, and the Arab attacks on Israel in 1948.

You might think that the author would see a reason why the Jews didn't like the White Paper of 1939, which condemned hundreds of thousands of them to death by keeping them from fleeing Nazi lands and moving to their internationally recognized refuge in what is now Israel. But he scoffs at all this, saying that the Jewish misfortunes in Europe actually helped the Zionists by allowing the few survivors to move to Israel! I wonder what he would have thought of a world in which a few million more survivors had existed?

To top it off, you would think that the author realizes that no matter how good or bad Israelis are, they probably appreciate the fact that Israel protects their lives, liberty, and property! But no, he ascribes the interest of Jews in staying alive and keeping their possessions to fanatical and wacky fundamentalist religious views.

Actually, yes, you probably should read this book. It will make a lifelong Zionist of you. It did that for me.