Customer Reviews

Ploughing Sand: British Rule in Palestine, 1917-1948

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I sent for this book because of my interest in knowing more about the Balfour Declaration than just that it opened a possibility for a Jewish homeland. In this thoroughgoing and apparently fair book I found so many parallels with our situation in Iraq that I abstracted it. It is packed with many interesting and important details that make the book emminently readable and lay bare the roots of the enduring Arab-Israeli confrontation.

Journeywoman discussion of British administrative concerns during the Palestinine Mandatory period from the end of WWI until May 1947. The chapters are a bit long and could have been broken up into smaller chunks. The coverage progresses by theme rather than by sequence of events - it jumps around a bit. The presentation could have been improved by the provision of a timeline or a list of British High Commissioners along with supporting personnel.

Chapter 1 is a prefunctory treatment covering British interests in the ME. Shepherd favors the explanation that the West viewed the myth of Jewish power as quite real and regarded an alliance with Weizman as providing assistance at containing Russian Bolsheviks as well as maintaining a swath of British control leading to India and the Far East. There were interests in the Arab oil fields but they were not quite as important in the beginning. Shepherd notes that Arab society was stratified with members of the former Ottoman elite at the top and a large peasant class at the bottom.

Chapter 2 covers the transition from Allenby's victory to British rule. There were nascent glimmering of Arab Nationalism and Zionism was easily asserting itself as the dominant voice of the Jewish community over communal rabbinic leaders. British administrators established a familiar and paternalistic governing role. British style clubs, theatre and sports were established - desert jackles replaced fox hunting and an interest in local architecture and Arts and Crafts was encouraged over modernization and industrialization.

Chapter 3 "The Law Factory" concerns itself with the decision to continue with the millet system of Law that existed previously under the Ottomans, attempting to apply British rationality and equitability to a system that was neither. It was also insulting and disadvantageous to the Muslim Arabs to see themselves reduced to the status of a separate confessional group. Jews demanded political parity with Arabs. In Jerusalem where they constituted 70% of the population they asked for 50% of the council seats. Unable to obtain an agreement between Jews and Arabs the British dissolved the municipal council. The chapter also explores the hot topic of land sales to Jews and immigration. Jews wanted unlimited immigration, Arabs felt that that this ipso facto was unjust. However the only effective border control were the ports and the train stations - Arabs migrated fairly easily across nearly invisible borders; the British mostly gave in to Arab demands hoping it would keep the peace.

The same chapter covers land sales to Jews. Here again the British applied a policy of appeasement that had worked so well for them in Europe during the 1930s. However Jews were willing to pay high prices and willing sellers, even among Arab notables who publicly professed to be against the practice were quite willing to employ subterfuges to get around the law and make a sale. Unlike Arab land owners who either traded indentured sharecroppers when they sold or moved them to another property, Jewish purchasers indemnified the tenant farmers in addition to paying the costs of the land, allowing them to monetize an asset that had no priory monetary value. Some of them used the money to buy land or move to the cities. However the book The Claim of Dispossession does a better job of analyzing and accounting for land sales than is done here.

The 4th chapter, "Patching Up Palestine" dealt with Health and Education issues. Lots of good details here. The British felt that it would be cruel to over educate the locals and whom they felt were most suited for an agrarian lifestyle. Generally British colonialism tended to raise the educational standards but only so far. Ruling over Jews was a bit different. Not only did Jews demand higher education, they also paid for it for their own children above and beyond what the British governors were willing to endorse. There is an interesting segment on a large grant given by a Sir Ellis Kadouri, a British Jew of Iraqi background that was used to create both a Jewish and an Arab school. Whereas the syllabus of Arab Christian schools is impressive we find that education for Muslim youth was undervalued and underfunded. The education of girls vs. boys is also discussed, which I found personally interesting, but about par for the times.

The final chapter "Iron Gloves" and deals with confllict and policing and retraces the timeline from 1920 to 1948. Thus we learn that due to dropping levels of Jewish immigration the British were undermanned and unprepared for the Arab riots of 1929. During the Arab revolt from 1936 to spring 1939 the Mufti waged a campaign of boycott, intimidation and terror and many of his victims were from rival clans. Al Aqsa itself was used to hide weapons, militants and was used to perform executions. Shepherd relates that British applied collective punishment in the villages where clan loyalties were strongest and the Arabs themselves practiced collective and clan related punishment on each other, but did not apply the policy in the cities. Less often but in a few noted occassions collective punishment was applied to Jews who protested the practice. In Jerusalem from May to October 1936 on average one Jew was murdered every 2-3 days. The British pursued the Arab rebels to the country side when the British were able to reassert control. One of the consequences of of the revolt is that many of the Arab policemen were dismissed and were asked to turn in their weapons.

In 1940 as Rommel advanced in Africa the British became concerned about the aftermath of a possilbe Nazi victory. Here they worked actively with the Jews until 1942. Jewish paratroopers were trained for Europe and Jewish saboteurs were sent on missions into Vichy Syria and Lebanon. British Intelligence allied themselves with Jewish intelligence as a number of German Jewish immigrants had infiltrated into the the Nazi network in Palestine. Some members of the Haganah started training in Special Operations but then there were second thoughts and the training was discontinued. And finally the book deals with the endgame period from 1946-1948. Shepherd's conclusion is that the British endeavored to act as a buffer attempting to honour their sense of fairness, a position that both sides believed favoured the other. The chapter is well worth reading as a standalone and the reader can fuel their own biases and/or reach their own conclusions.

On the whole I found the book to be informative, esp. to if one happens to deal in the imperfect world of administration. As much as we might hope, goals are rarely match results. And so things muddle along. A good follow up book that I've just started is Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine, 1918-1948 which takes the POV from the lower levels of Britain's Mandatory regime.

This book is a well-written and detailed history of the British mandate rule of Palestine (1920-1947). She is a careful historian who supports her prose with ample references. The tale she tells is a sad one and chronicles the systematic colonial expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Some British were even-handed but the weight of Ms. Shepherd's evidence demonstrates a bias against the Arabs. This is a most timely book because of the continuing struggle of the Palestinians for a fair deal. The facts presented should be considered by Israeli negotiators involved in the so-called "peace process".