Customer Reviews

The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists, and Palestine 1921-1951

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4 star:		(1)
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While much maligned, Avi Shlaim writes an honest and cogent history of Abdullah, Jordan, British involvement in the Middle East and the conflict between Palestinians and Jews leading to 1948. His viewpoint, which many in the dwindling "Peace Now" movement share, needs to be understood. The history he writes is like nothing you will get reading mainstream writers like Bernard Lewis. Don't be scared away by those who say Shlaim's writings are "radical left-wing propaganda." It is nothing of the sort...simply an opinion based on what we should know any ethnic group is capable of doing to "others."

King Abdullah, the founder of Jordan, and son of Sherif Hussein, and grandfather of King Hussein, was a real Arab politician, that I believe Avi has given mostly the best of judgment.

I believe, that this man has found a school in Arab politics, and this school has breeded politicians like King Hussein and his son, King Abdullah, Presidents Sadat of Egypt, Burqeiba of Tunisia, and Kings Hassan of Morroco and his son Muhamed the 6th.

Political Realism mixed with all the prudence and wisdom, is what came out of those who have followed this school.

Avi, is a great writer of our times, and a good researcher, I love to read for. However, and like all of us, he has some bias while writting for the his country. However, this is difficult to get rid of, when you are talking about the Arab Israeli conflict, since it is a conflict that is so deep in this soil, that it is so difficult to get rid off.

I read the unabridged version of the Politics of Partition (called "Collusion Across the Jordan") and found it to be an excellent history. My only regret is that Shlaim didn't keep his original title. In reaction to an earlier review, Efraim Karsh's book "Fabricating Israeli History" DOES NOT disprove Shlaim's assertions at all. Karsh's problem is that he can't tolerate the facts that have been uncovered since Israel's thirty-year law made thousands (perhaps millions) of pertinent documents available. Anyone who reads both books will see that Karsh does not even begin to disprove the well-documented histories written by the revisionist Israeli historians (Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Uri Milstein, or Avner Cohen, to name some of the most prominent). I highly suggest Shlaim's book along with Benny Morris's book "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" and "The Road Not Taken" by Itamar Rabinovich. These were some of the first books to reveal how Zionist leaders dealt pragmatically and forcefully with their Arab neighbors to create the new Jewish state.

His central thesis has been answered by everyone from Daniel Pepes and Shabtai Teveth, to Ephraim Karsh's new book "Fabricating Israeli History". He fabricates whole JAE speeches, mistranslates texts, and literally concocts a "Zionist Mythology" straw man to destroy. He fails. REad Karsh's book.