One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (Hardcover)

by Tom Segev (Author), Haim Watzman (Translator) "In the early-morning hours of Wednesday, November 28, 1917, someone knocked on Khalil al-Sakakini's front door and brought him great misfortune, indeed almost got him..." (more)
Key Phrases: third aliya, fourth aliya, first aliya, Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency, Chaim Weizmann (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Topicality is never an issue where Israel and the Palestinians are concerned. The arguments--not to mention bloodshed--over Jewish and Muslim nationhood and land rights have been going on for centuries and, whatever the best intentions of the current peace process, they will probably go on for centuries to come. Both parties fanatically believe they have an inalienable historical right to statehood on the land in question and both regard Jerusalem as a holy city. As befits the disenfranchised, the Palestinians are slightly more open to a negotiated settlement, but the Israelis remain intransigent about handing over any but the most inhospitable of scrubland and the impasse remains. In the battle between the bullets and the ballot box, the bullets are winning hands-down.

Tom Segev is one of Israel's most notable historians and journalists--one of the few to strive for any sense of objectivity in his writings--so a new book by him is always worth waiting for. One Palestine, Complete is a detailed account of Palestine under British rule from 1917 to 1948, the critical period in the modern history of the region that led up to the creation of the state of Israel. Segev begins by carefully detailing Britain's well-known inconsistencies in dealing with both the Jews and the Arabs--to both of whom it had appeared to promise, if not the world, at least the country after independence was granted--and goes on to make a convincing case that because Palestine fell into the category of an emotional rather than self-interested colonial possession, the Brits hoped the situation would unwind to everyone's advantage.

Where Segev departs from the historical norm is in his assertions that whatever the British may have said to the Palestinians, their actions were uncompromisingly pro-Zionist from the start. This, he claims, was done out of the mistaken, anti-Semitic belief that the Jews controlled business and turned the wheels of history, rather than from a recognition of the rightness of their cause. Be this as it may, it is at best a partial explanation. Before World War II, Britain was on the verge of handing over Palestine to the Arabs, and Segev completely downplays the impact of Western war guilt over the Holocaust that led to a huge growth in support for an independent Israeli state at the expense of Palestinian rights.

Even so, One Palestine, Complete offers a thoughtful and dramatic account of the evolution of two nationalist movements that seem destined never to be reconciled. With a past like this, what hope is there for the future? --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly
"The British entered Palestine to defeat the Turks; they stayed there to keep it from the French; then they gave it to the Zionists because they loved 'the Jews' even as they loathed them, at once admired and despised them, and above all feared them. They were not guided by strategic considerations, and there was no orderly decision-making process," claims Segev in revealing the thrust of his argument that the contemporary problems between the Arabs and the Jews over the issue of a promised homeland were exacerbated by the interventions of the British empire between the two world wars. Segev, author of the well-known and highly controversial books 1949 and The Seventh Million, is one of the "new historians" who have revised and demythologized the history of modern Israel. The reason the British feared the Zionists, Segev maintains, was that they believed that the Jews had inordinate political power around the world. Moreover, he suggests that the Arab rebellions of the late 1930s were instrumental in convincing the British to leave the reins to the Jewish Agency and even hypothesizes about how the British would have reacted if the Arabs had had a political infrastructure in place similar to that of the Jews. Although his argument would be more convincing had he given greater credence to the Palestinian perspective, Segev is an excellent historical writer who presents a compelling and timely discussion of a well-trodden subjectDeven if it does not stir as much controversy as his earlier work. (Nov. 14)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (November 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805048480
• ISBN-13: 978-0805048483
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,053,246 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New look at Palestinians and Israelis, November 13, 2000

By	Erika Lussenhop (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews

Although Segev does not touch on the recent turbulence in the Mid-East, it all seems relevant. We've become accustomed to one view of Israel's history, and he shows us a new perspective. Most people believe that Israel would not have gained statehood without the Holocaust, but Segev points out that a move toward this was well on its way well before this, and that the Holocaust was actually a setback, depriving Israel of the settlers it needed to establish itself. He also has great, gossipy stories so that it's a surprisingly fast read, despite the heft of the book.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting, depressing, and very worthwhile reading, December 24, 2001

By	Thomas J. Brucia "Tom B" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

`One Palestine, Complete' is a brilliant piece of history and a very depressing book. Author Tom Segev is a columnist for Ha'aretz and a resident of Jerusalem, intimately acquainted with his topic. Segev effectively combines anecdote, a gift for striking quotes, excellent research and a broad historical vision into this amazingly informative volume about the 31 years of British rule. As Benny Morris has stated: "He treats the Mandate period as a novel."

The overwhelming image of the British mandate is that of parents trying to keep peace between their two children, their favored eldest son and his younger brother ... The parents tried and tried to get the kids to stop misbehaving -- and eventually gave up.

Many of us seem to have forgotten that Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire until a short 84 years ago! In fact, the British controlled this region for only three decades, from 1917 until 1948. This book is the story of those years. Among the horrors covered in this tome are: the Nebi Musa rampage of 1920, the Jaffa riot of 1921, the Jerusalem riot of 1929, the riots of 1933, and the Arab Rebellion of 1936-39. Segev's traces their origins, but even more chillingly, describes how they unfolded, event-by-event and horror-by-horror. Early Arab atrocities insured that many Jews would never trust their Arab neighbors.

Segev clearly distinguishes Zionism and Judaism. He reminds us that "much of the pre-Zionist Jewish population - that is, those who lived in Palestine before the 1880s - were ultra-Orthodox. They were deeply hostile to the notion of secular Jewish autonomy in the Holy Land, which, according to religious doctrine, would be redeemed only through divine intervention in the messianic age. To the traditional Jewish population was sacrilegious." [p. 14] Segev shows how this caused problems for the early Zionists, Ashkenazi upstart socialists scorned by the religious. Under the `chalukkah' system, the Diaspora supported pious Jews in Palestine. In return they studied the Torah and prayed on behalf of Jews worldwide; the ultra-Orthodox saw no need for change.

Segev establishes that even from the turn of the century relations between European Zionists and native Palestinian Arabs were bad. Regarding the `land issue', he points out that most people were tenant farmers on lands they did not own. He quotes Chaim Margalit Kalvarisky, a Polish-born agronomist whose job included purchasing land for the Jewish Colonization Association: "After the first purchase of land I made here I had to dispossess the Arab residents of their land for the purpose of settling our brothers.... They sang songs of mourning for their bad fortune, which forced them to leave the cradle of their birth. Those songs cut through my heart and I realized how tied the Bedouin is to his land." Segev quotes the words of British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour: "Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land." (At the time, only about 10 per cent of the population was Jewish). [p. 45]

There are a lot of surprises in this book. For instance, an interesting proposal that never went anywhere in 1922 was that the United States (!) take control over Palestine from the British. A publication from the Zionist Organization in London opposed the proposal on the basis that "if the crude arithmetical conception of democracy were to be applied now or at some early stage in the future to Palestinian condition, the majority that would rule would be an Arab majority..." [p.119]. Segev puts to rest some myths, among others, that emigration to Palestine could have saved the doomed masses of Europe during the 1940s [p.461]. And, of course, the author reminds us of `the Uganda proposal', of 1903 [p. 36], which suggested a homeland in Africa, and which almost cost Theodor Herzl his position in the Zionist movement.

There is some humor here, too. Segev describes early Zionist Commission meetings being held in a mish-mash of Yiddish, German and English, and David Ben-Gurion griping that `people walk around the country and don't even know its language'. [p. 99] A footnote mentions that pioneer Zionist Theodor Herzl did not know Hebrew: "Who of us knows Hebrew well enough to ask for a train ticket in that language", he complains.

Segev describes internal divisions in both Jewish and Arab camps and shows how these drove events. On the Jewish side, he details the bitter rivalry between Ben-Gurion's Labor movement) and Jabotinsky's Revisionists. The author quotes David Ben-Gurion describing Etzel (Irgun) as "a Nazi gang" [p.471], labeling Jabotinsky as "the Fascist Satan", and calling Menachem Begin "the fuehrer". On the Arab side, the Nashashibi and Husseini clans matched the factionalism of their Jewish opponents, though with less colorful language.

I was surprised to find how many dubious Israeli practices grew from British models. Sir Charles Tegert, brought in during the Arab Rebellion (1936-1939) was merciless. Segev writes: "At times the [British] army would enter a village and stay there for several months... As part of the counter terrorism campaign, the authorities also destroyed houses. [p. 423]" Also, he describes the origin of the theory of collective punishment. "The laws and regulations under which the [British] authorities conducted their counter terrorism operations placed responsibility for crimes on the entire community ... everyone was to be punished." Under Tegert, "Soldiers who were tried for abuse and even murder of civilians were given extremely light sentences." [p. 425]. And Tegert "established a special center in Jerusalem to train interrogators in torture". (Jerusalem police chief Douglas Duff even describes torture methods he employed in his memoirs!)

Though depressing, I read this work through twice, the second time underlining as I went. This is that kind of history - often unpleasant but ultimately fascinating.

56 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Trees, No Forest, April 5, 2003

By	Jeff Lipkes (Tampa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (Paperback)

This is a colorful montage of various people's experiences under the British Mandate. Lots of intriguing characters and entertaining stories. The unpublished letters and journals Segev draws on, as well as published memoirs, are mostly by relatively obscure Arabs, Jews, and Brits--and this is the book's greatest strength.
But you'll have to look elsewhere if you're interested in a competent description and analysis of British rule. Segev apparently couldn't be bothered to do much background reading on British politics. When he strays from his diaries and memories, he blunders repeatedly. Lloyd George, he writes, was an "Englishman" who was "elected prime minister" in Dec. 1916. (L.G. was Welsh and there were no elections between 1910 and 1918.) Herbert Samuel, when he went into politics, "joined Lloyd George's Liberal Party"--two decades before any such entity existed.
There are a great number of other trivial mistakes, but more disturbing is Segev's persistent, if low-key, anti-Zionism. This is particularly evident in his treatment of Arab attacks on Jews. To take only the first, at Tel Hai on March 1, 1920, Segev concludes, without any evidence, that the Jews may have opened fire, and w/o provocation. He then starts referring to the "myth" of Tel Hai, as if the shootings were a figment of Zionist imagination. (He meanwhile accepts uncritically the myth of "the Arab Revolt" during WW I, discredited for decades.) Segev's treatment of subsequent violence is even more distorted. The role of the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al Husseini, is suppressed and, in the case of the Arab Rebellion of 1936-8, the focus is almost entirely on British countermeasures rather than the terror that inspired them.
But the book's claim to fame is its argument that the British were pro-Zionist because they feared the Jews. In a volume of about 600 pp., the evidence for this consists of four or five scattered, out-of-context quotations, and a distorted interpretation of Prime Minister MacDonald's "Black Letter" of 1931. Conspiracy theories about Jews circulated widely in the '20s (thanks to the success of the Bolsheviks) and Zionist spokesman Chaim Weitzman always emphasized the clout of U.S. Jews, but Segev simply never makes his case.
As for the claim that the British running the Mandate were pro-Zionist, Segev quietly abandons this. He himself provides a mountain of evidence refuting the idea, and no serious historian would try to argue it. Most British officials shared High Commissioner Chancellor's view that the Balfour Declaration was a "colossal blunder."
Particularly as the narrative winds down, there are instances of bias that would make any fair-minded historian wince--Segev's treatment of the White Paper of '39, of Bevin, of the immigration of Jews from Arab countries into Israel, etc. Still, the book is worth reading for the light it sheds on daily life in Palestine under the Mandate. You really appreciate how much of today's conflict is deja vu all over again. Some readers might want to go directly to the original sources--like the memoirs of one of Segev's favorite characters, Khalil al-Sakakini, a Christian Arab educator, nationalist, and Nazi sympathizer. But anyone interested in a thorough and accurate history of British rule in Palestine should look elsewhere, and preferably to an historian rather than a leftist journalist. There are good general histories by C. C. O'Brien and H. Sachar. On the Mandate, take a look at E. Kedourie, E. Karsh, D. Fromkin, B. Wasserstein, John Marlowe, and Christopher Sykes.