Gelvin, Jame L. The Israel-Palestinian Conflict: 100 Years of War, Third Edition
Somehow Mr. Gelvin’s textbook on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has made it into a third edition. This is unfortunate. It is a book biased from front to back showing obvious sympathy for every aspect of the Palestinian cause with mere gestures toward introducing Israeli positions on significant matters.
The book does cover the major historical aspects of both Israeli and Palestinian claims on what is now Israel. However at each point in the history sympathy is shown for the struggling Palestinians who are being, according to Gelvan, displaced from the land by European colonizers. Everything negative about the Palestinians, from their walking away from favorable peace agreements to cold-blooded terrorist attacks is only superficially related. Everything at all negative about the Israelis is discussed in great detail and with noxious motives assigned.
But rather than state my views, I will let you decide for yourself. Below are just a few of the major places in the text of the book where Gelvin’s biases show through:
On page 4 he says "many of the Palestinians living on the West Bank can trace their ancestry back for generations, if not longer. He neglects to discuss the large immigration from other Arab countries into Palestine in the early part of the 20th century because of the prosperity brought to it by the Jews.
Page 29. In trying to refute the claim of many travelers in Palestine in the late 19th century, Gelvin states "the forsaken state of the satellite villages created an impression of Palestine among Western visitors and settlers far removed from reality" i.e. that the lands were not abandoned. Yet Mark Twain is very clear as he says:
"Palestine is a desolate country, who soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent, mournful expanse…..A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action…..We never saw a human being on the whole route….There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere."
The land was in fact barren and was not being utilized to even a fraction of its productive capacity. It contained malarial swamps which were not drained until the Jews arrived and was able to host only a small and sickly population. It was not until the immigration of the Jews that the land became productive and prosperous--but not according to Gelvin.
Page 30. Gelvin admits that between 1880 and 1913 there was a “steady population growth”. Yes, there was, for two reasons:
1. Jews were coming in.
2. Arabs came into the land to take advantage of the prosperity being promulgated by the Jews.
So much for Gelvin’s argument that “the Arabs have always been there”; Jews had always been there too. The fact is that an almost empty territory was settled almost simultaneously by incoming Jews and Arabs.
Page 72: Gelvin tries maliciously to analogize the Jewish youth group Betar to Nazi youth groups solely because they wore uniforms, carried out drills, and were nationalistic. The same can be said about American Boy Scouts.
Page 72: Gelvin gives an untrue, incomplete, and slanderous account of the deaths of Arab villagers in Dayr Yassin during the 1948 war. These Arab civilians were hiding in houses that had been used as firing posts by Arab soldiers—just as in Gaza today. There are many detailed accounts of this event; Gelvin does not even pretend to give a balanced view. .
Page 88: Gelvin claims that the Balfour Declaration was just one of many agreements made by the British in World War I and that it had no legitimacy. In fact, the Declaration was reaffirmed by the League of Nations Mandate after WWI, thus transforming a wartime pledge into legally binding international law.
Page 93: Gelvin writes that “in August 1929, for example, rioting broke out in Jerusalem.” Riots don’t just break out. They are caused by something, someone, or some group. In this case they were sponsored by the Arab Higher Council which promulgated false rumors about Jewish attacks on their holy places. It was not a spontaneous event.
Page 110. Gelvin mentions that there were Arab riots in which Jews were killed. He does not critique this at all—as he does when he reports Jewish retaliatory attacks on Arabs.
Page 118. Gelvin never criticizes the Arab Palestinians for refusing to accept any of the deals offered them, from the Peel Committee recommendations to Camp David. He always finds reasons to justify the Arab position—counter to the views of both American and British statesmen at the time and the international community.
P120. Gelvin even makes excuses for Hajj Amin’s siding with the Nazi’s in WWII, going to live and work in Berlin, recruiting SS units in the Balkans, and working for the Nazi regime.
Page 127. Gelvin mentions only in passing that the 1948 war was caused by invasion of Israel by Arab states—with no discussion of how this violated U.N. policy. He then goes on to talk about the high price of the war for the Palestinian, barely mentioning its cost to the Israeli’s: a full percentage of their population killed.
Page 130. Gelvin mentions the new historians challenging Israel’s account of the1948 war--but does not mention that the main spokesman of this group--Benny Morris--has, based on new information, reversed his views and now largely supports the actions of the Israeli in 1948. This is another example of Gelvin being selective in the information he presents, always in the favor of the Palestinians.
Page 132. Another untruth by misdirection: Gelvin says that “virtually no fighting took place between Jordanians and Zionists outside of Jerusalem.” Yes, but a hell of a lot of fighting did take place in Jerusalem.
Page 136. Gelvin states that “Anywhere from 65% to more than 85% of Palestinians living within the boundaries of Israel were forced into permanent exile.” Yet in the sentence before he says only about half of the 1.4 million Arabs living in the former Palestine became refugees. Which is it? Also most were not all “forced out”. As the author himself says, many were scared into leaving by the Arabs armies and many left voluntarily to avoid a war zone.
Page 169. Here is a wopper: In discussion of Jews from North Africa “immigrating” to Israel after the 1948 War, Gelvin does not once say that they were kicked out by the various Arab countries of Africa merely because they were Jews. In fact more Jews were forced out of Arab countries in 1948-1950 than there were Arabs who left Israel and became refugees in 1948.
Page 181. Gelvin says, “although the Arab heads of state agreed not to negotiate with Israel, they did not agree not to negotiate.” If you understand this, please write me with an explanation.
Page 187. Gelvin criticizes Israel for not employing Palestinians—but makes no mention of why they did so: To prevent Palestinians terrorists from coming into Israel.
Page 217. Gelvin has long paragraph citing the woes of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He does not discuss the terrorist attacks that prompted the “iron fist” policy by Israel. In addition, he totally minimizes the danger to Israel of the two intifadas, discussing only the motives that led the Arabs to begin their rioting.
Page 242. Gelvin writes here that the patience of the Palestinians “wore thin”. Yet he does not discuss the terror Israeli civilians lived under from suicide bombers targeting buses and restaurants, women and children.
Page 251. While acknowledging that the barrier has stopped Arab terrorist infiltrators and has resulted in a 90% decrease in suicide bombing since its construction, Gelvin still critiques the barrier and argues that it is not necessary.
Page 254. Again, Gelvin notes in an unnuanced declarative sentence several attacks Palestinians made on Israelis. He presents no critique of those attacks. Yet he goes on in detail to report the sufferings of the Palestinians who were injured in the Israel reprisal raid.
Gelvin’s book, as I hope you can see from the above notes, is not at all a fair or balanced account of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is important that all of us know the facts about this very difficult world trouble spot. But you won’t find those facts in Gelvin’s book.
A disappointed reader
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