From Time Immemorial - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a 1984 book by Joan Peters

Joan Peters

Joan Peters is a former CBS news producer of otherwise unnamed documentaries, and the author best known for a number of theses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, put forward in her book From Time Immemorial, published in 1984 in which she claims that the Palestinians are largely not indigenous...

about the demographics

Demographics

Demographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population. These types of data are used widely in sociology , public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location...

of the Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

population of Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

and of the Jewish population of the Arab world

Arab world

The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

before and after the formation of the State of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

.

According to the book a large fraction of the Arabs of Palestine were not descendants of long-term residents of Palestine at the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, but had arrived in waves of immigration starting in the 19th century and continuing through the period of the British Mandate. At the same time a large number of Jews, according to the author as large as the number of Arabs fleeing Palestine, were driven out of the Arab countries and became refugees in Israel. Peters contends that what is referred to the Palestinian refugee problem is actually a population exchange that resulted from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

Positive reviews

Shortly after publication Martin Kramer

Martin Kramer

Martin Seth Kramer is an American scholar of the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Shalem Center. His focus is on Islam and Arab politics.-Education:...

wrote that the book raises overdue questions about the demographic history of Palestine in a way that cannot be ignored, but also referred to "serious weaknesses" in the book, and Peters' "rummaging through archives and far more balanced historical studies than her own for whatever evidence she can find to back up her thesis". He goes on to say that "It is specially unfortunate because on the central point of her book, the demographic argument, Peters is probably right."

Theodore H. White

Theodore H. White

Theodore Harold White was an American political journalist, historian, and novelist, known for his wartime reporting from China and accounts of the 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1980 presidential elections.-Life and career:...

called Peters' work a "superlative book" that traces Middle East history with "unmatched skill."

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

's endorsement on the cover of the book stated:

"Every political issue claiming the attention of a world public has its 'experts" - news managers, anchor men, ax grinders, and anglers. The great merit of this book is to demonstrate that, on the Palestinian issue, these experts speak from utter ignorance. Millions of people the world over, smothered by false history and propaganda, will be grateful for this clear account of the origins of the Palestinians. From Time Immemorial does not grudge these unhappy people their rights. It does, however, dissolve the claims made by nationalist agitators and correct the false history by which these unfortunate Arabs are imposed upon and exploited."

The book was also praised by Arthur J. Goldberg and Martin Peretz

Martin Peretz

Martin H. "Marty" Peretz , is an American publisher. Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased The New Republic in 1974 and took editorial control soon afterwards. He retained majority ownership until 2002, when he sold a two-thirds stake in the magazine to two financiers...

who said: "If (the book is) read, it will change the mind of our generation.”
Peretz suggested that there was not a single factual error in the book.

After a new edition was published, in 2001, the journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

Joseph Farah

-External links:* Official website* *...

called the book a "milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region."
Walter Reich wrote on the book "fresh and powerful ... an original analysis as well as a synoptic view of a little-known but important human story". Jehuda Reinharz

Jehuda Reinharz

Jehuda Reinharz is the former President of Brandeis University, where he is Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History and Director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. On September 25, 2009 he announced his resignation as president; at the request of trustees he stayed...

described the book as "valuable synthesis" and "new analysis" that "convincingly demonstrates that many of those who today call themselves Palestinian refugees are former immigrants or children of such immigrants". Ronald Sanders

Ronald Sanders

-Career:Ron won Genie Awards for his work on Eastern Promises , eXistenZ , Crash , and Dead Ringers . He has collaborated extensively with director David Cronenberg; since 1979, he has edited most of the Cronenberg's films....

wrote that Peters's demographics "could change the entire Arab-Jewish polemic over Palestine". Sidney Zion

Sidney Zion

Sidney E. Zion was an American writer. His works include Markers, Begin from Beginning, Read All about It, Trust Your Mother but Cut the Cards, , Loyalty and Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob and Markers . He co-authored The Autobiography of Roy Cohn...

wrote that Peters's book was "the intellectual equivalent of the Six-Day War". Timothy Foote

Timothy Foote

Timothy Foote is an editor and writer, born in London, 3 May 1926.He is the author of two books, The World of Bruegel and The Great Ringtail Garbage Caper and several hundred articles and reviews on a wide range of subjects, variously published in TIME, where he was a senior editor for 14 years,...

acclaimed that the book is "part historic primer, part polemic, part revelation, and a remarkable document in itself". Lucy Dawidowicz

Lucy Dawidowicz

Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz was an American historian and an author of books on modern Jewish history, in particular books on the Holocaust.-Life:...

wrote that Peters "brought into the light the historical truth about the Mideast". Barbara Probst Solomon

Barbara Probst Solomon

Barbara Probst Solomon is an American author, essayist and journalist. Her published works include two novels, two volumes of memoirs, and a book of collected essays. Solomon is the United States cultural correspondent for Spain's "newspaper-of-record", El País of Madrid...

called the book "brilliant, provocative and enlightened". Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...

described the "insight and analysis" of the book. Similar views were expressed by Arthur Goldberg

Arthur Goldberg

Arthur Joseph Goldberg was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...

, Paul Cowan

Paul Cowan

Paul Cowan is a Canadian filmmaker who has spent the bulk of his career with the National Film Board of Canada.Cowan was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature for Going the Distance, a documentary about the 1978 Commonwealth Games...

and others.

Negative reviews

Reviewing the book for the November 28, 1985 issue of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath

Yehoshua Porath

Yehoshua Porath is an Israeli historian and professor emeritus of Middle East history.-Academic career:Yehoshua Porath is a lecturer in the History of Muslim Countries at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He specializes in the history of Palestinian nationalism.-Political views:Porath was on the...

described the book as a "sheer forgery," stating that "[i]n Israel, at least, the book was almost universally dismissed as sheer rubbish except maybe as a propaganda weapon." In 1986, Porath repeated his views in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, and published a negative review that cites many inaccuracies. In that review are mentions of other criticisms published by: Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...

and Edward Said

Edward Said

Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

in The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

(October 13, 1984 and October 19, 1985), Walter Reich in The Atlantic (July 1984), Ronald Sanders in The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

(April 23, 1984), Bernard Gwertzman in The New York Times (May 12, 1984), Norman G. Finkelstein in In These Times
In These Times
In These Times is a politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published by the Institute for Public Affairs in Chicago...

(September 1984), Bill Farrell in the Journal of Palestine Studies
Journal of Palestine Studies
The Journal of Palestine Studies is an academic journal established in 1971. It is published and distributed by University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies. The current editor is Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University....

(Fall 1984), Ian and David Gilmour in The London Review of Books (February 7, 1985) and Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal...

in Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...

(July 1984). However, both academic historians Ronald Sanders and Daniel Pipes had actually expressed their positive general assessment of the book in their responses named by Porath, and Pipes, in the Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...

article quoted by Porath actually found From Time Immemorial an important book:

"Despite its drawbacks. From Time Immemorial contains a wealth of information, which is well worth the effort to uncover." Pipes agrees with author Joan Peters, "Thus, the 'Palestinian problem' lacks firm grounding. Many of those who now consider themselves Palestinian refugees were either immigrants themselves before 1948 or the children of immigrants. This historical fact reduces their claim to the land of Israel; it also reinforces the point that the real problem in the Middle East has little to do with Palestinian-Arab rights."

Norman Finkelstein

Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...

's Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict is a book by Norman G. Finkelstein, first published in 1995. It is a study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein examines and scrutinizes popular historical versions of the conflict by Joan Peters, Benny Morris, Anita Shapira and Abba...

asserts that much of Peters' scholarship was fraudulent. Finkelstein's allegations that Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...

plagiarized Peters' book became a central issue in the Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair

Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair

The Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair was a public controversy involving academics Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005....

. Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

defended and promoted Finkelstein's critique, commenting:

[As] soon as I heard that the book was going to come out in England, I immediately sent copies of Finkelstein's work to a number of British scholars and journalists who are interested in the Middle East—and they were ready. As soon as the book [From Time Immemorial] appeared, it was just demolished, it was blown out of the water. Every major journal, the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review, the Observer, everybody had a review saying, this doesn't even reach the level of nonsense, of idiocy. A lot of the criticism used Finkelstein's work without any acknowledgment, I should say—but about the kindest word anybody said about the book was "ludicrous," or "preposterous."

Robert Olson was among the few authors to write a critical review of the book before it was released in Britain. He concluded:

This is a startling and disturbing book. It is startling because, despite the author's professed ignorance of the historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict and lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern history (pp. 221, 335) coupled with her limitation to sources largely in English (absolutely no Arab sources are used), she engages in the rewriting of history on the basis of little evidence. ...The undocumented numbers in her book in no way allow for the wild and exaggerated assertions that she makes or for her conclusion. This book is disturbing because it seems to have been written for purely polemical and political reasons: to prove that Jordan is the Palestinian state. This argument, long current among revisionist Zionists, has regained popularity in Israel and among Jews since the Likud party came to power in Israel in 1977.

According to Frank Menetrez, writing in CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...

, “when a number of scholars examined the book carefully, they concluded that it was of no scholarly value whatsoever. It ignores important parts of the documentary record, misuses the sources on which it does rely, and contains straightforward logical errors. Consequently, according to Menetrez, "Peters’ book has been rejected as worthless by the scholarly community around the world, including Israel."

In discussing the reactions of commentators to the book, Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis is a prominent liberal intellectual, writing for The New York Times op-ed page and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He was previously a columnist for the Times . Before that he was London bureau chief , Washington, D.C...

compared the reaction of American commentators to the reaction of Israeli ones:

"Israelis have not gushed over the book as some Americans have. Perhaps that is because they know the reality of the Palestinians' existence, as great Zionists of the past knew. Perhaps it is because most understand the danger of trying to deny a people identity. As Professor Porath says, Neither historiography nor the Zionist cause itself gains anything from mythologizing history."

External links

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