From Time Immemorial

For the expression, see Time immemorial.

Front cover of From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a controversial 1984 book by Joan Peters about demographics of the Arab population of Palestine before the formation of the State of Israel.

The book argues that a large fraction of the Arabs of Palestine, at the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, were not descendants of long-term residents of Palestine but had arrived in waves of immigration starting in the 19th century and continuing through the period of the British Mandate.

Praise

Shortly after publication Martin Kramer 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 called Peters' work a "superlative book" that traces Middle East history with "unmatched skill."

Saul Bellow'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 who said: "if (the book is) read, it will change the mind of our generation.”

After a new edition was published, in 2001, the journalist Joseph Farah called the book a "milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region."

Criticism

According to Frank Menetrez, writing in CounterPunch, “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"

Norman Finkelstein wrote Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, where he argued that much of Peters' scholarship was fraudulent. Finkelstein's allegations that Alan Dershowitz plagiarized Peters' book became a central issue in the Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair.

Noam Chomsky 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 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 acknowledgement, I should say—but about the kindest word anybody said about the book was "ludicrous," or "preposterous."

Chomsky was also doubtful that the book was genuinely written by a person named Joan Peters and believed that "probably it had been put together by some intelligence agency or something like that". Chomsky further argued, that the near unanimous support for the book within American intellectual circles, the total boycott of the intellectual community of Norman Finkelstein and the refusal of any major American media outlet to publish any negative reviews of the book (particularly Finkelstein's) exposed the level of intellectual bankruptcy and subservience to power among American intellectuals and the media.

Robert Olson was among the few authors to write a critical review of the book before it was released in England. 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.

Reviewing the book for the November 28, 1985 issue of The New York Times, Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath described the book as a "sheer forgery," adding that "[i]n Israel, at least, the book was almost universally dismissed as sheer rubbish except maybe as a propaganda weapon."

In a later review on the January 16, 1986 issue of The New York Review of Books, he wrote that Peters made 'highly tendentious use — or neglect — of the available source material'. But more crucial, he wrote, "is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes and her failure to appreciate the central importance of natural population increase as compared to migratory movements." Porath concluded:

"Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who have endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life."

Adam Shatz wrote in Slate, 8 April 1998: "Peters' book was lavishly praised by American Jewish organizations, novelists, and scholars. But when Finkelstein showed that Peters had manipulated Ottoman demographic records to make her case, the book's supporters attacked him as an anti-Zionist. By 1986, though, Zionist scholars having published articles that bolstered Finkelstein's case, his version was the conventional wisdom", adding a long list of quotations from reputable scholars to bolster his point.

In a lengthy review in the London Review of Books, Ian and David Gilmour harshly criticized the book, concluding as follows.

As hysteria mounts, words seem to lose their meaning: an impression which is heightened by the author's habit of italicising everything that she considers important — which is a lot. The hundreds of pages thus disfigured accentuate the feeling that the author's normal mood is rage and her favourite mode of communication a scream.

In spite of its grandiose claims to have altered 'the very basis of our understanding' and to have brought knowledge where before ignorance reigned, this book is not history. As a guide to what has happened in Palestine in the last hundred years Ms Peters is about as trustworthy as her Medieval 'source' Makrizi. The prominent Zionist academics thanked in the preface for their encouragement, their 'data and statistics', their 'checking and rechecking', seem to have some explaining to do. In accepting the claims of this strident, pretentious and preposterous book, Miss Tuchman and Mr Bellow among others have shown a deplorable lack of judgement.

Avi Shlaim, professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, and considered one of the leading New Historians on the Arab-Israeli conflict, has called the book "completely preposterous and worthless":

The book said that there were no Palestinians in Palestine until the Zionists came along and made the desert bloom, and then the Palestinians began to arrive to Palestine. It was a book that was of no value whatsoever, it simply recycled very old and stale Israeli propaganda. But it was a book that American Jews wanted to have, because it completely whitewashed Israel. The book was a huge success and received every accolade in America, until Norman Finkelstein wrote a long review article, in which he exposed the spurious scholarship behind that book.

Response to criticism

In response to Porath's criticism, Daniel Pipes expressed a more favorable opinion, stating:

From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book.

'Granting all this, the fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath.'

In a response to the criticisms raised by Daniel Pipes (and Ronald Sanders) published in the March 27, 1986 issues of the New York Times Book Review, Porath argued that the available figures and sources do not indicate a "supposed quintupling" (as argued by Peters) or "a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine" (as argued by Pipes). While Porath notes that "the Arab population of the coastal area of Palestine grew faster than it did in other areas," Porath argues this "[m]ore reasonably...confirms the very well-known fact that the coastal area attracted Arab villagers from the mountainous parts of Palestine who preferred the economic opportunities in the fast-growing areas of Jaffa and Haifa to the meager opportunities available in their villages" rather than, as argued by Pipes, the European advancements brought by and "economic opportunity created by the Zionists."

Barbara Tuchman, who called the book "a historical event in itself", claimed that criticism of the book was a "smear campaign" and attributed it to "growing anti-Semitism" and "long-term apologists of the Palestine Liberation Organization." Elie Wiesel lent his name to a subsequent paperback, as did all of Peters's original endorsers.

External links

• Assorted excerpts from the book
• Positive review of the book with critical aspects
• Noam Chomsky on the book
• Critical analysis and comments on sources by Muhammad Hallaj and Norman Finkelstein (March 1985)
• A critical book review by John P. Richardson (May 27, 1985)
• Discussion of the book by Art Moore