middle east

Open this book on any page and you'll find one of more than 150 maps imparting great wisdom, and a depth of understanding rarely presented in the evening news. Only three maps concern periods before the twentieth century. The third shows the Turkish conquerors' vilayet re-districting of the Holy Land in 1888, plus areas of Arab-Jewish conflict during the last three decades of Ottoman rule.

The book's fourth map clearly outlines the areas excluded in 1915 from the independence promised by the British to the Arabs, and requested by Hussein of Mecca for Arab cantons. Neither side mentioned southern Palestine, the Mutasarriflik of Jerusalem or the Jewish people--at all.

Further maps also evidence the eagerness of Arab property owners to sell waste land to Jewish settlers at very high prices, for very large tracts were made available.

Still others show the locations of Arab attacks on Jewish communities beginning in 1882. Through 1914, bands of Arabs assaulted at least 10 Jewish settlements between Jaffa and Jerusalem and in the Jezreel Valley.

From 1920 on, the maps show progressively more attacks, in which Arab assailants destroyed the new landowners' forests, wheat fields, orange groves and cattle, burned and stoned their shops and factories--and murdered unarmed Jews.

A March 1920 attack by a large number of Halsa Arabs on the Jews in Tel Hai killed six; an April 1920 attack on B'nai Yehuda killed one. In May 1921, Arab riots prompted Britain, the League of Nations' trustee of all Middle Eastern Mandates, to end Jewish immigration and "close settlement of the land" throughout Transjordan, both of which the League had sought, with Arab approval, only a few years earlier. Only these attacks, and the Arab 1929 riots that killed 20 Jewish children and elders in Safed, 7 in Hacarmel, 6 in Motza, 1 in Hulda, 6 in Tel Aviv, 2 in Beer Toviya--and 59 in Hebron-- persuaded previously passive Jewish farmers to take up arms, thereby defying British prohibitions against Jewish self-defense.

The fact is, Arab riots occurred well in advance of Israel's creation. They took scores of Jewish civilian lives. And then (in 1921)--as now--the only Arabs killed by Jews were killed in counter-attacks that followed the initial Arab assaults.

All this shows clearly on the maps before reaching page 14.

From here, the pictorials exhibit the precise dimensions of the 1936 Arab riots, with one page devoted to each of four months. The casualties to Jewish life and property were massive and nationwide. More riots in 1937 and 1938 followed.

Most enlightening of all, however, are those maps detailing the various partition plans over the years. The first of these, which the Jewish people accepted, and the Arabs rejected, was the 1937 Peel Commission proposal. The Peel Commission envisioned a tiny Jewish State, an L-shaped affair perhaps 6 or 8 miles-wide along the Mediterranean coast, from south of Rehovot to a few miles north of Acre with a northern corridor no more than 30 miles deep running from the coast, and inland on a border south of Afula to Beit Shean. Even this, the Jewish people accepted, and Arabs rejected.

But the Peel proposal was most remarkable for something else it inherently acknowledged: Jerusalem was not a "traditionally Arab city," as modern-day news repeatedly misinforms us. Its population--which was centered in the Old City--was predominantly Jewish. Christians and Muslims were minorities.

Thus the Peel Commission assigned Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a roughly oval-shaped area surrounding them, to an international trust to be managed by Britain for the League of Nations.

When that plan foundered on the Arab refusals, two subsequent 1938 partition plans proposed assigning even larger areas to the international trust. The more significant of the pair was the British Woodhead plan, as it was none too sympathetic to Zioninsts. Nevertheless, Woodhead expanded the international area encompassing Jerusalem and Bethlehem to include "traditionally Arab Ramallah" as well.

It is a lot more difficult after consulting this book, to lay blame for the Arab Israeli conflict solely on Israel's doorstep. The pictures tell the story, which naturally makes this volume unpopular with anti-Israel polemicists.

Much daylight needs to shine on these facts: Israel could and would have been much smaller than it is today if only Arabs had in 1937 accepted any Jewish state. They didn't, although none of the current issues even existed in 1937. But then, they had begun attacking Jewish farmers decades before Israel had any borders at all. These points are very telling indeed.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a fiercely debated topic with numerous accusations constantly being thrown back and forth. For someone just beginning to study the Arab-Israeli conflict, it can be overwhelming. This book is a collection of maps drafted by a professional cartographer to show the real dimensions of treaties, ceasefires, boycotts, and other historical moments in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Would you like to know exactly which land the Oslo Agreements included?

Would you like to know which parts of the Middle East belonged to biblical Israel?

Would you like to know which parts of Britain's Palestine Mandate they forbid Jews to dwell or buy land on?

This resource can answer all those question and more graphically showing you the exact boundaries of, countries involved in, and other important aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I particularly found this resource helpful in disputing allegations by people that "such-and such a percentage" of the land was to be given up in a treaty such as the original U.N. plan for Palestine or under the Oslo Agreements. After showing my fellow debater the actual maps, the arguments were ended since I was in possession of hard fact thanks to this fine reference book.

Sir Martin Gilbert is a well-acclaimed British scholar, who has written numerous titles in the Historical Atlas series, extensively written about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and was also officially appointed to write the biography of Sir Winston Churchill.

I have reviewed the 1984 Fourth Edition, but several editions have since come out with updated information and additional maps to reflect more recent developments. I recommend getting the most recent edition available.

I highly recommend this outstanding resource for anyone studying the Arab-Israeli conflict, whether pro-Arab or pro-Israeli.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

I bought this atlas of the "Arab-Israeli" conflict hoping to gain some sort of geographical perspective on its history. I've always trusted Routledge to publish superb books on a variety of topics, but unfortunately, they chose Martin Gilbert to author this one. Gilbert writes with the pretense of evenhandedness, but unfortunately the book is filled with distortions and selective interpretations, not to mention downright lies, that provide an exclusively pro-Israeli view.

For example, 10 of the first 36 maps are dedicated either to proving the ancient Jewish presence in Palestine or to presenting the persecution of the European Jews before and during the Holocaust. These factors HAVE NO PLACE in an atlas of the "Arab-Israeli" conflict, which by definition should focus on the conflict between Arabs and "Israelis." It is understandable that Gilbert should include some historical background stretching back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, but there is no reason to include dozens of maps of Jewish suffering except to create the perception that the Israelis have always been the "victims." If I wanted an atlas of the Holocaust, I could have bought Gilbert's atlas of Jewish History. The vast majority of Jewish immigration to Israel had nothing to do with the Holocaust; rather, most Jewish immigrants came from the Arab states and Africa.

These subtle attempts at "proving" that Jews have always been the victims are the least worrisome of the book's faults. A more troubling feature is Gilbert's dramatic language, such as "they advanced rapidly, threatening to destroy the one-day-old State, and drive its citizens into the sea" (describing the Arab armies' campaign in 1948). Actually, the Israeli Army was stronger than all the invading forces combined, and the history of secret negotiations between Israel and the Arab governments is completely absent from Gilbert's book. Essentially, Gilbert provides no information of use. A large portion of his captions are dedicated to describing the woes of Israeli farmers or settlers, while completely ignoring the larger political scene.

Another extremely disturbing feature is the complete erasure of Palestinian identity in this volume. Palestinians are only mentioned in passing, and always as just some "Arabs" who happened to be there. The word Palestinian is only used a few times, and only when it is an adjective for "terrorism" or "refugees." The living, breathing Palestinian civilians who have lived peacefully in Israel for centuries deserve no mention, according to Gilbert.

Probably the worst aspect of Gilbert's book is that Israel is presented as a blameless nation. The captions of ALL of Gilbert's maps omit any mention of Israel's mistakes, which have been detailed by many respected historians for at least two decades. For example, several maps in Gilbert's book portray local conflicts and riots between Palestinians and Israelis, but only Israeli deaths are reported. The handful of "Arab" deaths that get a mention are reported as the result of Israeli retaliation. The only exception is one map that mentions 5 or 10 Palestinian deaths as the result of Israeli extra-judicial assassinations. The several THOUSAND Palestinians that the Israeli Army killed during 1999-2002 receive not a word, nor does the 400+ Palestinian villages destroyed (1946-1950), the bombing of the King David Hotel (1946), the destruction and death in the bombing of Beirut (1982), and so on. Even the map of the Camp David negotiations (2001) is incredibly inaccurate.

Overall, this book is horrible. Recommended only for close-minded Christian Zionists who believe that "Palestinians" don't exist.