Equal Complainers

Cross Currents, Winter, 2000 by Joseph Nevo

Thomas A. Idinopulos, Weathered by Miracles: A History of Palestine from Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben Gurion and the Mufti. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. 297 pp. $27.50 (cloth).

The story of Palestine -- the Holy Land, the cradle of monotheism, sacred to its three leading faiths, the habitat of national and religious confrontations, the crossroads of continuous wars -- is never ending.

Although one might ask what can be added to the annals of that country that has not been told, the combination of religion and power is a formula that never fails to stimulate the imagination and curiosity. The profound relevance of the history of Palestine to contemporary events keeps the story of Palestine vivid. These factors also legitimize any new narrative that unfolds new evidence or imparts to well-known facts an original and fresh interpretation.

Professor Idinopulos's book is a telling instance of the latter. Its title (taken from Chateaubriand's description of the Holy Land), and particularly its subtitle, indicate the author's approach to the subject. Bonaparte's invasion signified the advent of the modern era in the Middle East and carried a certain association to the Crusades. The other personalities mentioned in the subtitle epitomize the common image of Palestine: an arena of religious (Christian-Muslim-Jewish) competition, of foreign occupation, and of the national Zionist-Palestinian conflict.

Idinopulos profiles nineteenth-century Palestine against the background of the growing European interest in it. He pays particular attention to the various Christian churches there and elaborates on their religious and economic interests and on the local and international political ramifications of their presence and activities. He also describes the parallel development of the Jewish and Arab communities and focuses on the emergence of their indigenous national movements: the Zionist and the Palestinian Arab. The last part of the book is dedicated to the political and violent confrontation between these two movements that dominated the first half of the twentieth century and ended with the establishment of the State of Israel and the uprooting of the Palestinian Arabs. Idinopulos offers an interesting and convincing analysis of the Arab-Jewish-British triangle, showing how the weaknesses, interests, and constraints of each of the three sides precipitated the well known finale. This section would have benefi ted from rather more attention to the political and social aspects of the Arab society.

The author's evenhandedness in dealing with Jews and Arab brings to mind an episode recorded by Ronald Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem, who in his memoirs described a meeting with the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. "He remarked that complaints of me were reached him from Jews and Arabs alike. I answered that this was all too probable, imagining for a moment that he was leading up to my resignation. 'Well' he said as we sat down, 'if either one side stops complaining you'll be dismissed'" (Ronald Storrs Orientations [London, 1937], 438).

Idinopulos is an able scholar and a gifted story teller. He has the capacity to produce an economical and streamlined account without missing any vital detail. His book is based on recent studies by Jewish, Arab, and other scholars and provides the general readership with the updated findings of most recent research on the relevant issues.

There are some minor inaccuracies: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani was not an Arab (127); The Hashemites are not a tribe--and they are descendants of the prophet Muhammad, not of his sister (152); Lord Moyne was assassinated by members of the "Israel's Freedom Fighters" -- known by the British as the "Stern Gang" and not by members of the Irgun (224); King Abdullah was murdered in 1951, not in 1950 (239). Nonetheless, this is a timely and well-written account that contributes not only to the reader's knowledge on Palestine's history and historiography but also to his or her better understanding of ongoing events in the Holy Land.

JOSEPH NEVO is in the Department of Middle East History, the University of Haifa, Israel.