The Israel-Arab Reader (2 page)

PENGUIN BOOKS THE ISRAEL-ARAB READER

WALTER LAQUEUR is a former director of the Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History in London as well as head of the International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He has taught at Georgetown, Harvard, Brandeis, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago. He is the author of
The Last Days of Europe
and more than twenty other books, which have been translated into as many languages, and was the founding editor of the
Journal of Contemporary History
.

BARRY RUBIN is the director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center, and the editor of the
Middle East Review of International Affairs
(MERIA) and of
Turkish Studies
. He writes the Middle East column for the
Jerusalem Post
. His books include
The Truth about Syria
; the three-volume collection
PoliticalIslam
;
The Long War for Freedom
:
The Arab Struggle for Democracyin the Middle East
;
Hating America: A History
;
Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography
;
The Tragedy of the Middle East
;
The Transformation of Palestinian Politics
;
Revolution Until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO
;
Cauldron of Turmoil: America in the Middle East
;
Istanbul Intrigues
;
Modern Dictators
;
Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over U.S. Foreign Policy
;
Paved with Good Intentions: The AmericanExperience and Iran
;
The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict
;
IslamicFundamentalism in Egyptian Politics
;
The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1941-1947
; and
Assimilation and Its Discontents
.

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The Israel-Arab Reader
edited by Walter Laqueur
first published by Citadel Press 1969
Revised edition published in Penguin Books (U.K.) 1970
Third revised edition published by Bantam Books 1976
Fourth revised and updated edition, edited by Walter Laqueur and Barry
Rubin, published in Pelican Books 1984
Published in Penguin Books (U.S.A.) 1991
Fifth revised and updated edition published 1995
Sixth revised and updated edition published 2001
This seventh revised and updated edition published 2008

Copyright © B. L. Mazel, Inc., 1969, 1970

Copyright © Walter Laqueur, 1976
Copyright © Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, 1984, 1995, 2001, 2008
All rights reserved

eISBN : 978-0-143-11379-9

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It is unusual for a book on contemporary politics to go through seven editions and dozens of printings, and to sell tens of thousands of copies over forty years, but such is the case with
The Israel-Arab Reader
. The reason—and the problem—is that the conflict does not come to an end but carries on, always with new developments and permutations. In fact, it is hard to think of another issue as long-lived and with as perennially high a profile (often in the news on a daily basis) as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The last edition appeared in 2001, just after the almost decade-long “peace process” had clearly failed. This new edition is being published as the unsolvable nature of the issue has become more apparent, following a five-year-long war—the second intifada—and Hamas's partial displacement of Fatah and the PLO as the leadership of the Palestinian movement (which the PLO had headed for forty years).

There is thus plenty of new information, albeit room for only a careful selection of new material. Fortunately, on this occasion no earlier text had to be excised. We hope this new edition will help teachers, students, policy makers, and the large segment of the public interested in the conflict to understand better its history and development.

The Israel-Arab Reader
itself has weathered remarkable and massive changes. A long, complex history in the region predates 1967, the year the Six-Day War prompted preparations for the book's publication. The war definitively and permanently put the conflict at the forefront of international interest and activity. At the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser was still president of Egypt. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, was alive. Yasir Arafat was being appointed head of the PLO, which had barely begun any armed activity. Yitzhak Rabin was at the beginning of his political career, serving as Israeli ambassador in Washington. Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad was a leading figure in Syria but not yet the country's sole ruler. The shah was still ruling Iran. In Iraq, the Ba'th Party, whose behind-the-scenes strongman was one Saddam Hussein, was soon to seize power. In Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Osama Bin Laden was about to enter the al-Thayer Model School.

The Lebanese civil war, which lasted fifteen years, was still ahead, as were the 1973 war, two intifadas, scores of peace plans, and tens of thousands of hours of diplomatic activity. Neither Hamas nor Hizballah had yet been established.

It is useful to recall that while the Middle East of 1968 was not among the calmest regions, many of its more violent conflicts still lay ahead— among them the long and bloody war between Iraq and Iran, the two Gulf wars, the Jordanian and Lebanese civil wars, the Iranian Islamist revolution, and clashes provoked by the radical Islamist upsurge in the Middle East. These developments coincided with huge changes in the sphere of international affairs during the last forty years—most significantly the end of the cold war—which would have a direct impact on the conflict itself.

While some of the global and regional conflicts on the international agenda in 1968 have been resolved or at least reduced to manageable proportions, conflict in the Middle East has spread and to some extent grown in intensity. The Israeli-Arab conflict is still further from a resolution than is generally thought, but it has less of a monopoly among conflicts than it did in 1968.

As the conflict has endured, so have attempts to bring it to an end or at least to achieve temporary or local arrangements to defuse it. After innumerable truces and an even greater number of visits by leading statesmen, there has been some apparent progress. Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel, and there was even an Israel-PLO agreement, albeit one that was never fully implemented in a comprehensive peace settlement.

For four decades,
The Israel-Arab Reader
has tried to document these developments as objectively as possible. Over the years, it has become a standard text for those who want to familiarize themselves with the essential issues involved in this conflict. With the constant need to bring it up to date, it has been impossible—despite its increase in size—to include all but the most crucial documents. We have tried to achieve this aim inasmuch as it is feasible within a limited framework and are glad that sustained demand for the book suggests our endeavor has been appreciated. Few, if any, such anthologies have had as long a shelf life as this one. Documents do not speak for themselves, but they are essential for any deeper understanding of historical and political developments.

Walter Laqueur
Barry Rubin
November 2007

From the Bilu to the British Mandate's End

Bilu
are the first letters of a passage in Isaiah, Chapter 2, Verse 5: “House of Jacob, come, let us go.” The Biluim, about five hundred young people mainly from the Kharkov region, were part of the wider movement of the “Lovers of Zion” (
Hovevei Zion)
, which had developedin Russia in the early eighteen-eighties, mainly under the impact of the pogroms of 1881. This manifesto was issued by a Bilu group in Constantinople in 1882.

To our brothers and sisters in Exile!

‘If I help not myself, who will help me?'

Nearly two thousand years have elapsed since, in an evil hour, after a heroic struggle, the glory of our Temple vanished in fire and our kings and chieftains changed their crowns and diadems for the chains of exile. We lost our country where dwelt our beloved sires. Into the Exile we took with us, of all our glories, only a spark of the fire by which our Temple, the abode of our Great One, was engirdled, and this little spark kept us alive while the towers of our enemies crumbled into dust, and this spark leapt into celestial flame and shed light on the heroes of our race and inspired them to endure the horrors of the dance of death and the tortures of the
autos-da-fé.
And this spark is again kindling and will shine for us, a true pillar of fire going before us on the road to Zion, while behind us is a pillar of cloud, the pillar of oppression threatening to destroy us. Sleepest thou, O our nation? What hast thou been doing until 1882? Sleeping, and dreaming the false dream of Assimilation. Now, thank God, thou art awakened from thy slothful slumber. The Pogroms have awakened thee from thy charmed sleep. Thine eyes are open to recognise the cloudy delusive hopes. Canst thou listen silently to the taunts and mockeries of thine enemies? . . . Where is thy ancient pride, thine olden spirit? Remember that thou wast a nation possessing a wise religion, a law, a constitution, a celestial Temple whose wall is still a silent witness to the glories of the past; that thy sons dwelt in palaces and towers, and thy cities flourished in the splendour of civilisation, while these enemies of thine dwelt like beasts in the muddy marshes of their dark woods. While thy children were clad in purple and fine linen, they wore the rough skins of the wolf and the bear. Art thou not ashamed?