The Jaded History of the Palestinian Movement

 A poignant video review of the jaded history of the Palestinian Movement, from the Munich massacre to American college campus support groups

 

Joan Peters, a brave journalist who originally set out to focus on the plight of Arab refugees in the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Over the course of her research, she came to a very different conclusion than she thought she would.  To her credit, she never politicized her own work, instead letting pundits foam.  May her soul rest in peace.

 

Joan Peters, Who Wrote on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Dies at 78

 

Joan Peters, a journalist whose 1984 book, “From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine,” drew accolades and also outrage by arguing that claims of a historical Palestinian homeland in Israel were invented, died on Jan. 5 at her home in Chicago. She was 78.

In her first chapter, Ms. Peters wrote that she had originally intended “From Time Immemorial” to be “solely an investigation of the current plight of the ‘Arab refugees.’ ” But over seven years of research and writing, the books’ character changed completely.

Ms. Peters cited historical documents showing that Arab settlers had flocked to Palestine beginning in the late 1800s, often drawn there by economic opportunities in areas that were being developed by Jewish settlers; they had not, she wrote, inhabited the land “from time immemorial.”

 

The widely accepted narrative of displaced Palestinian refugees had been created to justify the destruction of Israel, she asserted, concluding that Palestinian refugees should be absorbed by Arab nations like Jordan.

The book gained widespread attention and was awarded a National Jewish Book Award from the Jewish Book Council in 1985. It received positive reviews from Commentary, The New Republic and The Atlantic; the book’s jacket included praise from Elie Wiesel, Saul Bellow and Theodore H. White.
[New York Times]
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