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Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine
Recounts the secret negotiations between the Zionist leaders and the Hashemite rulers
676 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Avi Shlaim
27 books230 followersAvi Shlaim FBA (born October 31, 1945) is an Iraqi-born British/Israeli historian. He is emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the British Academy. Shlaim is considered one of Israel's New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel.
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August 14, 2019
Like the legend of Cassandra, Jordan’s King Abdullah I repeatedly warned the Mufti and other Palestinian officials that to remain intransigent and defiant toward Palestine’s Zionist newcomers was to risk the loss of all of Palestine. This prescience has not endeared him to subsequent generations of Palestinians. A thoroughly engaging history.
November 15, 2024
The 1948 conflict in Palestine that Israeli Jews call the "war of independence" and that Arabs call the "war of conquest" was a pivotal historical event with repercussions lingering to the present moment. Pro-Israeli commentators ritualistically rehash the story of how the monolithic, menacing Arab bloc rose as one to destroy the nascent Jewish state. The reality is considerably more complex. Probably the most important illustration ever of this point is provided in this masterful 1988 study by Avi Shlaim. The book's central thesis is that "in 1947 an explicit agreement was reached between the Hashemites [the leadership of Transjordan, nowadays Jordan] and the Zionists on the carving up of Palestine following the termination of the British mandate, and ... this agreement laid the foundation for mutual restraint during 1948 and for continuing collaboration in the aftermath of war." (1) The main reason why the Zionists sought out this tacit alliance, Shlaim contends, is that David Ben-Gurion and the rest of the Zionist leadership recognized that the conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalisms over the territory of Palestine was a fundamentally unresolvable one -- two peoples were competing for one homeland. It was thus in the interest of the Zionists to form partnerships with Arabs other than those of Palestine. This fact further serves to shatter the perception that the Arab world was united in its defense of the Palestinian Arabs. In reality, significant conflicts existed between different factions in the Arab world. Exploiting such dissensions would prove a successful tactic in the Zionist quest for national independence. It also precipitated the catastrophe suffered by the Palestinian Arab nation, which is still ongoing.
The Hashemite dynasty was of the noblest Arab blood, tracing its lineage all the way back to the holy prophet of Islam. At the time of the First World War, Abdullah's father Husayn was the ruler of Hijaz, in present-day Saudi Arabia; then a province of the Ottoman empire. The Hashemites offered to fight with the British against the Turks and received ambiguous promises that Britain would support the national aspirations of Arabs (as formulated by the Hashemites) in return. After the war, and the consequent fall of the Ottoman empire, the region was parceled out so as to try to meet the conflicting demands of the British made by the French, the Hashemites, and the Jews (who had been promised a national homeland in Palestine in the 1917 Balfour declaration). Shlaim makes the following important point: "The political shape of the region did not evolve naturally, following its own internal laws, but was largely the product of British design tailored to fit Britain's own imperial needs." (30) For a brief period, Abdullah's brother Faisal ruled Syria, only to find himself deposed by the French. Later, Faisal was given nominal sovereignty over Iraq (with Britain being the real ruler). The sparsely populated desert territory of Transjordan, previously neglected by the power-brokers of the Middle East, was soon handed over to Abdullah, who was made amir of the land, by Great Britain, who was to serve as the amir's protector. Abdullah maintained his dream of establishing a Greater Syria, encompassing, crucially, the territory of Syria and Lebanon. He also intensely coveted the territory of Palestine on the other side of the Jordan river. The expansionist ambitions of Abdullah aroused deep antagonisms among other forces of Arab nationalism during this period, which, however, did not cause the amir to waiver in his stubborn ambitions, which were amplified by the fact that his father had just been deposed as ruler of Hijaz by the arch-rival of the Hashemite dynasty, Ibn Saud.
The Arab Revolt broke out in Palestine in the late 1930:s. The British appointed the Peel Commission with the aim of finding a workable solution to the conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalisms in Palestine. The commission ended up recommending the partition of mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state merged with Jordan -- not an independent state. The Palestinian Arab leadership rejected this proposal outright. The Zionist leadership did not formally accept the partition proposal either. In the ensuing years, the British position became less favorable toward the Jews. The British basically ended up reneging on the Balfour Declaration by issuing the infamous White Paper in the late 1930s:s that limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, and suggested that the idea of a Jewish state be abandoned. Even the White Paper formula for settling the conflict was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership; the Arab Higher Committee, headed by the mufti, even though it granted the Arabs of Palestine virtually everything they could have dreamt of. In this way, the mufti can be said to have thwarted the national aspirations of his people, Shlaim observes, not without justice. World War II now broke out and with it Hitler's genocide of Jews. One of the outcomes of the World War was the intensification of the process of Jewish immigration into Palestine. The first official commitment to a Jewish state by the Zionist leadership came in the form of the Biltmore program in 1942. It was in the context of these historical events that the Zionist relationship with amir Abdullah of Transjordan (later King Abdullah after Transjordan was granted independence by the British thanks to Abdullah's fervent support of the Allied side throughout the war), is to be understood. Abdullah kept to the position that he should annex Palestine, and even Syria, thus establishing a "Greater Syria". In return for achieving this aim, he was willing, unofficially, to agree to the partitioning of Palestine with the Jews exercising sovereignty over their part of the country. The Zionists endeavored to exploit this opportunity through informal negotiations, and the offering of financial inducements. In these maneuverings, the Palestinian Arab leadership was viewed as the prime enemy by both the Zionists and Abdullah. As Shlaim explains the Zionist reasoning: "To the question whether it was desirable to have as a neighbour such a large Arab state [as Abdullah's planned "Greater Syria"], [the Zionist emissary Elias] Sasson had a ready answer. It was desirable because it would prevent the emergence of a new Arab state headed by the mufti." (84)
Shortly before the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947 (which was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership), Abdullah had already concluded a pact with the Zionist leadership that he was to take over the parts of Palestine assigned to the Arab state. In order to realize this scheme, Abdullah also depended on the support of his British patron. Such support was obtained, making Britain into party to the conspiracy to preempt the possibility of Palestinian national independence. After describing the outcome of a meeting between the Transjordanian prime minister and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in February 1948, Shlaim notes that "From this point on, Britain worked in close cooperation with Abdullah to secure the expansion of his kingdom over most of Arab Palestine." (138-9) The Jews, however, were unaware of this fact. Thus, there was collusion between Abdullah and the Zionists as well as between Abdullah and the British, but not between the British and the Zionists. Great care was taken to keep these shenanigans secret, so that Abdullah would not arouse the ire of the Arab League, which was united in its total opposition to Jewish statehood. Britain also tried hard to keep up the appearance of loyalty toward the Arab League. At the same time, Abdullah tried to prevent the sending of irregular Arab fighters into Palestine in order to fight the Jews, in the civil war that had erupted in Palestine after the passage of the partition resolution. As the war proceeded, the Jews became more and more suspicious as to whether Abdullah really intended to fulfill his side of the bargain. In line with this reasoning, they also began to set their sights on territories larger than those allotted to them by the UN.
As the time of the expiration of the British mandate approached, the Arab states gathered in Damascus to draw up plans for an invasion of Palestine, in order to thwart the Jewish plan for statehood. These planning sessions were marked by considerable disunity and inter-Arab rivalry, which prevented the emergence of a cohesive military strategy. Syria, Egypt, and others aspired to bring about the total liberation of Palestine, while Abdullah, whose Arab Legion constituted the best equipped part of the Arab fighting force, and under whose formal command the operation was to be launched, was more interested in pursuing his own plans for annexing the Arab parts of Palestine. As the author outlines Abdullah's thinking at this moment, "Whereas the political objective implicit in the Arab League's plan was to prevent the partition of Palestine, Abdullah's objective was to effect the partition of Palestine by war and to bring the central part under his crown. By concentrating his own forces in the West Bank, Abdullah intended to eliminate once and for all any possibility of an independent Palestinian state and to present his partners with annexation as a fait accompli." (202). A few days before the end of the mandate, Abdullah once again met with the high Zionist official Golda Meir. Abdullah's statements during this meeting indicated an intention to renege on the promises he made previously to the Zionists (he now claimed to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state). Does this mean that the Zionist-Transjordanian collusion had come to a definitive end? Hardly. The full circumstances suggest nothing of the sort, as Shlaim documents in depth. The pattern in which Abdullah opted to deploy troops is the main factor undermining this thesis.
The efforts by the UN mediator count Folke Bernadotte to achieve a peace settlement having failed badly, the war resumed. The Transjordanian-led forces lost ground to the Israelis, who conquered strategically important bits of Arab territory. This intensified the other Arab states' hostility towards Abdullah. The other Arab leaders argued that, because Abdullah's Arab legion was commanded by a British general, the Legion had purposefully ceded ground in the battle as part of a British imperialist conspiracy to placate the Zionists. Pressure mounted on Abdullah to dismiss the British commanders of his Legion. The British General John Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion, was given a leave of absence. He traveled to Britain in order to plead for increased support from his government for the Transjordanian cause. Failure to provide support could lead Britain to suffer the loss of a valued client state, he argued. Hence, the British should use their position at the UN Security Council in order to bring about a settlement of the conflict that would be favorable to Abdullah. The British cabinet decided to heed this advice. "[British foreign secretary Ernest] Bevin told the Cabinet that any attempt to make further progress through direct discussions between the Arabs and Jews themselves would fail and that the only hope lay in the imposition of a settlement by the United Nations." (277) Bernadotte managed to broker a truce as well as to advance a proposal for settling the conflict before being assassinated by Jewish terrorists.
The truce ended when combat broke out in the Negev between Israel and Egypt. While the IDF crushed the Egyptians, Abdullah did not intervene. Shlaim offers the following bit of compelling evidence to show how IDF commander Yigael Yadin's efforts to deny the charge of tacit cooperation between Ben-Gurion and Abdullah are rather problematic: "[T]he on1y conceivable reason for the veto [by Ben-Gurion] of an exceptionally promising military plan [by Yigael Yadin to capture Hebron and advance toward Jerusalem] is that there were overriding political considerations, chief among which was Ben-Gurion's desire to preserve Transjordan's neutrality in the war between Israel and Egypt." (332)
In 1949, after having made impressive territorial gains, Israel agreed to negotiate separate armistice agreements with each Arab state. The armistice agreement with Jordan (the kingdom's new name) required that Abdullah make serious territorial concessions. About half of the UN-designated Palestinian state was taken over by Israel, with the West Bank being placed under Jordanian control. The Jordanian position throughout the negotiating period is instructive in that it lends further force to the claim that collusion was indeed taking place between the Zionists and the Hashemites on the question of Palestine. At a meeting with the Zionists in Shuneh on March 30 1949, Transjordanian Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul Huda, said: "Transjordan ... was pushed into a war which we strenuously tried to avoid. The only serious clash between our forces and yours, however, occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem. Other than that, we kept our forces within the boundaries of Arab Palestine. And this was according to the policy which both of us agreed on." (419) As the war came to an official end, this agreement remained in force, albeit with significant modifications to Israel's advantage.
A Conciliation Commission was established in Lausanne in 1949, for the purpose of bringing about a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This Commission was to prove an abject failure. The differences between Israel and the Arab states on the questions of refugees and territory could not be reconciled. Rivalries among different factions in the Arab world caused some of the Arab states to pursue bilateral negotiations with the Israelis while the Lausanne conference was proceeding. The Jordanians were anxious to gain international recognition of its conquest of the West Bank, and therefore sought to make peace with Israel in a way that involved compromises on the refugee issue. The Israeli response to this offer was lukewarm, however, because its relations with Jordan had by now been relegated to an issue of second-order importance. As Shlaim observes, "Many of Israel's politicians, officials, and military commanders subscribed to what might be termed the 'Egypt first' school of thought, to distinguish if from the 'Jordan first' school." This school of thought advocated giving "Egypt precedence over Jordan in Israel's quest for a peace settlement." (484) Bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and the Egyptians also took place at this time, but these were ultimately spoiled in large measure due to internal political developments in Egypt. During the Lausanne talks the Arab states were in fact ready to recognize Israel and to make peace with it, but Israel rejected these offers out of an unwillingness to accept the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees as well as eagerness to hang on to the pieces of territory that had been gained in the 1948 war. The stage was thus set for further conflict.
The Lausanne conference having produced nothing, formal bilateral negotiations were initiated n late 1949 and early 1950 between the Israelis and the Jordanians. A set of principles which were to serve as the basis for a comprehensive peace agreement between the two countries was arrived at and signed by the negotiators on both sides. Israel's military leadership did however intervene immediately to undermine this accord, compelling the Israeli negotiators to withdraw the promises they had just made. As Shlaim puts it, "[B]efore the ink was dry on the document that gave rise to so much hope, the Israelis began to renege on their promises. What [the Israeli negotiators Reuven] Shiloah and [Elias] Sasson had given with one hand, [Moshe] Dayan and his fellow officers clawed back with the other." (529) The main point of contention was the Jordanian insistence on being provided with a corridor of territory connecting their land to the Mediterranean sea, a concession that the Israelis were unwilling to make. Israeli rejectionism thus undermined these hopes for a lasting peace with Jordan. Soon after, the US General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem. Both Abdullah and the Israelis vehemently opposed such a scheme.
...
Shlaim reaches the conclusion that the fate of Palestine was sealed by the cooperation between the Zionists and Abdullah. Even before the UN partition plan a pact had been concluded between these parties to divide up Palestine between them. After the Israeli declaration of independence, while ostensibly participating in the Arabs' war against Israel, in reality, "Abdullah's aim remained the same ... He still wanted to occupy only the part of Palestine that was contiguous with his territory; he still regarded the Palestinian national movement and its leaders as the principal obstacle to the realization of his plan; and he had no intention of getting side-tracked into a full-scale war against the Jews that could only benefit his Palestinian rivals." This is why he worked to "wreck the invasion plan" of the Arab League. (619) This extraordinarily detailed, careful, and exhaustive study succeeds in a most impressive way in establishing Shlaim's thesis. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the subtle and fascinating political intrigues that occurred in the background of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and which severely undermines the standard, simplistic portrayal of this historical event, reading this book is indispensable. The book is written from the perspective of a sober, centrist analyst and not some kind of wide-eyed radical. Accusations of political bias are entirely misplaced.
Some apologists for Israel like to claim that the Palestinian Arabs were offered their own state in 1947 but they turned it down -- therefore they have only themselves to blame for their downfall. While it is true that the Palestinian Arabs rejected the partition resolution (although it is likely that they would have ultimately accepted the partition plan as a fait accompli if it had been implemented) and a strong argument can be made that the Palestinian leadership bears substantial responsibility for their people's plight (Shlaim, incidentally, basically endorses this view), the claim is still disingenuous, since the Zionists never had any intention of allowing an independent Palestinian Arab state to come into existence to begin with. The scholarly source that most authoritatively serves to clinch this point is this book.
The Hashemite dynasty was of the noblest Arab blood, tracing its lineage all the way back to the holy prophet of Islam. At the time of the First World War, Abdullah's father Husayn was the ruler of Hijaz, in present-day Saudi Arabia; then a province of the Ottoman empire. The Hashemites offered to fight with the British against the Turks and received ambiguous promises that Britain would support the national aspirations of Arabs (as formulated by the Hashemites) in return. After the war, and the consequent fall of the Ottoman empire, the region was parceled out so as to try to meet the conflicting demands of the British made by the French, the Hashemites, and the Jews (who had been promised a national homeland in Palestine in the 1917 Balfour declaration). Shlaim makes the following important point: "The political shape of the region did not evolve naturally, following its own internal laws, but was largely the product of British design tailored to fit Britain's own imperial needs." (30) For a brief period, Abdullah's brother Faisal ruled Syria, only to find himself deposed by the French. Later, Faisal was given nominal sovereignty over Iraq (with Britain being the real ruler). The sparsely populated desert territory of Transjordan, previously neglected by the power-brokers of the Middle East, was soon handed over to Abdullah, who was made amir of the land, by Great Britain, who was to serve as the amir's protector. Abdullah maintained his dream of establishing a Greater Syria, encompassing, crucially, the territory of Syria and Lebanon. He also intensely coveted the territory of Palestine on the other side of the Jordan river. The expansionist ambitions of Abdullah aroused deep antagonisms among other forces of Arab nationalism during this period, which, however, did not cause the amir to waiver in his stubborn ambitions, which were amplified by the fact that his father had just been deposed as ruler of Hijaz by the arch-rival of the Hashemite dynasty, Ibn Saud.
The Arab Revolt broke out in Palestine in the late 1930:s. The British appointed the Peel Commission with the aim of finding a workable solution to the conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalisms in Palestine. The commission ended up recommending the partition of mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state merged with Jordan -- not an independent state. The Palestinian Arab leadership rejected this proposal outright. The Zionist leadership did not formally accept the partition proposal either. In the ensuing years, the British position became less favorable toward the Jews. The British basically ended up reneging on the Balfour Declaration by issuing the infamous White Paper in the late 1930s:s that limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, and suggested that the idea of a Jewish state be abandoned. Even the White Paper formula for settling the conflict was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership; the Arab Higher Committee, headed by the mufti, even though it granted the Arabs of Palestine virtually everything they could have dreamt of. In this way, the mufti can be said to have thwarted the national aspirations of his people, Shlaim observes, not without justice. World War II now broke out and with it Hitler's genocide of Jews. One of the outcomes of the World War was the intensification of the process of Jewish immigration into Palestine. The first official commitment to a Jewish state by the Zionist leadership came in the form of the Biltmore program in 1942. It was in the context of these historical events that the Zionist relationship with amir Abdullah of Transjordan (later King Abdullah after Transjordan was granted independence by the British thanks to Abdullah's fervent support of the Allied side throughout the war), is to be understood. Abdullah kept to the position that he should annex Palestine, and even Syria, thus establishing a "Greater Syria". In return for achieving this aim, he was willing, unofficially, to agree to the partitioning of Palestine with the Jews exercising sovereignty over their part of the country. The Zionists endeavored to exploit this opportunity through informal negotiations, and the offering of financial inducements. In these maneuverings, the Palestinian Arab leadership was viewed as the prime enemy by both the Zionists and Abdullah. As Shlaim explains the Zionist reasoning: "To the question whether it was desirable to have as a neighbour such a large Arab state [as Abdullah's planned "Greater Syria"], [the Zionist emissary Elias] Sasson had a ready answer. It was desirable because it would prevent the emergence of a new Arab state headed by the mufti." (84)
Shortly before the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947 (which was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership), Abdullah had already concluded a pact with the Zionist leadership that he was to take over the parts of Palestine assigned to the Arab state. In order to realize this scheme, Abdullah also depended on the support of his British patron. Such support was obtained, making Britain into party to the conspiracy to preempt the possibility of Palestinian national independence. After describing the outcome of a meeting between the Transjordanian prime minister and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in February 1948, Shlaim notes that "From this point on, Britain worked in close cooperation with Abdullah to secure the expansion of his kingdom over most of Arab Palestine." (138-9) The Jews, however, were unaware of this fact. Thus, there was collusion between Abdullah and the Zionists as well as between Abdullah and the British, but not between the British and the Zionists. Great care was taken to keep these shenanigans secret, so that Abdullah would not arouse the ire of the Arab League, which was united in its total opposition to Jewish statehood. Britain also tried hard to keep up the appearance of loyalty toward the Arab League. At the same time, Abdullah tried to prevent the sending of irregular Arab fighters into Palestine in order to fight the Jews, in the civil war that had erupted in Palestine after the passage of the partition resolution. As the war proceeded, the Jews became more and more suspicious as to whether Abdullah really intended to fulfill his side of the bargain. In line with this reasoning, they also began to set their sights on territories larger than those allotted to them by the UN.
As the time of the expiration of the British mandate approached, the Arab states gathered in Damascus to draw up plans for an invasion of Palestine, in order to thwart the Jewish plan for statehood. These planning sessions were marked by considerable disunity and inter-Arab rivalry, which prevented the emergence of a cohesive military strategy. Syria, Egypt, and others aspired to bring about the total liberation of Palestine, while Abdullah, whose Arab Legion constituted the best equipped part of the Arab fighting force, and under whose formal command the operation was to be launched, was more interested in pursuing his own plans for annexing the Arab parts of Palestine. As the author outlines Abdullah's thinking at this moment, "Whereas the political objective implicit in the Arab League's plan was to prevent the partition of Palestine, Abdullah's objective was to effect the partition of Palestine by war and to bring the central part under his crown. By concentrating his own forces in the West Bank, Abdullah intended to eliminate once and for all any possibility of an independent Palestinian state and to present his partners with annexation as a fait accompli." (202). A few days before the end of the mandate, Abdullah once again met with the high Zionist official Golda Meir. Abdullah's statements during this meeting indicated an intention to renege on the promises he made previously to the Zionists (he now claimed to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state). Does this mean that the Zionist-Transjordanian collusion had come to a definitive end? Hardly. The full circumstances suggest nothing of the sort, as Shlaim documents in depth. The pattern in which Abdullah opted to deploy troops is the main factor undermining this thesis.
The efforts by the UN mediator count Folke Bernadotte to achieve a peace settlement having failed badly, the war resumed. The Transjordanian-led forces lost ground to the Israelis, who conquered strategically important bits of Arab territory. This intensified the other Arab states' hostility towards Abdullah. The other Arab leaders argued that, because Abdullah's Arab legion was commanded by a British general, the Legion had purposefully ceded ground in the battle as part of a British imperialist conspiracy to placate the Zionists. Pressure mounted on Abdullah to dismiss the British commanders of his Legion. The British General John Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion, was given a leave of absence. He traveled to Britain in order to plead for increased support from his government for the Transjordanian cause. Failure to provide support could lead Britain to suffer the loss of a valued client state, he argued. Hence, the British should use their position at the UN Security Council in order to bring about a settlement of the conflict that would be favorable to Abdullah. The British cabinet decided to heed this advice. "[British foreign secretary Ernest] Bevin told the Cabinet that any attempt to make further progress through direct discussions between the Arabs and Jews themselves would fail and that the only hope lay in the imposition of a settlement by the United Nations." (277) Bernadotte managed to broker a truce as well as to advance a proposal for settling the conflict before being assassinated by Jewish terrorists.
The truce ended when combat broke out in the Negev between Israel and Egypt. While the IDF crushed the Egyptians, Abdullah did not intervene. Shlaim offers the following bit of compelling evidence to show how IDF commander Yigael Yadin's efforts to deny the charge of tacit cooperation between Ben-Gurion and Abdullah are rather problematic: "[T]he on1y conceivable reason for the veto [by Ben-Gurion] of an exceptionally promising military plan [by Yigael Yadin to capture Hebron and advance toward Jerusalem] is that there were overriding political considerations, chief among which was Ben-Gurion's desire to preserve Transjordan's neutrality in the war between Israel and Egypt." (332)
In 1949, after having made impressive territorial gains, Israel agreed to negotiate separate armistice agreements with each Arab state. The armistice agreement with Jordan (the kingdom's new name) required that Abdullah make serious territorial concessions. About half of the UN-designated Palestinian state was taken over by Israel, with the West Bank being placed under Jordanian control. The Jordanian position throughout the negotiating period is instructive in that it lends further force to the claim that collusion was indeed taking place between the Zionists and the Hashemites on the question of Palestine. At a meeting with the Zionists in Shuneh on March 30 1949, Transjordanian Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul Huda, said: "Transjordan ... was pushed into a war which we strenuously tried to avoid. The only serious clash between our forces and yours, however, occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem. Other than that, we kept our forces within the boundaries of Arab Palestine. And this was according to the policy which both of us agreed on." (419) As the war came to an official end, this agreement remained in force, albeit with significant modifications to Israel's advantage.
A Conciliation Commission was established in Lausanne in 1949, for the purpose of bringing about a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This Commission was to prove an abject failure. The differences between Israel and the Arab states on the questions of refugees and territory could not be reconciled. Rivalries among different factions in the Arab world caused some of the Arab states to pursue bilateral negotiations with the Israelis while the Lausanne conference was proceeding. The Jordanians were anxious to gain international recognition of its conquest of the West Bank, and therefore sought to make peace with Israel in a way that involved compromises on the refugee issue. The Israeli response to this offer was lukewarm, however, because its relations with Jordan had by now been relegated to an issue of second-order importance. As Shlaim observes, "Many of Israel's politicians, officials, and military commanders subscribed to what might be termed the 'Egypt first' school of thought, to distinguish if from the 'Jordan first' school." This school of thought advocated giving "Egypt precedence over Jordan in Israel's quest for a peace settlement." (484) Bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and the Egyptians also took place at this time, but these were ultimately spoiled in large measure due to internal political developments in Egypt. During the Lausanne talks the Arab states were in fact ready to recognize Israel and to make peace with it, but Israel rejected these offers out of an unwillingness to accept the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees as well as eagerness to hang on to the pieces of territory that had been gained in the 1948 war. The stage was thus set for further conflict.
The Lausanne conference having produced nothing, formal bilateral negotiations were initiated n late 1949 and early 1950 between the Israelis and the Jordanians. A set of principles which were to serve as the basis for a comprehensive peace agreement between the two countries was arrived at and signed by the negotiators on both sides. Israel's military leadership did however intervene immediately to undermine this accord, compelling the Israeli negotiators to withdraw the promises they had just made. As Shlaim puts it, "[B]efore the ink was dry on the document that gave rise to so much hope, the Israelis began to renege on their promises. What [the Israeli negotiators Reuven] Shiloah and [Elias] Sasson had given with one hand, [Moshe] Dayan and his fellow officers clawed back with the other." (529) The main point of contention was the Jordanian insistence on being provided with a corridor of territory connecting their land to the Mediterranean sea, a concession that the Israelis were unwilling to make. Israeli rejectionism thus undermined these hopes for a lasting peace with Jordan. Soon after, the US General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem. Both Abdullah and the Israelis vehemently opposed such a scheme.
...
Shlaim reaches the conclusion that the fate of Palestine was sealed by the cooperation between the Zionists and Abdullah. Even before the UN partition plan a pact had been concluded between these parties to divide up Palestine between them. After the Israeli declaration of independence, while ostensibly participating in the Arabs' war against Israel, in reality, "Abdullah's aim remained the same ... He still wanted to occupy only the part of Palestine that was contiguous with his territory; he still regarded the Palestinian national movement and its leaders as the principal obstacle to the realization of his plan; and he had no intention of getting side-tracked into a full-scale war against the Jews that could only benefit his Palestinian rivals." This is why he worked to "wreck the invasion plan" of the Arab League. (619) This extraordinarily detailed, careful, and exhaustive study succeeds in a most impressive way in establishing Shlaim's thesis. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the subtle and fascinating political intrigues that occurred in the background of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and which severely undermines the standard, simplistic portrayal of this historical event, reading this book is indispensable. The book is written from the perspective of a sober, centrist analyst and not some kind of wide-eyed radical. Accusations of political bias are entirely misplaced.
Some apologists for Israel like to claim that the Palestinian Arabs were offered their own state in 1947 but they turned it down -- therefore they have only themselves to blame for their downfall. While it is true that the Palestinian Arabs rejected the partition resolution (although it is likely that they would have ultimately accepted the partition plan as a fait accompli if it had been implemented) and a strong argument can be made that the Palestinian leadership bears substantial responsibility for their people's plight (Shlaim, incidentally, basically endorses this view), the claim is still disingenuous, since the Zionists never had any intention of allowing an independent Palestinian Arab state to come into existence to begin with. The scholarly source that most authoritatively serves to clinch this point is this book.
March 23, 2017
Thought provoking and a surprisingly easy read considering the level of scholarship present in the book. I just wish he had kept the footnotes in this condensed version.
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