In this book, Isaiah Friedman examines one of the most complex problems that bedeviled Middle East politics in the interwar period, one that still remains controversial. The prevailing view is that during World War I the British government made conflicting commitments to the Arabs, to the French, and to the Jews. Through a rigorous examination of the documentary evidence, Friedman demolishes the myth that Palestine was a "twice-promised land" and shows that the charges of fraudulence and deception leveled against the British are groundless. Central to Arab claims on Palestine was a letter dated 24 October 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, to King Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, pledging Arab independence. Friedman shows that this letter was conditional on a general Arab uprising against the Turks. Predicated on reciprocal action, the letter committed the British to recognize and uphold Arab independence in the areas of the Fertile Crescent once it was liberated by the Arabs themselves. As all evidence shows, few tribes rebelled against the Turks. The Arabs in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia fought for the Ottoman Empire against the British. In addition to its non-binding nature, McMahon's letter has been misinterpreted with respect to the territories it covers. Friedman's archival discovery of the Arabic version actually read by Hussein indisputably shows that Palestine was not included in the British pledge. Indeed, Hussein welcomed the return of the Jews just as his son Emir Feisal believed that Arab-Jewish cooperation would be a means to build Arab independence without the interference of the European powers. Myth-shattering and meticulously documented, Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? is revisionist history in the truest sense of the word.

An Israeli woman writes about growing up amid war and ancestral trauma and later building a friendship with a Palestinian woman in America. Israeli storyteller Noa Baum grew up in Jerusalem in the shadow of the ancestral traumas of the holocaust and ongoing wars. Stories of the past and fear of annihilation in the wars of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s shaped her perceptions and identity. In America, she met a Palestinian woman who had grown up under Israeli Occupation, and as they shared memories of war years in Jerusalem, an unlikely friendship blossomed. A Land Twice Promised delves into the heart of one of the world’s most enduring and complex conflicts. Baum’s deeply personal memoir recounts her journey from girlhood in post-Holocaust Israel to her adult encounter with “the other.” With honesty, compassion, and humor, she captures the drama of a nation at war and her discovery of humanity in the enemy. Winner of the 2017 Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award, among others, this compelling memoir demonstrates the transformative power of art and challenges each reader to take the first step toward peace. Praise for A Land Twice Promised “A penetrating, introspective memoir that mines the depths of the chasm between the Israeli and Palestinian experiences, the torment of family loss and conflict, and the therapy of storytelling as a cleansing art. You will not think in the same way at the end of this captivating book as you did at the beginning.” —David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land

In this book, Isaiah Friedman examines one of the most complex problems that bedeviled Middle East politics in the interwar period, one that still remains controversial. The prevailing view is that during World War I the British government made conflicting commitments to the Arabs, to the French, and to the Jews. Through a rigorous examination of the documentary evidence, Friedman demolishes the myth that Palestine was a "twice-promised land" and shows that the charges of fraudulence and deception leveled against the British are groundless. Central to Arab claims on Palestine was a letter dated 24 October 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, to King Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, pledging Arab independence. Friedman shows that this letter was conditional on a general Arab uprising against the Turks. Predicated on reciprocal action, the letter committed the British to recognize and uphold Arab independence in the areas of the Fertile Crescent once it was liberated by the Arabs themselves. As all evidence shows, few tribes rebelled against the Turks. The Arabs in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia fought for the Ottoman Empire against the British. In addition to its non-binding nature, McMahon's letter has been misinterpreted with respect to the territories it covers. Friedman's archival discovery of the Arabic version actually read by Hussein indisputably shows that Palestine was not included in the British pledge. Indeed, Hussein welcomed the return of the Jews just as his son Emir Feisal believed that Arab-Jewish cooperation would be a means to build Arab independence without the interference of the European powers. Myth-shattering and meticulously documented, Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? is revisionist history in the truest sense of the word.

A panoramic and provocative history of life in Palestine during the three strife-torn but romantic decades when Britain ruled and the seeds of today's conflicts were sown Tom Segev's acclaimed works, 1949 and The Seventh Million, overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now Segev explores the dramatic period before the creation of the state, when Britain ruled over "one Palestine, complete" (as noted in the receipt signed by the High Commissioner) and when its promise to both Jews and Arabs that they would inherit the land set in motion the conflict that haunts the region to this day. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials, Segev reconstructs a tumultuous era (1917 to 1948) of limitless possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures--General Allenby, Lawrence of Arabia, David Ben-Gurion--as well as an array of pioneers, secret agents, diplomats, and fanatics. He tracks the steady advance of Jews and Arabs toward confrontation and with his hallmark originality puts forward a radical new argument: that the British, far from being pro-Arab, as commonly thought, consistently favored the Zionist position, and did so out of the mistaken--and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history. Rich in unforgettable characters, sensitive to all perspectives, One Palestine, Complete brilliantly depicts the decline of an empire, the birth of one nation, and the tragedy of another.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra Klein, The New York Times Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Ari Shavit’s riveting work, now updated with new material, draws on historical documents, interviews, and private diaries and letters, as well as his own family’s story, to create a narrative larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and of profound historical dimension. As he examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, Shavit asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can it survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. Shavit’s analysis of Israeli history provides a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.

My Promised Land by Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit has been one of the most widely discussed and lavishly praised books about Israel in recent years. It has garnered encomiums from a broad spectrum of influential voices, including Thomas Friedman, David Remnick, Jonathan Freedland, Jeffrey Goldberg, Franklin Foer, and Dwight Garner. Were he not already inured to the logrolling that passes for informed opinion on this topic, Norman Finkelstein might have been surprised, astonished even. That’s because, as he reveals with typical precision, My Promised Land is riddled with omission, distortion, falsehood, and sheer nonsense. In brief chapters that analyze Shavit’s defense of Zionism and Israel’s Jewish identity, its nuclear arsenal and its refusal to negotiate peace, Finkelstein shows how highly selective criticism and sanctimonious handwringing are deployed to create a paean to modern Israel more sophisticated than the traditional our-country-right-or-wrong. In this way, Shavit hopes to win back an American Jewish community increasingly alienated from a place it once regarded as home. However, because the myths he recycles have been so comprehensively shattered, this project is unlikely to succeed. Like his landmark debunking of Joan Peters’s From Time Immemorial, Finkelstein’s clinical dissection of My Promised Land will be welcomed by those who prefer truth to propaganda, and who yearn for a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict based on justice, rather than arguments framed by anguish and schmaltz.

A major history of Zionism and the state of Israel—for anyone interested in deepening their knowledge of the Israel-Palestine conflict and Middle Eastern politics “[Ilan Pappé] is . . . one of the few Israeli students of the conflict who write about the Palestinian side with real knowledge and empathy.” —Guardian Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has drawn on Zionism, the movement behind its creation, to provide a sense of self and political direction. In this groundbreaking new work, Ilan Pappe looks at the continued role of Zionist ideology. The Idea of Israel considers the way Zionism operates outside of the government and military in areas such as the country’s education system, media, and cinema, and the uses that are made of the Holocaust in supporting the state’s ideological structure. In particular, Pappe examines the way successive generations of historians have framed the 1948 conflict as a liberation campaign, creating a foundation myth that went unquestioned in Israeli society until the 1990s. Pappe himself was part of the post-Zionist movement that arose then. He was attacked and received death threats as he exposed the truth about how Palestinians have been treated and the gruesome structure that links the production of knowledge to the exercise of power. The Idea of Israel is a powerful and urgent intervention in the war of ideas concerning the past, and the future, of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.