I purchased this book, along with two of Segev's other books (1949 and 1967) with the hope that together the three books would form a sort of comprehensive history of the state of Israel from the end of WWI to the Six Day War. However, after finishing One Palestine, Complete, I need a breather from Segev's writing style, so I do not know when or if I will get to the next two books.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the book presumes some sophisitication and familiarity by the reader of basic historical events. For example, the book only makes passing reference to the explosion of the King David Hotel. I have no objection to the presumption that the reader has familiarity with basic events. My primary complaint with this book is that it can't seem to make up its mind as to what it wants to be...social history, economic history, political history, or a simple narrative of events. In the final analysis, it ends up succeeding at none of those attempts.

Along the way, there are insightful personal vignettes of persons obscure and prominent, written in a style that comes close to evoking David Halberstam's technique of telling the story by stitching together the stories of various individuals, but Segev is unable sustain that approach, and, especially as the book concludes, begins to get rather careless with the chronology, the events, and the personalities.

Other reviewers have disputed Segev's historical facts and analysis, and I don't quibble with either those reviews or Segev's history. My disapppointment is with the structure and writing style itself, which I can only describle as rather undisciplined.

I tried to rationalize my disappointment in the book by reminding myself that it is an English translation, and, since I don't read Hebrew,possibly Segev's original text might be more tightly written and that perhaps something was diminished in the process of translation. I don't know that, however, so it is only speculation on my part.

To sum up: flawed writing and rendition of a fascinating subject.

In an effort to produce as complete a picture as possible the author has written a book that does seem to drag on in places. One Palestine enmeshes the reader into a mire of details, some of which are repeated in other parts of the book (in case you missed it the first time).

With that being said the book certainly provides a treasury of information on the details of British policy makers, Zionist organizations, lives of early settlers and the reactions of the Arab populace which found itself increasingly outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the newcomers. One Palestine just doesn't give the reader a general idea of what happened when, rather it tries to give the reader an idea of how attitudes began to change amongst the key players and why.

In an effort to produce as complete a picture as possible the author has written a book that does seem to drag on in places. One Palestine enmeshes the reader into a mire of details, some of which are repeated in other parts of the book (in case you missed it the first time).

With that being said the book certainly provides a treasury of information on the details of British policy makers, Zionist organizations, lives of early settlers and the reactions of the Arab populace which found itself increasingly outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the newcomers. One Palestine just doesn't give the reader a general idea of what happened when, rather it tries to give the reader an idea of how attitudes began to change amongst the key players and why.

I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a lively, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.

Segev's book is well written and deeply humane, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.

I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece "A Peace to End All Peace") emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.

As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not meditate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally appear? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:

First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationhood was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.

Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nation allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.

Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.

Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).

It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?

First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.

Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.

We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?

Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, new questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.

I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a lively, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.

Segev's book is well written and deeply humane, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.

I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece "A Peace to End All Peace") emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.

As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not meditate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally appear? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:

First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationhood was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.

Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nation allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.

Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.

Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).

It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?

First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.

Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.

We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?

Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, new questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.

I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a lively, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.



Segev's book is well written and deeply humane, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.



I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East") emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.



As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not meditate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally appear? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:



First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationhood was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.



Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.



No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nation allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.



Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.



Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).



It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?



First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.



Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.



We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?



Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, new questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.

I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a fascinating, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.

Segev's book is a well written and deeply humane book, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether David Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Lord Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.

I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East) emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.

As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not medtiate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally emerge? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:

First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationality was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.

Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nationality allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.

Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.

Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).

It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?

First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.

Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.

We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?

Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, new questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.

I read Tom Segev's book on Mandatory Palestine in the original Hebrew, so I cannot tell you how well it translates to English or to what extent the translation reflects the source. But Segev's book is a fascinating, if not coherent enough, description of Israel's rise and the British role in it.

Segev's book is a well written and deeply humane book, reflecting the lives and times of ordinary (and extraordinary) people in Palestine and Britain. That said, the book has considerable weaknesses: It does not properly introduce to us the main protagonists, whether David Ben Gurion, The Mufti Al Husseini, Lord Balfour, or any other major personality. The focus is squarely on the Jews and British; the account of the Arabs is largely unsatisfactory; and while I can't quite prove it, I feel that Segev pushes his overarching thesis a little further than the evidence actually goes.

I am unconvinced, for example, that the main or only causes for the British pro-Zionist stand, particularly the Balfour Declaration, has been the British delusions of Jewish world-dominating power and the personal charisma of Chaim Weismann. Standard accounts (such as David Fromkin's masterpiece "A Peace to End All Peace") emphasize the role of Zionism as a bulwark against French Middle Eastern ambitions, but for Segev this was a minor concern at most.

As Segev tells it, the story of Palestine under the British mandate is the story of one National movement, supported by the British Overlords, overwhelming its rival for the land. But Segev does not mediate on the emergence of a separate Palestinian nationhood - when did it really, finally emerge? The question of when a separate Palestinian nationhood emerged is significant in at least two ways:

First, before a Palestinian nation existed, it was unlikely that Palestinians could offer serious resistance to Israeli Jews. Thus if Palestinian nationality was only consolidated in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there were no prospects for One Palestine, complete and dominated by Arabs. To be effective, Palestinian resistance had to be massive and early. By the mid 1930s, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine was a foregone conclusion. The only questions were its boundaries and the amount of bloodshed it would take to establish it.

Second, the question is relevant for assessing to what extent immigrating Jews realized that the dream of a Jewish State meant the inevitable destruction of a Palestinian nation. The fact that, contrary to Zionist Propaganda, Zionism did not involve sending a "People without a country to a country without people" was deeply troubling to the emergent Jewish Nation. It considered itself a European state committed to European values of human rights and democracy, and yet it fostered a program that led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

No wonder Jews tended to brush the question aside! Pretending that there was no Palestinian Nationality allowed them to focus on the economic benefits the Arabs in Palestine would get from the Zionist program, and to patronizingly see themselves as bringing superior European culture to the natives.

Segev's account convinced me that to the extent that Jews believed that, they did so recklessly, by willingly blinding themselves to reality. Haim Weizmann "determined" that there was no Palestinian nation by fiat (p. 95). He made no attempt to actually study the question.

Ben Gurion had been more far sighted, honest, and cruel: "everyone sees a difficulty in the question of the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs" he said "Yet not everyone realizes that it has no solution. No solution! There is an Abyss and nothing can bridge it. The conflict between the Interests of the Jews and Arabs in Israel cannot be solved by Sophism... there is a national question: We want the land for ourselves as a people, and the Arabs want it for themselves" (p.100).

It seems that the Jews knew, or should have known, what the consequences of their project were. And yet, is it fair to fully condemn them?

First, Jews were not alone in failing to completely realize the inevitability of the Conflict. Most of the world's statesman did, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. From their perspective, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened endless new opportunities in the Middle East. That there would be a piece of it for the Jews may not have seemed too outlandish; Even Hashemite King Feisal had agreed.

Second, there is the Holocaust. The establishment of a Jewish Settlement in Palestine undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of innocent people from Nazi extermination.

We've covered the British and the Jews. But what about the Arabs? Why did they not seek accommodation with the Jews? The Palestinians were facing a better organized, better led, better armed national movement. If Segev is right, they had to face the British, biased, pro-Israeli referees. How did they fail to realize the inevitable consequences of their refusal to compromise? A Palestinian acceptance of the Peel Commission report and the partition of Palestine in 1937 would have given the Palestinian a homeland in most of Palestine. The rejection of the partition plan led to the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, and to the Palestinian `Nakba' - the disaster, namely the flood of some 750,000 refugees from mandatory Palestine (p. 412). Who was responsible for the failure of leadership? Segev, the British, and Arabs themselves frequently compared the situation in Palestine with the situation in Ireland. But the Irish question ended in compromise. Where was the Palestinian Michael Collins?

Segev's book is silent about this question. His masterly (if incomplete) account of the early years of the mandate loses steam at the outbreak of the Second World War. The interpretive approach clearly breaks down - by 1940, it was by no means clear that the British were pro-Zionists in any real sense. New passions have steered, no questions raised: and for all its strengths, Segev's book doesn't answer them.

This is Segev's finest work, and even if you disagree with its general thesis or its particular details, few can find fault with Segev's organization of his materials; he provides a wealth of larger information about the Mandatory period, but tempers it with a few individual "characters" who he introduces and reintroduces, here and there, to illustrate the human dimension of this period. In an area of study where few people will be wholly pleased, this aspect of the work can be nearly universally agreed upon. Independent of its historiagraphical worth (which I think is quite high), One Palestine, Complete, is well written and completely realized.

This is Segev's finest work, and even if you disagree with its general thesis or its particular details, few can find fault with Segev's organization of his materials; he provides a wealth of larger information about the Mandatory period, but tempers it with a few individual "characters" who he introduces and reintroduces, here and there, to illustrate the human dimension of this period. In an area of study where few people will be wholly pleased, this aspect of the work can be nearly universally agreed upon. Independent of its historiagraphical worth (which I think is quite high), One Palestine, Complete, is well written and completely realized.

I am a sophomore in highschool who had the opportunity to read One Palestine, Complete instead of the usual textbook readings on the story of Palestine. Tom Segev used first hand sources to compile a complete history of all the events from the British taking control to the creation of Isreal. He did a wonderful job writing a detailed account of Palestine, and I recomend reading the book if you would like to learn more about the origins of the conflicts that still occur to this day in that region.

Tom Segev was able to make the book interesting and fun to read while still providing information about Palestine. Every page had something new and facinating, small things that would build up to help me understand the whole novel completely. For example, I found it interesting why the British government was so interested in Zionism. Segev wrote many chapters to fully explain all the people involved in the politics behind the decisions made, and the real motivations behind them. Using quotes from people and documents, he illustrated clearly why things happened the way they did.

Also, Segev wrote a very objective book on a very controversial subject. When writing on terrorist actions in the region, he explained both sides and gave the reasoning behind these people's feelings and actions. He spent time to make sure the reader would comprehended the motives of the terrorist, while still taking time to explain the reactions of the victoms of these attacks. The reader gets a sence of understanding on the issue, not a one sided argument.

I would recomend reading this book for anyone who wants to be enlightened on a much less known subject in history. This book is very objective, and well writen. If anything, you will enjoy reading it.

While I did enjoy this book (I read it on an airline ride back from of all places: Israel) Segev seems to be one of these authors who is fascinated with making the Zionists in Israel look like English/Boer colonialists in South Africa, aka racist and uncarring to the "natives."

Even the assumtion that is made that the Arabs WERE "natives" was completely wrong considering Jews have had a connection to the region of Palestine for over 4000 years.

On top of that there were a number of factual errors such as the footnote on page 386 stating, "In its early years Etzel [Irgun] targeted only Arabs." Just the way this is said makes Irgun out to be a racsist anti-Arab group. Maybe Segev passed over other literature but the Irgun's (Etzel) attacks were (for that time) directed soley at the Arabs mainly because of Arab provications (note: Irgun launched small operations 1931-1937, for those of you who familiar with what happened in that period you would know that there were frequent Arab riots especially in 1929 and again in 1936 with the "great riot" leading to 320 Jews killed).

Regarding the book itself, it was a somewhat quick read with some very slow parts in the middle. I would recommend this book, but remember to read a few other sources before picking this book up.

While I did enjoy this book (I read it on an airline ride back from of all places: Israel) Segev seems to be one of these authors who is fascinated with making the Zionists in Israel look like English/Boer colonialists in South Africa, aka racist and uncarring to the "natives."

Even the assumtion that is made that the Arabs WERE "natives" was completely wrong considering Jews have had a connection to the region of Palestine for over 4000 years.

On top of that there were a number of factual errors such as the footnote on page 386 stating, "In its early years Etzel [Irgun] targeted only Arabs." Just the way this is said makes Irgun out to be a racsist anti-Arab group. Maybe Segev passed over other literature but the Irgun's (Etzel) attacks were (for that time) directed soley at the Arabs mainly because of Arab provications (note: Irgun launched small operations 1931-1937, for those of you who familiar with what happened in that period you would know that there were frequent Arab riots especially in 1929 and again in 1936 with the "great riot" leading to 320 Jews killed).

Regarding the book itself, it was a somewhat quick read with some very slow parts in the middle. I would recommend this book, but remember to read a few other sources before picking this book up.

Writing this book was a brave act. In it, Segev takes it upon himself to challenge what amounts to national mythology presented as history. Segev isn't always right in the book, but he is more often right than wrong. Thats what upsets so many reviewers. Its not that they find what he has written to be incorrect, its that such books (and the facts that go with them) should be suppressed in favor of patroitic national history as handed down.

The value of this patriotic national history is close to zero now however. Israel's support, for example, in the US is no longer based on liberal romaticism. Its based on fanatic israeli-hating fundementalist christians whose love for Israel is based on the need for it to be destroyed at the proper time as part of their prophecies. If asked, they can explain how god's love for Israel is such that Israel must be destroyed in a final war where the only survivors will be Israeli christian converts.

That said, several criticisms of the book deserve to be challenged:

There is no historic, legal or even theoretical palestine that included all of what is today Jordan. The boundary of palestine east of the jordan was never determined until the early 1920s when Transjordan was created (see the mandate text for proof). The League of Nations sanctioned every act with regard to the creation of Transjordan and every act was consistant with the mandate, as written.

None of the Zionists of the period ever assumed that they were entitled or had been promised the entire territory of Jordan. At best, some of them argued for the whole of the Jordan River Valley for part of Palestine. But they made similar arguments for territory in Lebannon and Syria as well. No Contemporary Zionist thought that they had been promised all the territory of modern Jordan.

The problem of the mandate is that no one involved thought through what would be required to implement it. The existing population was certainly not going to accept being displaced without resistance. And when they did rise up in the 1920s and 1930s, the british had three choices: 1) Arm the Zionists and inagurate a civil war 2) Massacre and displace the Arab population or 3) Give up on the unrealistic goals of the mandate.

The British lacked the money, the brutality and the national will to impose the mandate by force. They tried to give up it, but eventually the Zionists armed themselves and inagurated what they always wanted: a civil war. The British, bankrupted by the war, then gave up and left them (and their neighbors) to fight it out.

Make no mistake, democratic Israel could not have been created except through war and refugees. If there had been no war and no movement of population in 1948, Israel could have only existed as a state without democracy. Most (if not nearly all) Israelis know this. Its only idiots trying to convince non-Israelis that even suggest otherwise. Israel won its existance in war. The refugees created by that war deserved resettlement and compensation (and still do!) but once Israel was created by force of arms, there was (and is) no going back.

The resettlement and compensation issues are not an Israeli failure, they were a failure of the US/UN/UK and most of the rest of the international community. Palestinians were placed in permenant refugee camps rather than resettled to create a visible humantarian crisis for anti-Israel purposes. Even to this day, if the will existed to do something the refugee problem and the problem of compensation for lost land in Israel could be quickly solved.

Where Israel was (and is wrong) isn't in 1917 or 1948, but after the 1967 war when the policy of settlements created a situation where Israel would either absorb the large arab population of the territories or become an non-democratic country. That is the problem Israel lives with today. And strangest of all, Israel itself could have solved the problem of the refugee camps after 1967 (broken them up) but went along with the UN in keeping them operating.

The mandate and its failure are the problems of the British and the (defunct) League of Nations. Whatever the history of Israel before 1948, its patriots created the country by force in 1948 and have protected it since. The Balfour declaration didn't create Israel, war in 1948 and its people created Israel. And now that its existed for 50+ years, whatever events before 1948 were, they do not justify erasing Israel from the map or destroying it. But its well past time to start admitting the historical truth. The unworkable mandate and its failure are a historical problem for the British, not Israel.

Absolutely evil dishonest works (like "From Time Immemorial") also need to be ignored and forgotten rather than quoted by those who would support Israel.

Its well past time for Israel to embrace its true history and legtimacy. Its time to stop trying to defend false history from the truth and get on with solving the problems of Israel in 2005 rather than the problems of 1922 or 1939.

Writing this book was a brave act. In it, Segev takes it upon himself to challenge what amounts to national mythology presented as history. Segev isn't always right in the book, but he is more often right than wrong. Thats what upsets so many reviewers. Its not that they find what he has written to be incorrect, its that such books (and the facts that go with them) should be suppressed in favor of patroitic national history as handed down.

The value of this patriotic national history is close to zero now however. Israel's support, for example, in the US is no longer based on liberal romaticism. Its based on fanatic israeli-hating fundementalist christians whose love for Israel is based on the need for it to be destroyed at the proper time as part of their prophecies. If asked, they can explain how god's love for Israel is such that Israel must be destroyed in a final war where the only survivors will be Israeli christian converts.

That said, several criticisms of the book deserve to be challenged:

There is no historic, legal or even theoretical palestine that included all of what is today Jordan. The boundary of palestine east of the jordan was never determined until the early 1920s when Transjordan was created (see the mandate text for proof). The League of Nations sanctioned every act with regard to the creation of Transjordan and every act was consistant with the mandate, as written.

None of the Zionists of the period ever assumed that they were entitled or had been promised the entire territory of Jordan. At best, some of them argued for the whole of the Jordan River Valley for part of Palestine. But they made similar arguments for territory in Lebannon and Syria as well. No Contemporary Zionist thought that they had been promised all the territory of modern Jordan.

The problem of the mandate is that no one involved thought through what would be required to implement it. The existing population was certainly not going to accept being displaced without resistance. And when they did rise up in the 1920s and 1930s, the british had three choices: 1) Arm the Zionists and inagurate a civil war 2) Massacre and displace the Arab population or 3) Give up on the unrealistic goals of the mandate.

The British lacked the money, the brutality and the national will to impose the mandate by force. They tried to give up it, but eventually the Zionists armed themselves and inagurated what they always wanted: a civil war. The British, bankrupted by the war, then gave up and left them (and their neighbors) to fight it out.

Make no mistake, democratic Israel could not have been created except through war and refugees. If there had been no war and no movement of population in 1948, Israel could have only existed as a state without democracy. Most (if not nearly all) Israelis know this. Its only idiots trying to convince non-Israelis that even suggest otherwise. Israel won its existance in war. The refugees created by that war deserved resettlement and compensation (and still do!) but once Israel was created by force of arms, there was (and is) no going back.

The resettlement and compensation issues are not an Israeli failure, they were a failure of the US/UN/UK and most of the rest of the international community. Palestinians were placed in permenant refugee camps rather than resettled to create a visible humantarian crisis for anti-Israel purposes. Even to this day, if the will existed to do something the refugee problem and the problem of compensation for lost land in Israel could be quickly solved.

Where Israel was (and is wrong) isn't in 1917 or 1948, but after the 1967 war when the policy of settlements created a situation where Israel would either absorb the large arab population of the territories or become an non-democratic country. That is the problem Israel lives with today. And strangest of all, Israel itself could have solved the problem of the refugee camps after 1967 (broken them up) but went along with the UN in keeping them operating.

The mandate and its failure are the problems of the British and the (defunct) League of Nations. Whatever the history of Israel before 1948, its patriots created the country by force in 1948 and have protected it since. The Balfour declaration didn't create Israel, war in 1948 and its people created Israel. And now that its existed for 50+ years, whatever events before 1948 were, they do not justify erasing Israel from the map or destroying it. But its well past time to start admitting the historical truth. The unworkable mandate and its failure are a historical problem for the British, not Israel.

Absolutely evil dishonest works (like "From Time Immemorial") also need to be ignored and forgotten rather than quoted by those who would support Israel.

Its well past time for Israel to embrace its true history and legtimacy. Its time to stop trying to defend false history from the truth and get on with solving the problems of Israel in 2005 rather than the problems of 1922 or 1939.

I strongly recommend the two major reviews of this book on this site one by D Roberts, and the other by Alyssa A. Lappen. They point out the books faults and bias in many different areas. However I would like to very briefly point out simple basic mistakes made in the two editorial reviews of this book one by Amazon Com. and one by Publishers Weekly. The Amazon Com. review says that the Israelis and the Palestinians struggled over this land for hundreds of years. The fact is that the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel goes back over three- thousand years. As for what are today called the Palestinian Arabs, they did not exist even as much as one hundred years ago. The various Arab clans and communities a good share of which entered the land from Egypt when there began large- scale Jewish return to the land, did not have a conscious national identity. That Palestinian Arab identity came only in reaction to Zionism, and the presence of the Jews in the land.
Another amazingly false claim perhaps taken from Segev's ' stretchers' is that the Palestinian Arabs have shown a greater inclination toward peace than the Jews. The fact is that five times in the past seventy years the Arabs have been offered a state in a part of the land and have refused it. Even when they were offered the great share of the land they refused to live in peace with a much smaller Jewish state.
One more word about Segev's cover- up of British hostility towards the Jews, his omitting major events in history such as the White Paper prohibiting Jewish immigration at a time the Jews of Europe had nowhere to go. This cover- up by Segev is fairly characteristic of his work as a whole.
An Israeli patriot he certainly is not. Perhaps what is worse is that he is not a fair and objective reporter.

I strongly recommend the two major reviews of this book on this site one by D Roberts, and the other by Alyssa A. Lappen. They point out the books faults and bias in many different areas. However I would like to very briefly point out simple basic mistakes made in the two editorial reviews of this book one by Amazon Com. and one by Publishers Weekly. The Amazon Com. review says that the Israelis and the Palestinians struggled over this land for hundreds of years. The fact is that the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel goes back over three- thousand years. As for what are today called the Palestinian Arabs, they did not exist even as much as one hundred years ago. The various Arab clans and communities a good share of which entered the land from Egypt when there began large- scale Jewish return to the land, did not have a conscious national identity. That Palestinian Arab identity came only in reaction to Zionism, and the presence of the Jews in the land.
Another amazingly false claim perhaps taken from Segev's ' stretchers' is that the Palestinian Arabs have shown a greater inclination toward peace than the Jews. The fact is that five times in the past seventy years the Arabs have been offered a state in a part of the land and have refused it. Even when they were offered the great share of the land they refused to live in peace with a much smaller Jewish state.
One more word about Segev's cover- up of British hostility towards the Jews, his omitting major events in history such as the White Paper prohibiting Jewish immigration at a time the Jews of Europe had nowhere to go. This cover- up by Segev is fairly characteristic of his work as a whole.
An Israeli patriot he certainly is not. Perhaps what is worse is that he is not a fair and objective reporter.

Tom Segev describes in much detail and often with unusual candor how Palestine became a British Mandate and the mission apparently impossible that the British took on them between 1917 and 1948 to manage both communities whose respective aspirations could not ultimately be reconciled under their tenure. Segev makes his account of the events especially moving by describing the life of ordinary Christians, Jews and Muslims besides that of the better known actors of this tragic comedy. Segev challenges the commonly-held view that the British were pro-Arab. Although the British made vague promises of sovereignty to the Arabs in exchange for their support against the Ottomans in charge of Palestine until 1917, they almost systematically promoted the Zionist enterprise at the expense of Christians and Muslims according to Segev. The British both feared and admired the Jews. The British tended to subscribe to the anti-Semitic view that the Jews were in control of history and should not be offended in their capacity of useful ally against common enemies. The proclamation of the Balfour Declaration and the support given to its implementation are deemed to reflect this pro-Jewish bias. To the surprise of many 21st century observers, some British sincerely believed that the aspirations of Jews and Arabs were compatible. Other British feigned to subscribe to this view. Most of the remaining British shared Segev's point of view that the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine could not happen without diminishing the standing of the local Arab community. The contradictory interests of both communities resulted first in local atrocities on both sides and then in the first war between the reborn Eretz Yisrael and the neighboring Arab nations in 1948.

This assessment of pre-Israel Palestine is best read in tandem with Prof. Yehoshua Porath's article in the spring 2000 issue of Azure. Segev claims here that the British came to rule Palestine with no clear idea of what they wanted. Segev supposes that a well-organized Arab nationalist movement, vigorously opposed to British rule, mounted the murderous Arab "revolt" of 1936-1939 and forced Britain to conclude it had no interest in Palestine and should leave. These ideas are ridiculous.

Why it took the British until 1948 to leave, Segev does not explain. As to voluminous evidence that the British stirred up Arab nationalism and the anti-Semitic revolt and joined in fighting the Arab's first war against Israel (as accounted by Col. R. Meinertzhagen, Samuel Katz, and many others), Segev keeps silent. Nor does he note that British general John Glubb commanded the Transjordanian army.

Segev asks political questions. 1) Why did the British conquer Palestine? 2) Why did they commit in 1917 to establish a Jewish National Home? 3) Why did they stay in Palestine? 4) Why did the British leave?

But Segev derides official British papers as too tiresome and voluminous to read. Segev bases his conclusions entirely on gleanings from diaries, personal letters, articles and books written by local Britons, Arabs and Jews, none previously consulted by historians--probably because they describe the social scene, not politics. The resultant fiction on Mandatory Palestine repeats the old Arnold Toynbee canard that Britain promised Palestine twice.

This conclusion is also ridiculous: Better accounts (which Segev ignores) are provided by scholars like Howard Sachar (History of Israel); Efraim Karsh (Empires of the Sand); Elie Kedourie (In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth; Chatham House Version); David Fromkin (A Peace to End All Peace) and Conor C. O'Brien (The Siege); Samuel Katz (Battleground) and Bat Ye'or (Islam and Dhimmidtude: Where Civilizations Collide).

The worst aspect of Segev's work is his failure to note that Britain's conquest of Palestine was part of a calculated political and military strategy to establish a land bridge between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. This, the British intended to enable their rapid deployment of troops to the Gulf, defend the Empire's vast East Indian interests, protect their territories from Russian invasion, and to provide an alternative to and protection of Egypt's Suez Canal. Segev claims that "[The British] gave [Palestine] to the Zionists because they loved 'the Jews' even as they loathed them" and feared them. He also posits that the British were guided something other than strategic considerations, and lacked an "orderly decision-making process." (p. 33) Good grief. Even if this were true (which it isn't) Segev hardly disproves the importance of the land bridge as the driving force behind British policy.

Segev also minimizes the importance and effect of Britain's 1939 White Paper, which slowed immigration of Jews to Palestine--mandated by the League of Nation in 1922, with international support--to a trickle. Britain trapped Europe's Jews inside Nazi-controlled Europe, denying them their one viable escape hatch. Segev, however, suggests that the White Paper had no practical result, since even the quota established was not filled. But how could it have been filled, when obtaining papers became so difficult in the aftermath of the White Paper? Honestly.

The White Paper exponentially increased the difficulty to European Jews of getting immigration papers, according to account after Holocaust survivor account, as well as work by esteemed Holocaust scholars such as David Wyman (Abandonment of the Jews). Besides refusing to consider a plan to save Europe's Jews, the British deployed 100,000 troops and a large armada in Palestine and the Mediterranean to capture Jews escaping from Europe and return them to that hell--policies the White Paper spelled out. Britain intended to limit Jewish immigration, and did so very effectively.

Once Britain opened Palestine Mandate and foreign office records, decades later, historians discovered that all correspondences concerning wartime immigration into Palestine, among other items, had mysteriously disappeared. In other words, Segev discounts the fact that British officials, obviously mortified post facto by their inhumane actions in 1939 and after, destroyed all especially damning evidence. Segev ignores the fact that the British in London and Palestine well understood the effects of their White Paper policy on European Jews. Segev's thesis does not square with the facts.

Segev also gives short shrift to the 7-nation Arab attack on Israel upon her 1948 founding, belying the Arab intention to destroy the Jewish state. Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha in 1948 promised "a war of extermination," "a momentous massacre" to be remembered "like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades"-and gruesome acts followed. Israel lost 6,373 persons in the war, more than twice Arab losses--and nearly 1% of her population. Of these Israeli casualties, 600 were noncombatants abused, mutilated beyond recognition and decapitated by Arab captors, who were assisted by British military aide and blockades that turned a blind eye to illegal Arab gun-running.

Segev doesn't concern himself with the violence that preceded the 1947-8 war, who started hostilities--or why. He doesn't ask who needed to mount defenses or state the casualties on both sides. These is nothing here concerning British participation on the Arab side. In 1947, Israel accepted partition of less than 20% of the land allotted by the League of Nations in 1922 as a National Home for the Jews, while the Arabs begrudged Israel even that.

Much as I love books, this is one that deserves to be heaved out with the bathwater.

--Alyssa A. Lappen