Book review: One Palestine, Complete

                                           One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev

Khalil al Sakakini, a noted Arabic teacher in Jerusalem, is accused of treason and sent off to a prison in Damascus for helping a Jewish insurance agent who was on the run for his life. The year was 1917, the war that had gripped Europe was raging with full ferocity and the Ottoman empire was struggling to save face. Whilst Sakakini awaits the gallows in Damascus, British troops under the command of General Allenby reach Palestine and the Ottomans formally surrender. Sakakini is saved.

In 1926, a young man called Yefim Gordin arrives in Palestine from Vilna, hoping to make a living in the ancient Jewish homeland. His verve for Zionism comes into its own with his active participation in the activities of the Battalion for the Defence of Language, the hot-headed organisation that sought to assert the primacy of Hebrew over any other language in Palestine. He adopts the name ‘Chaim Shalom Halevi’ to affirm his Jewish credentials and tries hard to bring his parents in Vilna to Jerusalem and writes frequently to them, recounting his quotidian affairs as well as profound experiences in Palestine.

These are merely two vignettes from an impressive range of anecdotes, stories and lives that Tom Segev describes in vivid detail in his book ‘One Palestine, Complete’ to tell us what exactly transpired in Palestine when it was a British Mandate during the turbulent years from 1918 to 1948.

The history of the period under consideration is narrated through the lives of people who were responsible for and were affected by the consequential decisions made regarding the Palestine question. To depict Arab disaffection with Britain, there is a Sakakini, Halevi represents the intensity of Zionist zeal, there is High Commissioner Chancellor to capture the exasperation of the British with Palestine. In every page you turn, the prodigious research the author has undertaken shines through. The trials and tribulations of each character the reader meets, take one to Palestine and enables one to understand and identify with the real problems these people faced.

Diaries, journals and letters kept by British officials tell the British side of the story. Several officers in the highest echelons of administration seemed to have been in awe of the enormous influence the Jews commanded around the world, especially in Washington and fought shy of antagonising them. Figures as important as Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were in favour of Zionism.

British endorsement of the Zionist cause was due, in no small measure to the relentless lobbying efforts of such stalwarts of the Zionist movement as Chaim Weizmann and Herbert Samuel. Their connections with important decision makers in London made all the difference. The Jews leveraged their contacts in Westminster and the result was the infamous Balfour Declaration that proclaimed that Britain ‘views in favour the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine’. While the relationship between Britain and the Jewish Agency had its highs and lows over the course of the next thirty years, official commitment to the Balfour Declaration seldom wavered.

The brewing hostility between the two national movements made Britain’s hold over the country untenable. Palestine was not particularly profitable to London and the main reason the British stayed there for such a long time was its strategic position in the Middle East with access to the Mediterranean. But the violent turn the hostilities took pushed the British to their wits’ end. Several attempts at brokering reconciliation failed and the British decided to pack up their bags. The Second World War merely postponed their exit.

In the meantime, as Britain vacillated over its position in Palestine, the Zionist movement made meteoric strides. Immigration from Europe, the cornerstone of the Zionist movement, grew steadily. A new city, Tel Aviv, was built in the shores of the Mediterranean in European style. Massive progress was registered in the front of education, with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem standing as a remarkable example attesting to it. The purchase of lands from Arabs also rose swiftly.

In contrast to the Zionist movement, Arab national movement was poorly organised and took a long time before it came to the fore. Ordinary Arabs did not realise that they were selling their land to those who sought to supplant them from their country. The ineptitude of the Arab movement worked hugely in favour of the Zionists and Jewish settlements expanded like never before.

While Jewish and British sources abound in this book, sources to tell the Arab side of the story are relatively less numerous. Except for a few diaries and letters written by them, we look at most Arabs through the eyes of the British and the Jews. 

Other than that, the story of Mandatory Palestine has been told in a sublime fashion that could hardly be bettered. For history enthusiasts and general book lovers, this book is a veritable tour de force.

Prasanna Aditya A