Book Review: Middle East: The Arab-Israeli Dilemma
| Date | 01 March 1970 |
| Author | George Kirk |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207002500142 |
| Published date | 01 March 1970 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
233
to avoid
all those
already
available
in
English
translation.
Thus his
anthrology
is
a
refreshing
new
storehouse
of
source
material
for
the
Western
political
scientist
unfamiliar
with
Arabic,
Turkish,
and
Persian.
One
remarkable merit
of
this
anthology
is
that,
unlike Sylvia
Haim's
Arab
Nationalism
it
is
not
circumscribed
by
a
pre-conceived
theory.
Each
selection
is
preceded
by a
crisp introductory
note.
The
name
of
the
translator
should
have
been
given
with
each
trans-
lated
piece.
Not
only
has
this
not
been
done,
but
only
two
of
the
trans-
lators
are
mentioned
in
the
Preface.
"Fatherland"
(p. 361n.)
is
debatable
as
the
translation
of
Turkish
"Vatan".
Transliteration
of
names
is
some-
times
unforgivably erroneous.
University
of
Toronto
Aziz
AEMAD
The
Arab-Israeli
Dilemma,
By
FRED
J.
KHOURI.
Syracuse: Syracuse
Uni-
versity Press
[Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern].
1968.
xii,
436pp.
$12.00.
In this
work
of
many years'
documented
research,
an
American-born
professor
of
Christian
Arab
extraction
has
aimed
at
impartiality
tem-
pered
by
a "staunch
support"
(p.
vii)
of
the
United
Nations
which
con-
dones
(p.
246)
U
Thant's
failure
of
nerve
in
May
1967
when
he
acceded
immediately
to
the
Egyptian
demand
for
the
withdrawal
of
UNEF:
there
is
no
reference
to
the
stipulations
that
the
more
subtle
Hammarskjdld
had
introduced into
his
1956
parleys with
Nasser
in
an attempt
to
delay
or
de-fuse
just
such
an
ultimatum.
Similarly,
the
statement
(p. 190)
that
the
United
Nations
truce
supervision
chief
of
staff
denied
Israel's
allega-
tion
(to
justify
its
Gaza
raid
of
1955)
that
Egypt had
been
employing
aggressive
activities
fails
to
evaluate
General Burns' tight-lipped
state-
ment
(UN
document S/3373): "The
position
of
the
Egyptian
authorities
was
that
the
persons
committing
murders
and
sabotage
were
being
in-
spired,
paid,
and equipped
by
political elements
in
Egypt
inimical
to
the
Government."
Elsewhere
Burns,
instead
of
identifying
these
"elements"
-
the
opposition Muslim
Brotherhood
had already
been
smashed
-
has
conceded
that
President
Nasser's
"occasional impolitic courses
of
action"
about
that
time were
"due
to
the
need of
keeping
together
the
members"
of his
junta
(Between
Arab
and
Israeli,
p.
20).
Did
the
junta's
right
hand
not
know
what
its
left
hand
was doing?
Or
were
the
Egyptian
authori-
ties
once
again
exercising
their
prerogative
of
double-talk?
Professor
Khouri
gives
due
weight
(pp.
262,
289)
to
the
Arabs'
"blus-
tering,
overly-dramatic
oratory"
which
has
so
often
discredited
them
internationally,
but
his
own
scholarly
language
has
its more discreet
shadings.
Thus
(p.
219)
Egypt
"felt
obliged"
during
the
1956
war
to
despoil,
detain,
or
expel
many
Jews
-
and went unscathed
for
it,
whereas
some
Israeli
border
police
in
the
heat
of
the
fighting
"callously"
shot
a
party
of
Arab curfew-breakers and
were
punished
by
due
process.
In
World
War
ii
the
Mufti
of
Jerusalem
"finally found
it
necessary
to
flee
into
Nazi-controlled
territory"
(p.
31):
there
is
no
reference
to
the
ful-
some
adulation
of
the Fiihrer
contained
in
the
letter
which
the
Mufti
had
penned
from
the
safety
of
Baghdad;
and
the
assertion
that
"the
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