From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a 1984 book by Joan Peters about the demographics of the Arab population of Palestine and of the Jewish population of the Arab world before and after the formation of the State of Israel.
According to the book a large fraction of the Arabs of Palestine were not descendants of long-term residents of Palestine at the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, but had arrived in waves of immigration starting in the 19th century and continuing through the period of the British Mandate. At the same time a large number of Jews equal in number, according to the author, to the Arabs fleeing Palestine, were driven out of the Arab countries and became refugees in Israel. Peters contends that what is referred to the Palestinian refugee problem is actually a population exchange that resulted from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
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According to Norman Finkelstein, the book had received some two hundred [favorable] notices in the United States by the end of its publication in 1984.[1]
Shortly after publication Martin Kramer wrote that the book raises overdue questions about the demographic history of Palestine in a way that cannot be ignored, but also referred to "serious weaknesses" in the book, and Peters' "rummaging through archives and far more balanced historical studies than her own for whatever evidence she can find to back up her thesis". He goes on to say that "It is specially unfortunate because on the central point of her book, the demographic argument, Peters is probably right."[2]
Theodore H. White called Peters' work a "superlative book" that traces Middle East history with "unmatched skill."[3]
Saul Bellow's endorsement on the cover of the book stated:
The book was also praised by Arthur J. Goldberg and Martin Peretz who said: "If (the book is) read, it will change the mind of our generation.”[4][5] Peretz suggested that there was not a single factual error in the book.[6]
After a new edition was published, in 2001, the journalist Joseph Farah called the book a "milestone history on the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the region."[7] Walter Reich wrote on the book "fresh and powerful ... an original analysis as well as a synoptic view of a little-known but important human story". Jehuda Reinharz described the book as "valuable synthesis" and "new analysis" that "convincingly demonstrates that many of those who today call themselves Palestinian refugees are former immigrants or children of such immigrants". Ronald Sanders wrote that Peters's demographics "could change the entire Arab-Jewish polemic over Palestine". Sidney Zion wrote that Peters's book was "the intellectual equivalent of the Six-Day War". Timothy Foote acclaimed that the book is "part historic primer, part polemic, part revelation, and a remarkable document in itself". Lucy Dawidowicz wrote that Peters "brought into the light the historical truth about the Mideast". Barbara Probst Solomon called the book "brilliant, provocative and enlightened". Elie Wiesel described the "insight and analysis" of the book. Similar views were expressed by Arthur Goldberg, Paul Cowan and others.[6]
Reviewing the book for the November 28, 1985 issue of The New York Times, Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath described the book as a "sheer forgery," stating that "[i]n Israel, at least, the book was almost universally dismissed as sheer rubbish except maybe as a propaganda weapon."[8] In 1986, Porath repeated his views in The New York Review of Books, and published a negative review that cites many inaccuracies.[9] In that review are mentions of other criticisms published by: Alexander Cockburn and Edward Said in The Nation (October 13, 1984 and October 19, 1985), Walter Reich in The Atlantic (July 1984), Ronald Sanders in The New Republic (April 23, 1984), Bernard Gwertzman in The New York Times (May 12, 1984), Norman G. Finkelstein in In These Times (September 1984), Bill Farrell in the Journal of Palestine Studies (Fall 1984), Ian and David Gilmour in The London Review of Books (February 7, 1985) and Daniel Pipes in Commentary (July 1984). However, both academic historians Ronald Sanders and Daniel Pipes had actually expressed their positive general assessment of the book in their responses named by Porath, and Pipes, in the Commentary article quoted by Porath actually found From Time Immemorial an important book:
Norman Finkelstein's Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict asserts that much of Peters' scholarship was fraudulent. Finkelstein's allegations that Alan Dershowitz plagiarized Peters' book became a central issue in the Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair. Noam Chomsky defended and promoted Finkelstein's critique, commenting:
Robert Olson was among the few authors to write a critical review of the book before it was released in Britain.[11] He concluded:
This is a startling and disturbing book. It is startling because, despite the author's professed ignorance of the historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict and lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern history (pp. 221, 335) coupled with her limitation to sources largely in English (absolutely no Arab sources are used), she engages in the rewriting of history on the basis of little evidence. ...The undocumented numbers in her book in no way allow for the wild and exaggerated assertions that she makes or for her conclusion. This book is disturbing because it seems to have been written for purely polemical and political reasons: to prove that Jordan is the Palestinian state. This argument, long current among revisionist Zionists, has regained popularity in Israel and among Jews since the Likud party came to power in Israel in 1977.[12]
According to Frank Menetrez, writing in CounterPunch, “when a number of scholars examined the book carefully, they concluded that it was of no scholarly value whatsoever. It ignores important parts of the documentary record, misuses the sources on which it does rely, and contains straightforward logical errors. Consequently, according to Menetrez, "Peters’ book has been rejected as worthless by the scholarly community around the world, including Israel."[13]
In discussing the reactions of commentators to the book, Anthony Lewis compared the reaction of American commentators to the reaction of Israeli ones: