Green-Lined: Rose that plays another game (pt. 4)

Posted by Yisrael Medad

I continue with my critical reading of Professor Norman Rose's latest attempt to influence the historical record and play with historical truth, his 'A Senseless, Squalid War': Voices from Palestine 1890s-1948. The first part of the critique is here, the second part here and the third section is here.

This summary is what I found up until now:

The book is a slide into neo-post-Zionism. It is characterized by a wink to the anti-Zionists. It is like he is hinting to them: 'I'm really with you but I can't come out.' He weighs up the material but I find him wanting. His selection process is prejudiced and quite simply grossly unfair - and his facts! I have not been persuaded to change my thinking. The book is shoddy. It is an ideological tract reflecting Rose' personal political beliefs. It is unreliable although a careful reading will provide a Zionist with much needed information to undermine Arab anti-Zionist claims. I am continuing this series simply because the ignorance of many on the one hand and the supposed reliability of an academic like Rose combine to make this book quite potentially damaging.

Let us now proceed with Part IV.

1. On page 154, Professor Norman Rose, who holds the Chair of International Relations at the Hebrew University and is a distinguished historian and a Fellow of the Royal Society, describes the interview members of UNSCOP had with Irgun commander Menachem Begin. Begin "monopolised the conversation." Can you imagine that? They came to listen to the man who was directing the violence against the British Mandatory regime and he had the chutzpah to monopolize the conversation.

2. In a personal connection, in a note at the bottom of page 164, Rose describes the fact that one of the two sergeants hanged by the Irgun in response to the British hanging of three of their fighters was according to Halacha Jewish as a "rumour" and a "seemingly authoritative report" that was not "proved one way or the other." Actually, since testimony from his sister was the basis of that report, following up on something that was told personally to me by the doctor that treated Clifford Martin's mother who, it seems, married out to a British Christian official who had served in the Sudan, Rose should have disproved that claim instead of smearing it. The reporter is now a senior editor at the JC and very available for an interview.

3. Rose continues inserting himself into the story as an adjudicator of values. The hanging of the two sergeants was, on page 166, "barbaric" (and what was the hanging of the three Irgun fighters the day before?). On p. 132, he has the Sternists "flaunt[ing] a casual disregard for human life" when the Lechi attacked armed British soldiers in a car park when seven were killed. Unfortunately, the soldiers decided to hide under their beds. However, a few lines earlier, on the previous page, Rose records the death of five Jewish civilians, one an eight-year old girl, at the hands of random British gunfire after the hanging of the two sergeants with nary a judgment call. The previous mentioned site records:

The night after the Tel Aviv car park attack, troops of the 6th Airborne Division stationed at Qastina took the law into their own hands for a short time and damaged several Jewish houses. The ringleaders of this revenge attack were caught and punished. On the 31st of July 1947 just after the bodies of Martin and Paice were discovered, 5 Jews were killed and 15 wounded in Tel Aviv in reprisals be members of the Security forces for the murder of the two sergeants."

Does Rose get apoplectic over this? Why not?

4. Arabs who persist in their uncompromising position not to cooperate with the United Nations in any way are acting in "dogged humour," on page 171. What type of humor is Rose engaged in?

5. On p. 181, he writes that both the Irgun and HaShomer HaTzair were "advocates of bi-nationalism." That is an error.

6. Chapter 9 is entitled "Civil War." But it was an attack by the Arab community and later their allies from abroad in an attempt to eradicate the UN decision to establish a Jewish state. There was nothing of a "civil war" nature in this violence.

7. Between pages 192 - 197, he discusses Deir Yassin. The footnotes are 17-28. Not one mention of Uri Milstein's work and this, too, which are major research materials. One cannot pass judgment, if one is a serious historian and not a political partisan, on such a subject as Deir Yassin without discussing them and, if possible, proving them wanting or inadequate or even wrong. But to ignore them? Rose does this too often.

On page 192, he asserts Deir Yassin was not a "'troublesome' village." The week before the Deir Yassin attacked was launched, authorized by the Hagana commander of Jerusalem, sniper fire from the village was directed at the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Bayit VeGan and Beit Hakerem, as reported in the April 4th edition of Davar. In 1920, villagers engaged in gun smuggling. In 1929, they attacked Givat Shaul and Bet Hakerem and during the 1936-39 period regularly interfered with traffic on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. On p. 193, he claims the Irgun fighters "all too often overreacted." Since Rose wasn't there, and neither we we, it would be interesting to know when their "overreaction" was justified. At the bottom of that page, Rose notes that survivors, men, women and children (!) were "summarily shot."

I went to my shelf and took the book of Yitzhak Levy, Jerusalem in the War of Independence (in Hebrew) the source for that "summarily shot" claim, although Ross notes an interview of Levy with Benny Morris. That book asserts that the number of Arabs killed at Deir Yassin was 254 (bottom of p. 342) when the number Arab academics now publish is no more than 110 and which Eric Silver published in his 1984 book on Begin, quoting from the Jerusalem weekly, KolHair. So, is Levy reliable? He doesn't mention the sniper fire on that Friday night of April 2. It seems that Levy simply hated the dissidents as anyone who reads his book can judge for himself. He quotes approvingly from the UN report which was biased. In any case, his book does not mention the specific incident Rose quotes. Very roundabout contradiction of himself Mr. Levy did.

Rose notes at the bottom of p. 194 that "Lacking military experience, Begin, although Commander of the Irgun, was not in 'full control' of the operation at Deir Yassin." First of all, as I explained previously, Begin was the Political Commander and military operations were only approved by him in a very general way. In the case of Jerusalem, Begin was not in touch with the local commanders for months. As the road to Tel Aviv was blocked, occasional telephone calls were the only means of communication. What Rose means here is not clear at all. In fact, even the commanders on the scene were not in full control of the battle as it developed. Rose's only redeeming element is in writing, on p. 197, "the story of Deir Yassin, actual and supposed." It is unfortunate that he was not more exact in elucidating the "supposed" elements.

8. On pages 200-201, the matter of the Hagana raising money in the US and especially through Mafia contacts is retold. True. However, what he doesn't inform his readers is this: "In 1947 gangster Mickey Cohen helped fund-raising efforts for the terrorist Irgun gang fighting the British in Palestine. Jewish criminals pooled about $120,000 for the Irgun cause" in But He Was Good to His Mother : The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters p. 232-233. Only Teddy Kollek gets this gangster credit. So, Mafia links were okay but only for the "good guys"? Odd.

9. On page 203, Rose writes that Jaffa was considered by the Hagana "of little strategic value." He does not argue or disagree. The Irgun, whose attack on Jaffa he derides, thought otherwise:

Jaffa, with a population of 90,000, was the largest Arab town in Palestine, and had a long and twisting border with its neighbor, Tel Aviv. When hostilities broke out on the morning of November 29, 1947, Arab snipers fired repeatedly at the Jewish quarters along the border, and succeeded in immobilizing considerable sections of the Jewish city. In the first five months following the UN resolution, the number of Jewish mortalities amounted to dozens, with hundreds injured. Thousands of Jewish refugees, forced to abandon their homes, were billeted in schools and public buildings. The sniping and the bombardments not only led to the evacuation of the population of the southern suburbs, but also required the deployment of large forces in the defence of Tel Aviv... the Haganah drew up a plan for the encirclement of Jaffa by occupying Arab villages to the south of the town (Abu Kabir, Jebeliyeh and Tel Arish). It was assumed that this strategy would lead to the surrender of Jaffa, but there was still the potentiality of Egyptian infiltrating Jaffa from the sea."

Was Rose unaware of this analysis? If he disagreed, why not debunk it? Was perhaps the Hagana in error?

10. On page 205, he recounts from a report by High Commissioner Cunningham that Jewish broadcasts in April "in content and delivery, are remarkably like those of Nazi Germany." But no comment. No dispute. Again, odd since he does express his personal opinion on many issues. Odd, too, since on p. 55, when mentioning the Nazi contacts of Haj Amin El-Husseini - the Mufti - he skips over the Mufti's broadcasts, which were very much "like those of Nazi Germany."

11. The term "civil war" is the heading for chapter nine and appears again at the beginning of the next chapter on page 207. I would think that there was no "civil war" but rather a war of aggression launched, in its first phase, by the local Arab population and then, in the next phase, by seven Arab nations. Since there was no one political entity and the partition plan was the last diplomatic move, there was nothing at all civil about the war. Rose is minimizing the Arab guilt. In a civil war, there are two equal sides. This was not the case and I am surprised that Rose would utilize that frame of reference.

Since publishing some of my points, I have come across additional material. For example, regarding the Mufti and Nazism. It seems, according to this source, that it was in March 1993 that the Mufti sent a telegram to Berlin expressing his willingness to spread Nazi ideology throughout the Middle East and met the German Consul-General a month later. Ironically, Germany wanted to move as many Jews out of Germany to the Palestine Mandate at the time and rebuffed him! However, in 1936, German documents indicate money in sums of tens of thousands of pounds being transferred from both Germany and Italy and weapons being sent to the Mufti's terror bands. In May 1937, at a mass rally celebrating the Prophet's birthday, the Nazi swastika was held aloft as well as pictures of Hitler. So, not only te leadership level was involved but many thousands of Arabs.

As regards the Rose claim of "marginality" of the Irgun and Lechi, it seems that he himself quotes from the very same source that I do - p. 215, the White Paper of May 15, 1948 - which makes it quite clear that the dissidents' urban guerrilla campaign was quite central as a cause among several that forced the British to yield up the Mandate. Does he not read his own book?

Norman Rose's book contains much valuable and illuminating insights. However, it seems to have been written also as a testimony to his political outlook. As such, its historical worth is damaged. In some sections, his book becomes almost "senseless" although not quite "squalid." A better history record is still required.