Between Hashemites and Zionists: The Struggle for Palestine 1908-1988 (review)

Volume 9, No.4 Summer 1991 149 Garda. When the Germans occupied Italy in'1943ithey deported 6800 Jews to Auschwitz, and they intensified their deportation of Italian Jews when the Italian government surrendered after the Allies invaded Sicily and then Italy itself. Another reason accounting for the differences between these two brutal dictatorships is that in Germany there was a historical antisemitism, and externalization of blame for the economic and political problems Germans had faced since World War I. In Italy, where Jews had lived peaceably for hundreds of years, antisemitic teachings were virtually nonexistent. German officers acted as they did in part because their tradition of obedience and rigidness of thought made any other course. of action unthinkable. And by 1941-42, Hitler's ideology had completely fused existing German prejudices with the ideologies propagated by Nazi culture. Jews and other "subhumans" had be to excluded from the German race, because it was dictated by Nazi iedology control, Nazi oppression, and Nazi terror, from which nobody, not even four-star generals, was exempt. This is a well-written book, from which historians as well as the general populace can benefit. It is especially appropriate for students of the Holocaust , the history of World War II, as well as those of us who write and study the heroic rescues ofJewish victims from Nazi persecution. Samuel P. Oliner Humboldt State University Between Hashemites and Zionists: The Struggle.for Palestine 1908-1988, by Martin Sicker. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1989. 176 pp. $34.50. How to define the dispute between Arabs and Israelis is as much an issue as how to resolve it. Martin Sicker's Between Hashemites and Zionists: The Strnggle for Palestine 1908-1988 runs against the grain of most recent writing on the subject. Currently, historians have focused on the class structure, or on the cultural and economic resources at the disposal of Arabs and Jews in Palestine in their struggle for political sovereignty. While Sicker acknowledges the Palestinian Arabs as the major victims of the dispute, he postulates that their political future has been and will continue to be determined by a dynastic competition, what he calls the "... more than seventy-year-Iong struggle of the Hashemites and the Zionists for the control of Palestine" (p. xi). Relying upon published material, Sicker mysteriously seems to have missed Mary Wilson's excellent King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan , Avi Schlaim's much acclaimed The Politics of Pal1ition, and the impor- 150 SHOFAR tant diplomatic studies of William Roger Louis. Sicker's history is not as rich as the other books, but there is much to admire in it. It is well organized and clearly written. The major historical sequences are well presented. Sketching the family's rise to power during the Ottoman Empire, Sicker describes the negotiations between Hashemites and British diplomats during the First World War. These negotiations have served as the subject of much historical inquiry, speculation, and with respect to their meaning, controversy. Sicker's analysis conveys none of this uncertainty, although his interpretations concerning diplomatic intentions are certainly plausible. Sicker's account of Zionist diplomacy is as abbreviated as his summary of Hashemite negotiations. While it will not satisfy scholars, it does provide a reasonable introduction for those not familiar with the period. Conviction is unlikely to follow from analysis which fails to address the issue of constraints on small states with few natural resources squeezed between more powerful countries led by ambitious men. In reminding us of the political ambitions of the Hashemite family, Sicker fails to accord sufficient attention to the limitations placed in the drive to power of its several leaders. Neither Trans-Jordan's monarch, Abdullah, nor King Husayn of Jordan could pursue a sustained, far-sighted foreign policy on Palestine or any other issue. The switch in tactics and regional allies arose not from a set of fixed dynastic interests but rather as a result of political weakness and limited options . In the end, the difference between the politically successful and unsuccessful Hashemite leaders is measured by the number of years they sat on a throne. Donna R. Divine Smith College Bemadotte in Palestine, 1948: A Study...