Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II (review)

Very little has been written about the American non-Zionist involvement in issues relating to Palestine during the 1930s. Rafael Medoff's book Baksheesh Diplomacy, which studies the secret negotiations between Arab leaders and American non-Zionists, opens up a new chapter in our understanding of both the diplomatic history relating to Palestine prior to the Second World War in general and American non-Zionist diplomatic activities in particular.

Medoff focuses his story on two American non-Zionists, Felix Warburg and Edward Norman. Though Warburg was the more prominent of the two, both were wealthy German Jewish businessmen very involved in Jewish philanthropy. Unwilling to endorse the political aims of the Zionist movement, both nevertheless wanted to lend their aid to Jews in Palestine, and firmly believed that the application of American business practices would provide the cures for all that ailed Palestinian Jewry. One issue both men had to confront as they involved themselves in Palestine, however, was the Arab-Jewish conflict. On this issue Medoff recognizes the differences between the two non-Zionists. Norman concluded that a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Zionist conflict would be difficult if not impossible to find. In contrast, Warburg consistently sought to follow paths of peace. Yet, despite their differences, according to Medoff both men independently arrived at the same conclusion: "the need to find some territory outside Palestine in which the Palestinian Arabs could be resettled" (p. 60).

In 1934 Norman conceived of a transfer plan, one that he further developed by 1937 at which time he gained Warburg's approval. Essentially, Norman's plan called for the transfer of Palestinian Arabs to Iraq, a transfer that he argued would benefit the Iraqi government because they could place experienced farmers in unpopulated areas to further develop the country. Palestinian Arabs, Norman also maintained, would willingly move to Iraq with promises of free land and no concerns about retaining political majority status as Arabs. Much of the second half of the book charts Norman's failed efforts to have his plan adopted. One of the strengths of the book is the extent to which the relationship between non-Zionists and Zionist leaders is examined. Readers learn, for example, that Norman courted Revisionists who demonstrated interest in the transfer idea while offering advice on political strategy: Zionists must publicly oppose the transfer idea and the transfer idea must come from a non-Jew. In this instance, Medoff shows the cooperation between Zionists and non-Zionists, something often overlooked.

The last two chapters document Norman's diplomatic efforts to get support for his transfer plan, especially after Warburg's death in the fall of 1937. Norman hired the journalist H.T. Montague Bell to present the transfer plan to the Iraqis. Zionist leaders like Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion appeared to endorse his plan. When Norman discovered that Pinhas Rutenberg, a Palestinian Jewish industrialist, had been working on a transfer plan of his own, the process of realizing this plan began to unfold. Weizmann became more enthusiastic about the plan and in March 1939 Norman met with the Iraqi foreign minister Tewfik Suweidy. As Norman had hoped, Suweidy (having had the idea first suggested to him by Bell) discussed with Norman the idea of transferring Palestinian Arabs to Iraq. Subsequently, Weizmann also met with Suweidy and later sent him a bribe, or "baksheesh"—hence the book's title. While Norman believed the bribe pointed towards a positive direction in the plan, once the Second World War broke out in the fall of 1939 he was unable to travel to Iraq to solidify the deal. Medoff speculates on Suweidy's motives in accepting the bribe, but ultimately argues that "international circumstances" (p. 169) and Palestinian nationalism prevented the plan from coming to...