Israel
1 Out of Bondage. By Elizabeth Rivers. (Peter Owen, 16s.)
UP to a few months ago the vim/ of Israel that was prevalent in the country and universal in the Foreign Office might be summarised as follows : The Jews returned to Palestine as a result of a most unwise declaration by 'an essentially un- sound statesman called Balfour. Unlike the Arabs, they were not gentlemen and they were all Socialists. After the Second World War many Jews evinced a quite unaccountable desire to go to Palestine when they would have been much happier if they stayed in Germany. The Americans advocated Jewish immigration into Palestine because they did not want any more Jews 'in America, and the Jewish community in
• Palestine became a State because President Truman needed the Jewish. vote. But for the existence of Israel the Arabs would like us very much indeed.
For obvious, if not always for very good, reasons, this view is no longer prevalent except ' of course in the Foreign Office. But the most fertile' source of misunderstanding and prejudice —the 'question .of the Arab refugees—remains. The flight of the Arabs was undoubtedly a blessing to Israel—if they had stayed it is difficult to see how she could have absorbed the million or so Jewish immigrants who have arrived in Palestine since the establishment of Israel 'as a State—but they were not, as Mr. Rushbrook Williams makes clear, driven out by the Jews. It was their own leaders who exhorted them to leave so that they would be out of the way of the ad- vancing Arab armies. Their evacuation was only to be. temporary; they would return in the wake of their victorious troops to share in the spoils of war. The Jews even tried to persuade them to stay. In Haifa• for instance the Arabs agreed to surrender on the Jewish terms except for the stipulation that they should remain in the city, and almost the entire Arab population of Haifa
packed up and left. Only by the shocking massacre at Deir Yassin by Jewish terrorists did the Jews give much additional momentum to the Arab exodus.
Mr. Rushbrook Williams's book may not clear away all the misconceptions about the past—the historical chapters are very compressed—but it is an excellent guide to!the Israel of the present. Mr. Rushbrook Williams is a careful and ex- perienced observer, and he has a very wide knowledge of Israel and her people. He is cautious in his judgements, sometimes over-cautious, but his restraint has enabled him to produce an im- pressively fair and balanced survey of the country, its institutions and its extraordinary achievements.
Out of Bondage is a pleasant and ,picturesque account of a visit to Israel. IAN GILMOUR
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