ON ANOTHER PAGE our reviewer says of Glubb Pasha's absorbing
and beautifully produced book A Soldier with the Arabs that 'it is probably the fairest and most objective account of the Arab- Jewish problem yet written.' No doubt; but the book shows how on an issue such as Palestine it is almost impossible to be fair. At one point, for instance, General Glubb compares the Israelis to Hitler, but in discussing Jewish immigation into Palestine before and after the war he makes no reference whatever to Hitler's persecution and near-extermination'of European Jewry. He thinks the British Government was unfair to the Arabs in allowing Jewish immigration and quotes the League of Nations' definition of a mandate as a trusteeship over 'peoples not yet able to stand by themselves.' He does not seem to be aware that the preamble to the Mandate for Palestine stated that the mandatory power was 'responsible for putting into effect the [Balfour] Declaration' and that one of its articles made her responsible for securing 'the eStablishment of the Jewish National Home.' So far as I can see, General Glubb no- where makes the crucial point that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN plan and that if the Arabs had done the same there would have been no war. Instead he talks of 'Israel having been established by farce,' which is a travesty. On a lower level it is odd that he can say on page 84 that as the British Mandate was still in force 'the Arab Legion had no right to commence opening roads,' when on page 78 he has just described (without mentioning any legal difficulties) how during the same period the Arab Legion attacked the Jewish settlements of Kfar Etzion 'with two companies, supported by four three-inch mortars.'
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