Reader’s Response: From Time Immemorial

Shalom rav,
I saw the posted correspondence regarding the veracity of Joan Peters’ work and felt obliged to point out a few things. While it is true that there have been criticisms of Peters’ work (which book, particularly a groundbreaking one, goes without such critiques?) and some may be legitimate, the author of the first letter in the correspondence has very clearly been taken in by some flawed arguments.
I noticed that he/she pointed to the Wikipedia page’s “criticism” section, which is dominated by Norman Finkelstein’s “work” on the subject. Mr. Finkelstein needs no introduction, and his work here cannot be regarded even as dubious pseudo-scholarship, which is quite ironic given the nature of the charges he and his supporters make against Peters.
Again, while specific points or proofs in Peters’ work may or may not be problematic, it is considered an almost unassailable fact in the mainstream of historians (as opposed to the “New Historians”) that throughout the time of the British Mandate of Palestine, the Arab population was swollen by migrant workers from across the Arab world. Mandatory Palestine was in the heart of the British Empire and saw massive construction and infrastructural work done by the British. The huge works projects employed Arab workers and drew migrant workers – a common phenomenon in the Arab world, where workers sojourn for years in “foreign” Arab countries to work – by the thousands.
During my graduate studies in Hebrew University, this basic point was taken as a given in the history classes, and the professors were hardly right-wingers with an agenda. The Question of just how many Arabs immigrated into the Mandate and precisely what proportion of the population’s growth was natural as opposed to stemming from immigration is of course hotly debated. It is a scholarly Question and in all likelihood is largely unAnswerable. Records prior to the British Mandate are scant and unreliable, while during the Mandate illegal immigration (by Arabs) was largely unchecked and estimates made today are the result of guess work.
In any event, suffice it to say that Peters’ basic thesis remains a legitimate opinion regarding a controversial issue, something which cannot be said of those fringe elements masquerading as a consensus view which seek to delegitimize Peters’ assertions.
Kol tuv,
D.R.