Reddit reviews Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine

In 1936 a Royal Commission was sent to Palestine to rubber-stamp the Zionist demand for partition (on the basis that, with a foothold, they could then seize the rest of Palestine). The Peel Report of 1937 gave them their partition despite it being totally unacceptable to the British Government.

However, Abdullah supported partition - and went much further, plotting with David Ben Gurion to allow the Zionists to seize up to a line almost the same as the Green Line of 1948. Israel could not have East Jerusalem (since Abdullah's father was buried there) but they could have West Jerusalem. (The Zionists ethnically cleansed much of West Jerusalem even before they started on the villages in 1948).

>Avi Shlaim, "Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine" 1988

>Publishers Weekly - This controversial piece of investigative scholarship is a blockbuster. Shlaim, an Oxford instructor in international relations, documents that Jordan's ambitious, absolutist King Abdullah, who was assassinated in 1951, had clandestine ties with the Zionist movement in Israelan accusation that many of the ruler's cohorts have made in the past.

>To further his own aims of creating a greater Jordanian empire, Abdullah conducted secret diplomacy with David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and other Israeli leaders. Drawing on Israeli government archives as well as interviews with politicians, soldiers and intelligence agents, Shlaim argues that the king's self-serving maneuvers hastened the partition of Palestine, which left more than a million Palestinian Arabs without a homeland.

>His absorbing 686-page narrative, a major reevaluation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, unfolds an Arab world torn by internal rivalry not the monolithic, hostile bloc that some Israelis claim it to be. http://www.amazon.com/Collusion-Across-Jordan-Partition-Palestine/dp/0231068387

Shlaim seems to have been battered into sort-of apologising and the 2nd edition of the book (1998) is even re-named. However, I don't think there's a big difference - he explains why he decided to re-title the book "The Politics of Partition" and update the story (Preface, p. xiii):

>But in all honesty I have to admit that my perspective on the collusion changed after the publication of "Collusion across the Jordan". My first take reflected the novelty of the archival sources and the shock of the discovery that what had been a popular conspiracy theory could actually be documented. ... My attitude towards King Abdullah underwent a significant change. ... In my approach to the Zionist leadership there was a similar shift from an emphasis on morality to an emphasis on realpolitik. ... For my part, I feel as much sympathy for the Palestinians today as I did when my book was first published in 1988. But I also feel that some modesty is called for when sitting in judgment on the other two principal protagonists in the struggle for Palestine."

Which, of course, sounds exactly the same as Goldstone "re-canting" over the Gaza Report, while not actually changing anything!

(In 1948 the agreement was made again, Golda Meir going to see Abdullah in March or so).