Charles Glass’s latest book is Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation, 1940-44.
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Vol. 21 No. 6 · 18 March 1999
pages 16-18 | 4026 words
Return to Nowhere
Charles Glass
- Arafat: From Defender to Dictato by Said Aburish
Bloomsbury, 352 pp, £20.00, September 1998, ISBN 0 7475 3629 5
The old dons arrived in armourplated black limousines to pay their last respects. They had often tried to do away with him, but they gave him a royal send-off. He was, after all, the longest-serving capo of them all, a man who commanded respect. King Hussein of Jordan would have laughed to see his adversaries courting his son and heir, King Abdallah II. Spectators could almost hear Hafez al-Assad of Syria whispering into the young King’s ear: ‘Your father knew it wasn’t personal, Abdu. It was business.’ The Sicilian Mafia has much to learn from the Levantine men of honour.
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Letters
Vol. 21 No. 7 · 1 April 1999
From Richard Beeston
Charles Glass (LRB, 18 March) does not challenge Said Aburish's account of 'Arafat's finest hour' in the battle in the Jordan Valley in March 1968. He writes of Palestinian commandos achieving a moral victory similar to that of the Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive and quotes Aburish's description of them fighting alone and inflicting heavy damage on the Israeli invasion force. This was not my impression when I covered the event for the Daily Telegraph on that day. The only forces I witnessed fighting were those of the Jordan Army, who carried on in the face of heavy Israeli air attacks and drove the Israelis back. The only Palestinian commandos I saw were those retreating back up the mountain towards Amman.
The centrepiece of the victory celebrations I attended that night in Amman's main square was an Israeli tank captured by the Jordan Army and brought back to the capital. But such was the public capacity for self-delusion that the day was celebrated as a great victory for the commandos and the key role played by the Army was ignored.
Richard Beeston
London W6
Vol. 21 No. 8 · 15 April 1999
From Said Aburish
Richard Beeston's letter (1 April) scolding Charles Glass for not challenging my account of the battle of Karameh is puzzling, disappointing and inaccurate. My book makes it abundantly clear that the Palestinians received considerable help from the Jordanians, but only hours after the fighting started. I made a point of praising the Jordanians for coming to the aid of the hard-pressed Palestinians who had suffered many casualties.
My record of the battle of Karameh is based on previous biographies of Arafat, Gower's and Walkers's in particular, and on interviews with the Jordanian officers Colonel Mohammed Abdallah and General Mashour Haditha Al Jazzi, both of whom participated in the Karameh fighting. That the Jordanians showed a captured Israeli tank does not contradict my account and Beeston's somewhat bitter statement about the Arab public's capacity for self-delusion is unworthy of a celebrated foreign correspondent and an esteemed colleague.
Said Aburish
London SW10
