From Time Immemorial

Did You Know?

• Norman Finkelstein, then a PhD student at Princeton University, contradicted the book's central claims shortly after its release.
• In 2004, Norman Finkelstein accused Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz of largely plagiarizing his book The Case for Israel from From Time Immemorial.

Reception

When the book was first published in the United States in 1984, it received widespread praise from prominent American figures such as Elie Wiesel, Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, Bernard Lewis, Martin Peretz, and Alan Dershowitz. It remains, for some, a revered text on the Jewish right. Norman Finkelstein noted that by the end of that year, it had attracted around two hundred positive reviews in the U.S. In April 1985, it won the National Jewish Book Award in the Israel category. Theodore H. White described it as a “superlative book” that handled Middle Eastern history with “unmatched skill.” Saul Bellow’s cover endorsement claimed the book exposed the ignorance of experts on the Palestinian issue and corrected false history imposed on Arabs. Arthur J. Goldberg and Martin Peretz argued that reading it would change a generation’s mind, with Peretz insisting it contained no factual errors. Walter Reich called it “fresh and powerful” and an original analysis. In the United Kingdom, however, the 1985 edition faced a more hostile reception, including a critical review in the London Review of Books, according to Mondoweiss. The book sparked public debate but has since been discredited by reputable scholars in Israel and elsewhere. Ian Gilmour, a former British Secretary of State for Defence, dismissed it as “pretentious and preposterous,” accusing Peters of repeatedly misrepresenting demographic statistics. Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath went further, calling the work “sheer forgery.”