From Time Immemorial

From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab–Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a controversial 1984 book by Joan Peters about the demographics of the Arab population of Palestine and of the Jewish population of the Arab world before and after the formation of the State of Israel.

According to Peters a large fraction of the Arabs of Palestine were not descendants of natives of Palestine at the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, but had arrived in waves of immigration starting in the 19th century and continuing through the period of the British Mandate. Peters contends that at the same time a much larger number of Jews than the number of Arabs fleeing Palestine, were driven out of the Arab countries and became refugees in Israel. She argues that what is referred to as the 1948 Palestinian exodus is actually a population exchange that resulted from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

When the book was published, it was acclaimed by mainstream reviewers, including Robert St. John. A short time later, the book's central claims were attacked by Norman Finkelstein. Other critics, including Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Yehoshua Porath, followed Finkelstein's criticism and called the book "ludicrous", "worthless" and a "forgery". The historian Barbara W. Tuchman and Daniel Pipes endorsed the book's central thesis and claimed that weaknesses in the book do not undermine its theses.

On its release in the US the book received widespread critical acclaim. According to Norman Finkelstein, it had garnered some two hundred favorable notices in the United States by the end of its publication in 1984. In April 1985 it was awarded the National Jewish Book Award in the "Israel" category.

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