Operation Babylon; King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan; & The Making of the Modern Near East

• Operation Babylon
  Shlomo Hillel - Collins, 1988 – 301pp - £15
• King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan
  Mary C. Wilson - Cambridge University Press, 1987 – xxii + 289pp - £25
• The Making of the Modern Near East
  M.E. Yapp - Longman, 1988 – xii + 404pp - £22.50

We have here a new myth in the making. Operation Babylon by Shlomo Hillel is offered as a book 'with all the power of an international thriller... a breathtaking story of adventure, daring, tragedy and human triumph', which is a winner of Israel's most prestigious literary award. Just as Leon Uris' Exodus dramatised the plight of Jewish refugees smuggled out of Europe into Palestine so Hillel's Operation Babylon sets out to do the same for the Iraqi Jews that were smuggled into Palestine and Israel from 1947-52. As Uris' account is partisan and propagandist in motive, so Hillel's story provides a thrilling narrative but little real sense of history. In his account the delineation between heroes and villains is clear. Every Arab is bribe-able and corrupt. Every Brit is brutish and unfeeling. Every Zionist is warm, humane, generous and loving. Anyone who opposes the Zionist cause is at best confused and at worst a bigot.