Joan Peters

Life Peters was born in Chicago. She studied at the University of Illinois without earning a degree and became a freelance writer for publications like Harper's. She became "fascinated by the Middle East while covering the Yom Kippur War as a freelancer for CBS in 1973".

Her first marriage, to Gary Peters, ended in divorce. Her second marriage, to Stanley Kaplan, lasted until his death in 1991. She married William A. Caro in 1997 and went by the name Joan Caro. Her dedication to the cause of Israel may have been triggered by a visit in the 1970s to the Soviet Union, where officials treated her and her husband with suspicion.

In From Time Immemorial (1984), she argued that Palestinians are largely not indigenous to modern Israel and therefore have no claim to its territory. The book became controversial and its central claims were discredited by reputable scholars shortly after its publication. Scholars and writers across the political spectrum criticized it, including Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Yehoshua Porath, Ian Gilmour, and David Gilmour.

Peters died at her home in Chicago in 2015 of a cerebral embolism. Shortly before her death, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, telephoned to convey to her that Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was deeply grateful for her work.