A thorough analysis of the economic development of Palestine during the first years of British mandatory rule and, in particular, of the British government's preferential policy regarding Jewish settlement and enterprise sets the tone for this groundbreaking study. Using a wealth of previously unpublished documentation, the author proves that British mandatory policy provided the perfect environment for the growth of a largest and more homogeneous Zionist enclave, which in turn led to the inevitable split in Palestine's economy.

In 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration for military and strategic reasons. This book analyses why and how the British took on the Palestine Mandate. It explores how their interests and policies changed during its course and why they evacuated the country in 1948. During the first decade of the Mandate the British enjoyed an influx of Jewish capital mobilized by the Zionists which enabled them not only to fund the administration of Palestine, but also her own regional imperial projects. But in the mid-1930s, as the clouds of World War Two gathered, Britain’s commitment to Zionism was superseded by the need to secure her strategic assets in the Middle East. In consequence she switched to a policy of appeasing the Arabs. In 1947, Britain abandoned her attempts to impose a settlement in Palestine that would be acceptable to the Arab States and referred Palestine to the United Nations, without recommendations, leaving the antagonists to settle their conflict on the battlefield. Based on archival sources, and the most up-to-date scholarly research, this comprehensive history offers new insights into Arab, British and Zionist policies. It is a must-read for anyone with an interest in Palestine, Israel, British Colonialism and the Middle East in general.

In this book, Martin Bunton focuses on the way in which the Palestine Mandate was part of a broader British imperial administration - a fact often masked by Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine. His meticulous research reveals clear links to colonial practice in India, Sudan, and Cyprus amongst other places. He argues that land officials' views on sound land management were derived from their own experiences of rural England, and that this was far more influential onthe shaping of land policies than the promise of a Jewish National Home.Bunton reveals how the British were intent on preserving the status quo of Ottoman land law, which (when few Britons could read Ottoman or were well grounded in its legal codes) led to a series of translations, interpretations, and hence new applications of land law. The sense of importance the British attributed to their work surveying and registering properties and transactions, is captured in the efforts of British officials to microfilm all of their records at the height of the Second WorldWar. Despite this however, land policies remained in flux.

Britain relied upon secret intelligence operations to rule Mandatory Palestine. Statecraft by Stealth sheds light on a time in history when the murky triad of intelligence, policy, and security supported colonial governance. It emphasizes the role of the Anglo-Zionist partnership, which began during World War I and ended in 1939, when Britain imposed severe limits on Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. Steven Wagner argues that although the British devoted considerable attention to intelligence gathering and analysis, they never managed to solve the basic contradiction of their rule: a dual commitment to democratic self-government and to the Jewish national home through immigration and settlement. As he deftly shows, Britain's experiment in Palestine shed all pretense of civic order during the Palestinian revolt of 1936–41, when the police authority collapsed and was replaced by a security state, created by army staff intelligence. That shift, Wagner concludes, was rooted in Britain's desire to foster closer ties with Saudi Arabia just before the start of World War II, and thus ended its support of Zionist policy. Statecraft by Stealth takes us behind the scenes of British rule, illuminating the success of the Zionist movement and the failure of the Palestinians to achieve independence. Wagner focuses on four key issues to stake his claim: an examination of the "intelligence state" (per Martin Thomas's classic, Empires of Intelligence), the Arab revolt, the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the origins and consequences of Britain's decision to end its support of Zionism. Wagner crafts a superb story of espionage and clandestine policy-making, showing how the British pitted individual communities against each other at particular times, and why.