A short history of Britain's role in Palestine between 1917 and 1948, when Britis support for the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine led to the formerly Arab country becoming the state of Israel.

A panoramic and provocative history of life in Palestine during the three strife-torn but romantic decades when Britain ruled and the seeds of today's conflicts were sown Tom Segev's acclaimed works, 1949 and The Seventh Million, overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now Segev explores the dramatic period before the creation of the state, when Britain ruled over "one Palestine, complete" (as noted in the receipt signed by the High Commissioner) and when its promise to both Jews and Arabs that they would inherit the land set in motion the conflict that haunts the region to this day. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials, Segev reconstructs a tumultuous era (1917 to 1948) of limitless possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures--General Allenby, Lawrence of Arabia, David Ben-Gurion--as well as an array of pioneers, secret agents, diplomats, and fanatics. He tracks the steady advance of Jews and Arabs toward confrontation and with his hallmark originality puts forward a radical new argument: that the British, far from being pro-Arab, as commonly thought, consistently favored the Zionist position, and did so out of the mistaken--and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history. Rich in unforgettable characters, sensitive to all perspectives, One Palestine, Complete brilliantly depicts the decline of an empire, the birth of one nation, and the tragedy of another.

The British Army's devastating effectiveness against colonial rebellion is exposed in this military history of Britain's pacification of the Arab revolt in Palestine.

“An essential purchase for anyone interested in modern Middle East history.” —Jerusalem Post The strife-torn three decades of British rule over Palestine, known as the Mandate, is one of the great dramas in British imperial history, and remains passionately controversial now, some fifty years after the last British High Commissioner left Jerusalem. British policies, promises, the mere presence of Britain in the Holy Land, are all still argued, deplored, or--less frequently--admired. In all the polemic surrounding the Mandate, the thousands of British men and women who actually lived and worked in Palestine have been overlooked, as if their presence there had been irrelevant. Whether civil servants, teachers, soldiers, or missionaries, posted to Jerusalem or remote outposts in the hills, whatever their rank or tasks, the British of the Mandate lived through an extraordinary, transforming personal adventure. Here for the first time is their often poignant story, written largely in their own words, with honesty, humor, and occasional bitterness, against a background of tragic and violent events. Their letters home, diaries, and memoirs vividly describe British landscapes, cultural affinities and misunderstandings, feelings for Arabs or Jews, accomplishments and mishaps, and a strong sense of imperial mission coupled with an often sorrowful awareness of human limitations and the folly of unrealistic expectations. This powerful and authentic personal writing, enhanced by evocative illustrations, brings to life a notable chapter in imperial history and illuminates the experiences and motivations of the last, remarkably articulate generation of British proconsuls and their wives.

In 1948, Britain withdrew from Palestine, bringing to an end its 30 years of rule in the territory. What followed has been well-documented and is perhaps one of the most intractable problems of the post-imperial age. However, the long-standing connection between Britain and Palestine before May 1948 is also a fascinating story. This volume takes a fresh look at the years of the British mandate for Palestine; its politics, economics, and culture. Contributors address themes such as religion, mandatory administration, economic development, policy and counter-insurgency, violence, art and culture, and decolonization. This book will be valuable to scholars of the British mandate, but also more broadly to those interested in imperial history and the history of the West’s involvement in the Middle East.

Partitioning Palestine is the first history of the ideological and political forces that led to the idea of partition—that is, a division of territory and sovereignty—in British mandate Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. Inverting the spate of narratives that focus on how the idea contributed to, or hindered, the development of future Israeli and Palestinian states, Penny Sinanoglou asks instead what drove and constrained British policymaking around partition, and why partition was simultaneously so appealing to British policymakers yet ultimately proved so difficult for them to enact. Taking a broad view not only of local and regional factors, but also of Palestine’s place in the British empire and its status as a League of Nations mandate, Sinanoglou deftly recasts the story of partition in Palestine as a struggle to maintain imperial control. After all, British partition plans imagined space both for a Zionist state indebted to Britain and for continued British control over key geostrategic assets, depending in large part on the forced movement of Arab populations. With her detailed look at the development of the idea of partition from its origins in the 1920s, Sinanoglou makes a bold contribution to our understanding of the complex interplay between internationalism and imperialism at the end of the British empire and reveals the legacies of British partitionist thinking in the broader history of decolonization in the modern Middle East.

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.