A comprehensive examination of Churchill s complex political, diplomatic, and intellectual response to Zionism"

An insightful history of Churchill's lifelong commitment—both public and private—to the Jews and Zionism, and of his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism Winston Churchill was a young man in 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island. Despite the prevailing anti-Semitism in England as well as on the Continent, Churchill's position was clear: he supported Dreyfus, and condemned the prejudices that had led to his conviction. Churchill's commitment to Jewish rights, to Zionism—and ultimately to the State of Israel—never wavered. In 1922, he established on the bedrock of international law the right of Jews to emigrate to Palestine. During his meeting with David Ben-Gurion in 1960, Churchill presented the Israeli prime minister with an article he had written about Moses, praising the father of the Jewish people. Drawing on a wide range of archives and private papers, speeches, newspaper coverage, and wartime correspondence, Churchill's official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, explores the origins, implications, and results of Churchill's determined commitment to Jewish rights, opening a window on an underappreciated and heroic aspect of the brilliant politician's life and career.

The British Mandate over Palestine began just 100 years ago, in July 1920, when Sir Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, took his seat at Government House, Jerusalem. The chapters here analyse a wide cross-section of the conflicting issues --social, political and strategical--that attended British colonial rule over the country, from 1920 to 1948. This anthology contains contributions by several of the most respected Israeli scholars in the field – Arab, Druze and Jewish. It is divided into three sections, covering the differing perspectives of the main ‘actors’ in the ‘Palestine Triangle’: the British, the Arabs and the Zionists. The concluding chapter identifies a pattern of seven counterproductive negotiating behaviours that explain the repeated failure of the parties to agree upon any of the proposals for an Arab-Zionist peace in Mandated Palestine. The volume is a modern review of the British Mandate in Palestine from different perspectives, which makes it a valuable addition to the field. It is a key resource for students and scholars interested in international relations, history of the Middle East, Palestine and Israel.

Can one individual influence the course of history? In the example of Churchill and the Middle East during post-World War I, the answer is an irrefutable yes. Winston S. Churchill, first as Secretary for War and Air, and then as Colonial Secretary, both formulated and enacted the British imperial mandate policy for Iraq and Palestine, thereby laying the groundwork for issues that are still relevant today including conflicts in Israel, internal political upheavals in Iraq. The complicated historical intricacies of the postwar period combined with a variety of personal and political confrontations are at the core of Churchill’s decisions and finally his parliamentary successes. While most books on Churchill attempt to cover the course of his political and personal career, this volume exclusively focuses on the Middle East during the formative years of 1919-1922 and explores the foundations of some of the Middle East's most problematic issues today.

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 true history of the imperial deal that transformed the Middle East and sealed the fate of Palestine On 2 November 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, declared it was in favour of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This short note would become one of the most controversial documents of modern history. Offering new insights into the imperial rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. He charts the debates within the British government, the Zionist movement, and the Palestinian groups struggling for selfdetermination. The after-effects of these events are still felt today.

The writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff (1917–1979) offer a refreshing reassessment of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East. A member of the bourgeois Jewish community in Cairo, Kahanoff grew up in a time of coexistence. She spent the years of World War II in New York City, where she launched her writing career with publications in prominent American journals. Kahanoff later settled in Israel, where she became a noted cultural and literary critic. Mongrels or Marvels offers Kahanoff's most influential and engaging writings, selected from essays and works of fiction that anticipate contemporary concerns about cultural integration in immigrant societies. Confronted with the breakdown of cosmopolitan Egyptian society, and the stereotypes she encountered as a Jew from the Arab world, she developed a social model, Levantinism, that embraces the idea of a pluralist, multicultural society and counters the prevailing attitudes and identity politics in the Middle East with the possibility of mutual respect and acceptance.