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.

In 1948, British troops withdrew from the Palestinian lands, ending over 30 years of the British Mandate of Palestine. Taking a fresh look at the years of the British mandate; its politics, economics, and culture, this volume will be valuable not only 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.

It is now more than seventy years since the creation of the state of Israel, yet its origins and the British Empire's historic responsibility for Palestine remain little known. Confusion persists too as to the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In Legacy of Empire, Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionism and Britain's role in shaping the history of Palestine and Israel. Thompson explores why the British government adopted Zionism in the early twentieth century, issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and then retaining it as the cornerstone of their rule in Palestine after the First World War. Despite evidence and warnings, over the next two decades Britain would facilitate the colonisation of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, ultimately leading to a conflict which it could not contain. Britain's response was to propose the partition of an ungovernable land: a 'two-state solution' which - though endorsed by the United Nations after the Second World War - has so far brought into being neither two states nor a solution. A highly readable and compelling account of Britain's rule in Palestine, Legacy of Empire is essential for those wishing to better understand the roots of this enduring conflict.

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.

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 history of Jerusalem as traditionally depicted is the quintessential history of conflict and strife, of ethnic tension, and of incompatible national narratives and visions. It is also a history of dramatic changes and moments, one of the most radical ones being the replacement of the Ottoman regime with British rule in December 1917. From Empire to Empire challenges these two major dichotomies, ethnic and temporal, which shaped the history of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. It links the experiences of two ethnic communities living in Palestine, Jews and Arabs, as well as bridging two historical periods, the Ottoman and British administrations. Drawing upon a variety of sources, Jacobson demonstrates how political and social alliances are dynamic, context-dependent, and purpose-driven. She also highlights the critical role of foreign intervention, governmental and nongovernmental, in forming local political alliances and in shaping the political reality of Palestine during the crisis of World War I and the transition between regimes. From Empire to Empire offers a vital new perspective on the way World War I has been traditionally studied in the Palestinian context. It also examines the effects of war on the socioeconomic sphere of a mixed city in crisis and looks into the ways the war, as well as Ottoman policies and administrators, affected the ways people perceived the Ottoman Empire and their location within it. From Empire to Empire illuminates the complex and delicate relations between ethnic and national groups and offers a different lens through which the history of Jerusalem can be seen: it proposes not only a story of conflict but also of intercommunal contacts and cooperation.

In this ground-breaking authoritative study, a highly documented and incisive analysis is made of the galvanising changes wrought to the people and landscape of British Mandated Palestine (1929-1948). Using a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach, the book’s award-winning author examines how the British imposed their rule, dominated by the clashing dualities of their Mandate obligations towards the Arabs and the Jews, and their own interests. The rulers’ Empire-wide conceptions of the ‘White man’s burden’ and preconceptions of the Holy Land were potent forces of change, influencing their policies. Lucidly written, Mandated Landscape is also a rich source of information supported by numerous maps, tables and illustrations, and has 66 appendices, a considerable bibliography and extensive index. With a theoretical and historical backdrop, the ramifications of British rule are highlighted in their impact on town planning, agriculture, forestry, land, the partition plans and a case study, presenting discussions on such issues as development, ecological shock, law and the controversial division of village lands, as the British operated in a politically turbulent climate, often within their own administration. This book is a major contribution to research on British Palestine and will interest those in Middle East, history, geography, development and colonial/postcolonial studies.

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.

At the end of the First World War Britain and to a much lesser extent France created the modern Middle East. The possessions of the former Ottoman Empire were carved up with scant regard for the wishes of those who lived there. Frontiers were devised and alien dynasties imposed on the populations as arbitrarily as in medieval times. From the outset the project was destined to failure. Conflicting and ambiguous promises had been made to the Arabs during the war but were not honoured. Brief hopes for Arab unity were dashed, and a harsh belief in western perfidy persists to the present day. Britain was quick to see the riches promised by the black pools of oil that lay on the ground around Baghdad. When France too grasped their importance, bitter differences opened up and the area became the focus of a return to traditional enmity. The war-time allies came close to blows and then drifted apart, leaving a vacuum of which Hitler took advantage. Working from both primary and secondary sources, Walter Reid explores Britain's role in the creation of the modern Middle East and the rise of Zionism from the early years of the twentieth century to 1948, when Britain handed over Palestine to UN control. From the decisions that Britain made has flowed much of the instability of the region and of the world-wide tensions that threaten the twenty-first century. How far was Britain to blame?

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.