Founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding of the State of Israel. Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many secret meetings took place between the JA and Arab leaders and elites. The dominant narrative claims that Syrian leaders and elites were not involved in any such meetings. However, this book reveals for the first time that a multitude of secret meetings and negotiations took place including with the Syrian National Block – the official Syrian leadership at the time – and the Shahbandari opposition and leaders of Jabal al-Druze. Based mainly on primary sources from Israeli archives, including documentation of discussions, reports and decisions taken by the JA leadership, the book tells a new story of a critical period of history, the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939 in Palestine. Mahmoud Muhareb argues that the main historic objective of the JA was to reach agreements with Arab leaders and Arab states, behind the back of the Palestinians and at their expense, and to normalize its relations with the Arab states while it continued to deny the national rights of the Palestinians. The book challenges Israeli and Syrian official narratives and substantiates the Palestinian narrative, as well as some Israeli new historians who asserted Israel refusal to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and affirmed its attempts to reach a comprehensive settlement with the Arab states at the expense of the Palestinians. The book includes Arabic and Hebrew sources translated into English for readers.

Founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding of the State of Israel. Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many secret meetings took place between the JA and Arab leaders and elites. The dominant narrative claims that Syrian leaders and elites were not involved in any such meetings. However, this book reveals for the first time that a multitude of secret meetings and negotiations took place including with the Syrian National Block - the official Syrian leadership at the time - and the Shahbandari opposition and leaders of Jabal al-Druze. Based mainly on primary sources from Israeli archives, including documentation of discussions, reports and decisions taken by the JA leadership, the book tells a new story of a critical period of history, the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 in Palestine. Mahmoud Muhareb argues that the main historic objective of the JA was to reach agreements with Arab leaders and Arab states, behind the back of the Palestinians and at their expense, and to normalize its relations with the Arab states while it continued to deny the national rights of the Palestinians. The book challenges Israeli and Syrian official narratives and substantiates the Palestinian narrative, as well as some Israeli new historians who asserted Israel refusal to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and affirmed its attempts to reach a comprehensive settlement with the Arab states at the expense of the Palestinians. The book includes Arabic and Hebrew sources translated into English for readers.

General Sir John Glubb, the last British pro-Consul in the region, could be seen as midwife to the birth of the modern Middle East - a birth as painful and tortuous as its subsequent history. Glubb Pasha was the British commander of the Arab Legion during those crucial years between 1936 and 1956 which were to witness the collapse of Palestine and the final foundation and establishment of the State of Israel. As well as analysing Glubb's personal vision of the Middle East and its peoples - a surprisingly racial vision that would condition his politics - this book examines his reactions to the Arab Revolt in Palestine and the periodic plans to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. It offers the first in-depth account of his thinking and actions during 1948, as he led his small army into Palestine and war against Israel. His aims and actions - which lie at the very heart of the controversy between 'Old' and 'New' historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict - are carefully detailed using, for the first time, contemporary British, Arab and Israeli intelligence sources. This masterful account of Glubb the soldier, strategist and pro-Arab mouth-piece, based on hitherto unseen classified documents, will become a vital addition to the literature on this defining period in Middle Eastern history. It is required reading for students, academics and anyone interested in the impasse which has dominated Middle Eastern affairs for over half a century. 'an intriguing and valuable contribution to the history of the 1948 conflict' - Times Literary Supplement “This masterful account...will become a vital addition to the literature on this defining period in the Middle Eastern history" Fred Rhodes, Middle East Journal

Here is a brief, intelligent, even-handed analytical account of the origins of the Arab-Zionist conflict and its development from early in the twentieth century until 1948, focusing particularly on the period when Britain ruled Palestine under mandate from the League of Nations.

2024 Winner, Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, The Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute • One of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2023 • Named a Booklist Editors' Choice in History: Adult Books, 2023 • Finalist, Writing Based on Archival Material: National Jewish Book Awards • Finalist, Sophie Brody Medal, American Library Association "[Kessler] has done an exceptional job and opened new vistas on troubles past and present." — Wall Street Journal "Kessler’s history is key to understanding the current situation between Israelis and Palestinians." —Booklist, Starred Review A gripping, profoundly human, yet even-handed narrative of the origins of the Middle East conflict, with enduring resonance and relevance for our time. In spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives—Jewish, British, and Arab—and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly, no history of this seminal, formative first “Intifada” has ever been published for a general audience. The 1936–1939 revolt was the crucible in which Palestinian identity coalesced, uniting rival families, city and country, rich and poor in a single struggle for independence. Yet the rebellion would ultimately turn on itself, shredding the social fabric, sidelining pragmatists in favor of extremists, and propelling waves of refugees from their homes. British forces’ aggressive counterinsurgency took care of the rest, finally quashing the uprising on the eve of World War II. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the Arabs themselves, leaving them crippled in facing the Jews’ own drive for statehood a decade later. To the Jews, the insurgency would leave a very different legacy. It was then that Zionist leaders began to abandon illusions over Arab acquiescence, to face the unnerving prospect that fulfilling their dream of sovereignty might mean forever clinging to the sword. The revolt saw thousands of Jews trained and armed by Britain—the world’s supreme military power—turning their ramshackle guard units into the seed of a formidable Jewish army. And it was then, amid carnage in Palestine and the Hitler menace in Europe, that portentous words like “partition” and “Jewish state” first appeared on the international diplomatic agenda. This is the story of two national movements and the first sustained confrontation between them. The rebellion was Arab, but the Zionist counter-rebellion—the Jews’ military, economic, and psychological transformation—is a vital, overlooked element in the chronicle of how Palestine became Israel. Today, eight decades on, the revolt’s legacy endures. Hamas’s armed wing and rockets carry the name of the fighter-preacher whose death sparked the 1936 rebellion. When Israel builds security barriers, sets up checkpoints, or razes homes, it is evoking laws and methods inherited from its British predecessor. And when Washington promotes a “two-state solution,” it is invoking a plan with roots in this same pivotal period. Based on extensive archival research on three continents and in three languages, Palestine 1936 is the origin story of the world’s most intractable conflict, but it is also more than that. In Oren Kessler’s engaging, journalistic voice, it reveals world-changing events through extraordinary individuals on all sides: their loves and their hatreds, their deepest fears and profoundest hopes.

Napoleon’s invasion of the Middle East marks the beginning of the modern era in the region. This book traces the developments that led to the making of a new and separate geographical-political entity in the Middle East known as Eretz Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel within its bounds. Thus, its time frame runs from Napoleon’s invasion of Eretz Israel / Palestine in 1799 to the establishment of Israel in 1948–1949. Eretz Israel as the formal name of a separate entity in the modern era first appeared in the early translations into Hebrew of the Balfour Declaration, while in the original document the country was referred to as “Palestine.” During the period of Ottoman rule the territory that would in time be called Eretz Israel / Palestine was not a separate political unit. Among Jews, use of “Eretz Israel” increased only after the beginning of Zionist aliyot. Had the Zionist movement not arisen, it is doubtful whether the development to which this study is devoted would have occurred. The motivating force behind that process is without doubt the Zionist element. That is why Jews are the major protagonists in this book.