To mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration (November 1917), which paved the way towards the dispossession of the Palestinians, this article reflects on how imperial strategy, ideas about race, and institutionalised propaganda converged to shape Britain’s contribution to the ‘Palestine problem’. The author illustrates the imperial tradition that shaped British support for Zionism by tracing the trajectory of John Buchan’s career. Buchan was an influential novelist, best known as the author of adventure stories including The Thirty-Nine Steps. He wrote in the service of Empire. During the first world war, Buchan spearheaded propaganda for the Empire’s eastward expansion and directed the propaganda service as Palestine fell to British troops. He began his career in South Africa, mentored by Lord Milner, and worked as a literary spokesperson for the policy of white rule. He ended it in Canada, serving as the country’s Governor General. This article foregrounds Canada as a settler polity with a privileged place in Buchan’s philosophy, and where Buchan’s approach to supporting Zionism thrived. And it explores Buchan’s hostile construction both of a menacing Islam and of ‘the Jew’. Buchan was not the only Briton to disparage Jews ‘at home’ only to find a place for them on the frontier.
This article explores the tension between Israeli state power and its presentation to the West in ostensibly liberal terms. The historical dynamics of metropolitan sponsorship of Zionist settler colonialism are briefly discussed before focusing on the ways in which the politics of artificial demographic management and pan-Jewish entitlement to Palestine are twisted into a conception of Jewish national self-determination that serves as a liberal licence for Israeli state crimes.
The participation of thousands of overseas volunteers (the Mahal) in Zionist military operations conducted throughout the 1948 war has received insufficient critical attention. Mainly English-speaking World War II veterans recruited by the Zionist movement in the West for their expertise in such needed specializations as artillery, armored warfare, and aerial combat, the Mahal's importance to the military effort far exceeded their numbers. Situating their involvement within the broader historical context of Western support for the Zionist project, this article examines their role within the Haganah and Israel Defense Forces (particularly in aerial and armored units) in operations involving the violent depopulation of Palestinian communities.
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