Synopses & Reviews
The Zionist Masquerade is a new history of the birth of the Anglo-Zionist alliance during the Great War - a critical chapter in the history of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. James Renton argues that the Balfour Declaration was the result of a wider phenomenon of British propaganda policies during World War I that were driven by mistaken conceptions of ethnicity, ethnic power and nationalism. From this vantage point, Renton contends that while a number of Zionist activists played a crucial role in the making of the Balfour Declaration, the end result was not the great Zionist victory that has been widely assumed. Although the Declaration came to be the basis for the British Mandate for Palestine, which made a Jewish State possible thirty years later, this was far from being the original intention of the British Government. The primary purpose of Britain's wartime support for Zionism was to secure Jewish backing for the war effort. The unintended consequences of this policy, however, were to be explosive and far-reaching.
Synopsis
This book is a re-examination of British policy towards Jews and Zionism in the First World War, which resulted in a fundamental turning point in the history of the Middle East, Palestine and Zionism.
Synopsis
This book offers a new interpretation of a critical chapter in the history of the Zionist-Palestine conflict and the British Empire in the Middle East. It contends that the Balfour Declaration was one of many British propaganda policies during the World War I that were underpinned by misconceived notions of ethnicity, ethnic power and nationalism.
Synopsis
The Zionist Masquerade is a new history of the birth of the Anglo-Zionist alliance during the Great War - a critical chapter in the history of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. James Renton argues that the Balfour Declaration was the result of a wider phenomenon of British propaganda policies during World War I that were driven by mistaken conceptions of ethnicity, ethnic power and nationalism. From this vantage point, Renton contends that while a number of Zionist activists played a crucial role in the making of the Balfour Declaration, the end result was not the great Zionist victory that has been widely assumed. Although the Declaration came to be the basis for the British Mandate for Palestine, which made a Jewish State possible thirty years later, this was far from being the original intention of the British Government. The primary purpose of Britain's wartime support for Zionism was to secure Jewish backing for the war effort. The unintended consequences of this policy, however, were to be explosive and far-reaching.
About the Author
JAMES RENTON is Senior Lecturer in History at Edge Hill University, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.
Table of Contents
Introduction * Perceptions of Jews and Ethnic Groups in the Official Mind * Jews, Ethnicity and the Propaganda War in the USA * Turning Perceptions into Policy: The Role of Jewish Activists, 1914-1917 * The Making of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance * The Anglo-Zionist Propaganda Machine * National Space and the Narrative of a New Epoch in Palestine * Performance and the Myth of Jewish National Rebirth * Perception vs. Reality: American Jewish Identities and the Impact of * Conclusion: The Consequences for Palestine