-
Recent Articles
- Letter to the Israeli Ambassador from Amnesty International about Anas Abu Srour
- The Hamas attack and Israel’s War on Gaza: ‘a place where no human being can exist’
- Christian Church leaders worldwide urge Sunak to back ceasefire now
- Israel’s war cabinet has learned nothing from its failures
- How the Palestinians of Gaza live with Hamas
- ‘We Need a Ceasefire Now!’ Sir Vincent Fean on Deep Dive Palestine Podcast
- Dear President Biden: The Elders’ open letter on Israel and Palestine
- 115 peers and MPs demand UK call for immediate ceasefire
- Gaza ceasefire now
- Sir Vincent Fean on LBC with Matt Frei 11 Nov 2023
-
Join our mailing list
-
.
-
Category Archives: Book Reviews
In Search of the River Jordan
By James FergussonYale University Press£16.50ISBN 978-0-300-24415-1 Review by Ian Portman James Fergusson’s great aunt Frances was a keen advocate of a Jewish state in Palestine. Her mother, Blanche Dugdale, was Arthur Balfour’s biographer – herself an ardent Zionist and a … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on In Search of the River Jordan
Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914-39
by Peter ShambrookOneworld Academic£35.00, $US45.00ISBN 978-0-86154-632-9 Review by John McHugo Before Peter Shambrook produced Policy of Deceit, many historians in the West had shied away from the controversy over the Hussein-MacMahon correspondence of 1915-16. Whatever British commitments the letters … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914-39
Peter Shambrook’s Policy of Deceit
Policy of Deceit Britain and Palestine, 1914–1939 Published by Oneworld Publication date: August 3, 2023 ISBN: 9780861546329 RRP: £35.00 Pages: 416 ‘The most comprehensive and incisive exposure of the origins of the British betrayal of Palestine.’ Ilan Pappe ‘Deeply researched, powerfully argued and meticulously … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Peter Shambrook’s Policy of Deceit
Book Review: How the PLO dropped the ball during the Oslo process
The Olive Branch from Palestine, The Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the Path Out of the Current Impasse, with a foreword by Noam Chomsky, University of California Press, 2022. 291 pages, by Jerome Segal Review by Menachem Klein As hopes … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Book Review: How the PLO dropped the ball during the Oslo process
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I by Raja Shehadeh
A Palestinian Memoir Profile Books, £14.99, 152pp Review by Tim Llewellyn This is a slight book physically, but boiling with emotion recollected in less than tranquillity, a son’s difficult voyage in time to try to connect with, understand, explain and … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Misc
Comments Off on We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I by Raja Shehadeh
Book Review: A City in Fragments, Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem, by Yair Wallach
Stanford University Press. Paper. Hard cover. £20.99 Review by Menachem Klein When I walk in London, in particular in the City, I feel somehow disappointed by the ultra-modern architecture of steel and glass buildings next to old, imperial, probably even … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Book Review: A City in Fragments, Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem, by Yair Wallach
Against our better judgment: The hidden history of how the US was used to create Israel
By Magan Singodia This is a brilliant book for anyone trying to establish the truth of the political history of America’s unwavering support for Israel. It is an eye-opening account of the lengths the Zionists were and are prepared to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Against our better judgment: The hidden history of how the US was used to create Israel
Book Review: Time’s Monster: History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire
By Priya Satia, Penguin Allen Lane, Oct 2020 Review by Tariq Suleman A great deal has already been written on the history of empire, but Priya Satia’s ingenious way of presenting empire steers us through a significantly new understanding of … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on Book Review: Time’s Monster: History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire
A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East by James Barr
Review by Patrick Seale, originally printed in The Financial Times, 2011. The story of how Britain and France carved up the Arab world between them after the first world war has often been told but James Barr’s new book, A … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Comments Off on A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East by James Barr
The best book on the Balfour Declaration is…
Book Review: Palestine the Reality by J.M.N. Jeffries By John McHugo Many people trying to get to grips with the Israel/Palestine conflict begin with the First World War and the contradictory promises Britain made at that time. These were pledges … Continue reading
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, Mandate Period, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration
Tagged Anglo-French Declaration, Balfour Declaration, McMahon Hussain, Palestine Mandate, Sykes Picot
Comments Off on The best book on the Balfour Declaration is…
The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine A history of settler colonial conquest and resistance
By Rashid Khalidi Profile Books £25.00 Book review Review by Tim Llewellyn In the midst of Jerusalem’s Old City, on the cusp of the Muslim and Jewish quarters, reposes the Khalidi family library, an archive of scriptures, literature and letters … Continue reading
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Post-Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Resources, Zionism Debate
Comments Off on The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine A history of settler colonial conquest and resistance
Book Review: The Balfour Declaration – Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine by Bernard Regan
by John McHugo In The Balfour Declaration: Empire, The Mandate and Resistance in Palestine, Bernard Regan shows us what Britain did (and what Britain thought it was doing) by issuing the Balfour Declaration, by incorporating it into the League of … Continue reading
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, Mandate Period, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, Mandate
Comments Off on Book Review: The Balfour Declaration – Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine by Bernard Regan
Book Review: Legacy of Empire – Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel by Gardner Thompson
By Tim Llewellyn, Oct 10th 2019 “…[T]he Mandate has proved to be unworkable in practice…[and] the obligations undertaken by the two communities in Palestine have been shown to be irreconcilable.” (Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Pre-Balfour Declaration, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate
Comments Off on Book Review: Legacy of Empire – Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel by Gardner Thompson
Book Review: Britain’s Pacification of Palestine – The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936–9 by Matthew Hughes
by Ian Black The 1936–9 Arab Revolt against British rule in Palestine, and its suppression by the British army, was a precursor to the devastating war against the nascent Israeli state that the Palestinians lost a decade later. Matthew Hughes‘s extensively researched new study … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Arab Revolt, Book review, British Army
Comments Off on Book Review: Britain’s Pacification of Palestine – The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936–9 by Matthew Hughes
Book Review: The Arab Awakening by George Antonius
The Balfour Project is most grateful to the Times Literary Supplement for allowing us to reprint this review of The Arab Awakening, by George Antonius, the review by Harry Pirie-Gordon being published on November 26, 1938. Readers might also like … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence
Tagged Antonious, Arabs, Hussein Ibn Ali, McMahon Hussain, Palestine Mandate, Turks
Comments Off on Book Review: The Arab Awakening by George Antonius
Book Review: Enemies and Neighbours – Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black
By Tim Llewellyn This is a dispassionate book, written by someone who knows almost everything, about the tragic progress of Britain’s experiment with Zionism in Palestine to the present day’s existential horror. Black does not make judgments. His careful selection … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1917, British Mandate, Israel, Palestine, Zionism
Comments Off on Book Review: Enemies and Neighbours – Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black
Book Review: Beyond the Balfour Declaration by Lord Leslie Turnberg
by John McHugo In Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, (Biteback Publishing, 2017) Leslie Turnberg has tried to grapple with the difficult problem of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Turnberg is a Labour life peer. … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
Tagged 1917, 1922, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, McHugo, McMahon Hussain, Palestine, Turnberg
Comments Off on Book Review: Beyond the Balfour Declaration by Lord Leslie Turnberg
The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
Mathew compares the work of two Jewish historians on the long-term effects of the inter-communal violence and harsh response by British forces which rocked Palestine in 1929. Where their accounts overlap Mathew explores their markedly different approaches.Violence in Palestine in … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1929, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Hope-Simpson, Palestine Mandate, Passfield, Shaw Commission
Comments Off on The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
Book Review: Part II The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
IV: Commissions & Reports; White Paper & Letter These, 1929-31 – from Shaw and Hope Simpson to Passfield and MacDonald – have been cited in the opening paragraph above. Hillel Cohen`s approach is merely to list them, largely without comment. … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Resources, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1929, Balfour Declaration, Passfield
Comments Off on Book Review: Part II The 1929 Palestine Riots – A Conflicted Jewish Historiography by William M Mathew
The Mandate years: colonialism and the creation of Israel
Charles Glass, writing in the London Review of Books in 2001, reviewed two books looking at the period of the British Mandate in Palestine. Although written 22 years ago it touches on topics that are very little known in the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Mandate Period, Zionism Debate
Tagged Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Lord Curzon, Montagu, Weizmann, Zionism
Comments Off on The Mandate years: colonialism and the creation of Israel
J.M.N. Jeffries` Palestine Deception: Modern Resonances
In a recent review article (New Middle Eastern Studies 5 [2015]) on , The Palestine Deception, 1915-1923: The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, the Balfour Declaration, and the Jewish National Home. ed William Mathew Dr. Nadia Naser-Najjab of the Institute of Arab and … Continue reading
Posted in Balfour Declaration, Book Reviews, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1922, 1923, McMahon Hussain, Palestine Mandate
Comments Off on J.M.N. Jeffries` Palestine Deception: Modern Resonances
The Palestine Deception, 1915-1923, by William Mathew
In 2015, historian William Mathew published a book consisting of a series of articles from the Daily Mail of 1923. These presented a hitherto uninformed British readership with details of official promises made to the Arabs in 1915-16 of post-war … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, McMahon-Hussein Correspondence
Tagged 1923, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, McMahon Hussain, Palestine, Sykes Picot, Zionism
Comments Off on The Palestine Deception, 1915-1923, by William Mathew
Debating Palestine and Israel – Book review by Jeremy Moodey
Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Mary Grey, Debating Israel and Palestine, (Exeter, Impress Books, 2014). It was George Orwell who wrote in his book 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” As with the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Current Positions
Tagged 19th Century, Balfour Declaration, British Mandate, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Palestine Mandate, Zionism
Comments Off on Debating Palestine and Israel – Book review by Jeremy Moodey
Setting the Desert on Fire. Book Review
James Barr, Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E.Lawrence and Britain’s’ Secret War in Arabia, (London: Bloomsbury 2006) This book does not fit easily into any one category: it is dramatic, a thrilling account of the last struggles of the Ottoman … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Pre-Balfour Declaration
Tagged Arab Revolt, Arabs, Faisal, Hussein Ibn Ali, Middle East, Peace Conference, Picot, Sykes Picot
Comments Off on Setting the Desert on Fire. Book Review
Anti-Zionism in London’s Jewish East End, 1890-1948
Anti-Zionism in London’s Jewish East End, 1890-1948 A summary of Chapter 6 with this title in Brian Klug’s: Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, Vallentine Mitchell (2010) Brian Klug, being a philosopher, approaches this subject from a … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Zionism Debate
Tagged 1890, anti-semitism, Anti-Zionism, Ben-Gurion, Claude Montefiore, Communism, London's East End, Montagu, Zionism
Comments Off on Anti-Zionism in London’s Jewish East End, 1890-1948