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Wallach, Yair (2023) 'The racial logic of Palestine’s partition.' Ethnic and Racial Studies, 46 (8). pp. 1576-1598.

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Abstract

The partition of Palestine was first proposed more than eight decades ago. It remains a consensus international approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why was Palestine the only settler-colonial context outside Europe in which partition became a dominant “solution”? This article argues that the explanation is found in European racial attitudes towards Jews and Arabs in the first half of the twentieth century. British and international policy makers regarded (European) Jews as a non-European, Semitic race. This led them to view Jewish Zionist migrants and native Palestinian Arabs as somewhat comparable groups. Rather than a clash between European settlers and Arab natives, they saw in Palestine a conflict between two nations living side by side. Reading through key documents – the Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate, and the Partition Reports of 1937 and 1947 – I show how this racial logic informed the framework of partition.

Item Type: Journal Article
Keywords: Partition, Palestine, whiteness, settler colonialism, ethno-nationalism, semitism
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics
ISSN: 01419870
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2151845
SWORD Depositor: JISC Publications Router
Date Deposited: 20 Dec 2022 11:58
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/38454

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