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This book focuses on the bilateral and multilateral relations between Britain, the 'former proprietor' and Israel, the 'successor state', during the period following their armed clash in January 1949, to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza and the Sinai in March 1957. It highlights the formulation of foreign policy decisions in Britain and Israel; Britain's special responsibility and influence, which affected Israel's relations with neighbouring Arab states; Israel's complex policy towards Britain; Anglo-Jewry's attitude towards Israel and the distinctive relationship between Israel's embassy in London and the Jewish community.

Is there such a thing as “the Israel lobby,” and how powerful is it really? Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel’s advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government’s contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors’ strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa. By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.

Truly an essential reference for today's world, this detailed introduction to the origins, events, and impact of the adversarial relationship between Arabs and Israelis illuminates the complexities and the consequences of this long-lasting conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict remains one of the most contentious in modern history, one with repercussions that reach far beyond the Middle East. This volume describes and explains the most important countries, people, events, and organizations that play or have played a part in the conflict. Chronological coverage begins with the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 and extends to the present day. A one-stop reference, the guide offers a comprehensive overview essay, as well as perspective essays by leading scholars who explore such widely debated issues as the United States' support for Israel and historic rights to Palestine. Important primary source documents, such as the UN Resolution on the Partition of Palestine and the Camp David Accords, are included and put into context. Further insight into drivers of war and peace in the Middle East are provided through biographies of major political leaders like Menachem Begin, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Anwar Sadat.

Focusing on British broadsheets such as The Times and The Guardian, and tabloid publications such as The Sun and The Daily Mail, this book looks at the visualization of post-colonial Britain through cartoons. Tahnia Ahmed examines how Irish, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim communities are Othered, interrogating the patterns and trends in the way they are depicted – both consciously and unconsciously – by cartoonists in Britain from the 20th century onwards. She reveals how cartoonists such as Nicholas Garland and Peter Brookes present assimilation as the goal for the portrayed minorities. At the same time, this goal is deemed impossible because difference is ontological and unchangeable. Central to the cartoons explored in this book is the construction of identity and the concept of 'us', demonstrating the role cartoons play in the stability and enduring power of the archetype. Ahmed suggests that cartoons illustrate how racial and religious prejudice subtly interface and reinforce one another. A depiction of religious difference, Ahmed argues, is often actually a cover for outright racism.

This volume of essays investigates, across a wide range of texts and with an emphasis on the notion of conflict, the various forms, objects and modes of circulation that sustained the “European civilizing mission.” At the heart of this volume are two controversial and conflicting papers, authored by Robert JC Young and Bernard Porter, around which other researchers come together to complement the debate and address some of the thorny issues that arise from reviewing colonial and postcolonial conflicts. Under the aegis of history and cultural studies, as well as film studies, the contributors in this collection share the common purpose of reviewing imperial conflicts while arguing for their own research agendas. From opposition and conflict, new perspectives on those cultural processes, within the particular context of the British Empire, are gained.

Examining the development of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinian refugee issue, this book spans the period following the first Arab-Israeli War until the mid-1950s, when the basic principles of Israel’s policy were finalized. Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue outlines and analyzes the various aspects that, together, created the mosaic of the "refugee problem" with which Israel has since had to contend. These aspects include issues of repatriation, resettlement, compensation, blocked bank accounts, internal refugees and family reunification. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book uses documents from Israeli government meetings, from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and files from the office of the Prime Minister’s advisor on Arab affairs to address the many diverse aspects of this topic, and will be essential reading for academics and researchers with an interest in Israel, the Middle East, and political science more broadly.

Stephan E. C. Wendehorst explores the relationship between British Jewry and Zionism from 1936 to 1956, a crucial period in modern Jewish history encompassing both the shoah and the establishment of the State of Israel. He attempts to provide an answer to what, at first sight, appears to be a contradiction: the undoubted prominence of Zionism among British Jews on the one hand, and its diverse expressions, ranging from aliyah to making a donation to a Zionist fund, on the other. Wendehorst argues that the ascendancy of Zionism in British Jewry is best understood as a particularly complex, but not untypical, variant of the 19th and 20th century's trend to re-imagine communities in a national key. He examines the relationship between British Jewry and Zionism on three levels: the transnational Jewish sphere of interaction, the British Jewish community, and the place of the Jewish community in British state and society. The introduction adapts theories of nationalism so as to provide a framework of analysis for Diaspora Zionism. Chapter one addresses the question of why British Jews became Zionists, chapter two how the various quarters of British Jewry related to the Zionist project in the Middle East, chapter three Zionist nation-building in Britain and chapter four the impact of Zionism on Jewish relations with the larger society. The conclusion modifies the original argument by emphasising the impact that the specific fabric of British state and society, in particular the Empire, had on British Zionism.

This study analyzes the unique triangular relationship between Israel’s diplomatic representatives, pro-Israel advocates, and US administrations draws on a wealth of Hebrew and English primary documentation that includes; government archives, surveillance records, wiretappings, personal oral interviews, and diaries of key individuals. Natan Aridan demonstrates how a small new state succeeded in establishing a level of political, economic and military aid that has made for an alliance that is unique in the American experience. Revealed in considerable depth are the dilemmas facing Israeli and US leaders, and pro-Israel organizations and the extent to which individual Jewish leaders maneuvered as conduits between Israeli governments and US administrations, whose senior dramatis personae in turn attempted to influence, moderate, restrain, and change the course of policy decisions and actions. Each administration had multiple voices and international contingencies presented different challenges, all of which had a major impact in fluctuations, and shifts in policies toward Israel. There was nothing inevitable about military and financial support for Israel. It was only by the end of the period that a distinct pattern began to emerge. Eventual qualified US support took a long and complicated path developed over many decades on multidimensional levels. The book refutes insidious allegations that from Israel’s inception Jewish influence and a powerful Israel lobby hijacked US foreign policy to achieve unreserved military and financial support for Israel that undermined the best interests of the US. The author illustrates one of the poorly misunderstood aspects on the subject by demonstrating how Israeli governments were more astute and powerful than previous scholars have realized and that they were in fact pulling the strings far more than AIPAC and wealthy Jews. He also demonstrates that a contributing factor on the decision to aid Israel (understated in previous research) lay in Israel exploiting its ‘nuisance value.’