Zionism

Zionism: False Messiah has as its subject one of the most historically complex and controversy-laden developments of the century: the rise of the Zionist movement, its implantation in Palestine and the eventual establishment of the State of Israel. The achievement of the author has been to weave together, with great sensitivity, scholarship and historical judgement, the different strands of this story: the situation of the Jews under the Tsar and of the Arabs under the Ottoman Empire; the changing relations among the three main protagonists in Palestine-- the Arabs, the Jews and the British--following World War I and the Balfour Declaration; the political alignments and class antagonisms within the two communities contending for Palestine (their economic, cultural, political, and social development); the diplomatic and international factors blocking or furthering the realization of the Zionist project, and , finally the three cornered military contest between the Arabs, the Jewish settlers, and the British Mandate presence which came to a temporary halt with the successful consolidation and expansion of the State of Israel and the creation of the Palestinian Diaspora.