I don’t remember the last time I wrote a book review on this book blog so I thought I’d do something novel and start the year with one! I read A History of Palestinian Resistance, by Dr Daud Abdullah, at the end of last year. I have to confess I’ve been struggling with reading since October, but I wanted to learn more about the history of the Zionist movement and this short introduction was the perfect place to start. The book is only 131 pages, which for nonfiction is practically nothing and the type set is larger than most books. Its divided into three distinct sections and has 20 short chapters. Its a must read for anyone interested in the origin of Zionism and how Palestine was occupied with the help of fellow colonial powers, especially the British and Americans.

A History of Palestinian Resistance was published in 2005. The book is divided into three parts and is clearly designed to be a scholarly text. Each Chapter ends with some points of review and questions for those wanting to do more research. Unlike so many other texts, it comes with a four page bibliography, including articles and books in both English and Arabic. The book has 20 chapters and each is heavily referenced. Part one starts with a brief history of the region, as far back as 3,500BC and talks about the earliest known inhabitants, the Canaanites. Palestine has always been sought over, because of its geographical location, and has therefore been invaded by Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks and the British. The author dispels the myth that the land was without a people by documenting its rich history and taking the reader through its political and economic orders.

The rest of part one explores the origins of Zionist movement, which can be traces back to 1881-84, after the massacres of Jews in Russia and Romania. The Zionist movement was born out of these pogroms, and groups calling themselves Choveve Zion (Lovers of Zion) were inspired by the idea of “auto-emancipation” advocated by Moshe Lilienblum (1843-1910) and Leo Pinsker (1821-91). Lilienblum, advocated for Jews across Russia to go to Palestine “to which we have historic right” while Pinsker, who witnessed the progroms of 1881 and the flight of tens of thousands of Jews from Russia to Germany, Austria, France, England and the United States, left Russia with the intentions of bringing about a mass exodus out of Russia. He was the author of the famous pamphlet titled “Auto-emancipation”, encouraging Russian Jews to take their destiny into their own hands. Unlike Lilienblum, he wasn’t insistent on the land being Palestine, he advocated for the Jews needing their own land. Some Zionists did make their way to Palestine as early as 1882, arriving from Romania and Poland. From 1891 signs of their aggression were apparent, with Ahad Ha’Am (Asher Ginzberg), the father of cultural Zionism, condemning the attitudes of the settlers after his 1891 visit: “They treat the Arabs with hostility an cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody amongst us opposes this despicable inclination”

The next few chapters explore Zionism and European colonialism. Each chapter is no more than a few pages, buts is well researched and condensed into digestible and easily understandable language. The formation of The World Zionist Organisation was in 1897 with Theodor Herzl as it’s president. He was tasked with finding a colonial power to sponsor the Zionist project in Palestine. When his attempts with the German Kaiser failed he turned his attention to the British. It was him who played on the (racist) fears of the British and stressed the need for the Jews to have their own homeland in order to solve Europe’s Jewish problem. He was also eager to put Zionism in the service of British Imperialism. Joseph Chamberlin, known for his antisemitism, was interested in Zionism and options such as Uganda, Cyprus and Egyptian Sinai were considered as potential homes for the Jewish population. Chamberlin was happy to assist the Zionist project with any of its colonial possessions “not inhabited by white settlers” In 1903 Herzl argued passionately for the acceptance of Uganda however the Russian Jews were unwilling to accept any land other than Palestine. The fundamental difference between Zionism and Judaism become apparent as Zionism adopted many of the settler colonial ideologies of Europe in its founding principles. Political Zionism was founded in the nineteenth century and is a colonial movement by European Jews in order to establish a Jewish State, claiming that Jews are a race, chosen by God, and have a divine right to rule over Palestine. Because of this distortion, many Rabbis condemned political Zionism and continue to condemn it today. The notion of a “chosen people” makes racism integral to the teachings of Zionism and their disregard for all other humans is witnessed by the statement of Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel when she told the British Sunday Times in 1969: “There is no such thing as Palestinians. It is not as though there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and then took their country from them. They did not exist” This is the exact kind of gaslighting we are hearing today from the occupiers as they try and justify the genocide in Gaza. Part one ends with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. The document went through multiple drafts with objections at each stage, most notably by Edwin Montagu. Montagu was the only Jewish member of the cabinet and he condemned Zionism as a deviation from Judaism and a form of nationalism. “In a memorandum titled “The Antisemitism of the present Government”, which he circulated amongst his cabinet members , Montagu forewarned with amazing accuracy that, “you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country”

Part two of the book covers the Mandatory Period between 1922 and 1948. This was essentially a new form of colonial rule after the first world war in which a nation(s) was given the mandate to govern the administration and resources of another people, until they were able to stand alone i.e. Greater Syria was divided into Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and placed under French and British rule. The British had no interest really in allowing Palestine sovereign rule, instead they forged ahead with their Zionist project by appointing the prominent British Zionist Herbert Samuel, as High Commissioner of Palestine, with the authority to establish a civil government in Jerusalem. The mandate had contradictory principles and the British ensured that during their reign they remained fully in power, although Palestinians resisted this, they were thwarted by Zionist opposition. The other major thing the British did during this period was facilitate Jewish migration and “encourage close settlement by Jews on the land” Lord Balfour made his position clear in a memorandum dated 19 September 1919 “In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country… The Four Powers are committed to Zionism … Zionism, be it right or wrong is more important than the wishes of 700,000 Arabs” Really not much has changed as we see the governments of Western colonial countries aligning themselves behind the settler colonial state today at the expense of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The acquisition of land, increasing the Jewish minority and declaration of statehood were the prime objectives and several steps were taken to achieve this. Land that was purchased by the Jewish people was decreed the absolute property of the Jews and could not be sold, leased or mortgaged thereafter. “monopolies were granted to ensure control over the economy and a military force was formed to protect Jewish interest” In 1922 the population of Palestine was made up of around 590,390 Muslims, 83,694 Jews, and 73,024 Christians. by 1925 another 70,000 Jewish people immigrated to Palestine. This was partly due to increasing hostility in Europe and the global economic depression. Many also tried to migrate to America but the US government was also clamping down on immigration from Eastern Europe as they were worried about their socialist ideals. The first British census carried out in 1922 had the Jewish population at 11% of the total population, by 1931 it was up to 17%. Throughout the rise of Zionism, Palestinians resisted their occupiers. They had support from neighbouring Arab countries as well as the Turks, unfortunately many of these efforts were uncoordinated. According to Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi, over 600 articles on Zionism were published in a sample of 17 key newspapers from Cairo, Beirut, Haifa and Damascus. In 1929 the Zionist claims to the Western Wall resulted in thousands of Jewish para-military groups and settlers marching to Jerusalem and hoisting their flag on the wall amongst chants of “the wall is ours”. This provocation led to the Buraq Uprising in August that year, so called as the wall is significant to Muslims as they believe that the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) tied his celestial animal to the wall before beginning his (pbuh) ascent to the heavens. Many of the Palestinians killed during this uprising were killed by the British. Palestinian armed resistance is explored in much greater detail over the next few chapters but with the outbreak of the Second World War the fate of the Palestinians was all but sealed.

In 1939, Britain desperate to secure its interests in the region promised support for Arab independence throughout the region by publishing a white paper recognising Arab independence. For their part, the Higher Arab Committee rejected the White Paper as they deplored Britain’s failure to recognise Palestinian independence. With the outbreak of the war many Arab countries allied themselves with the British, placing their armies, navel bases, airports, oil reserves and storage facilities at their disposal. In Palestine, the Zionists, who from the very beginning of their colonial project, recognised the need to have a strong military force, also allied themselves with the British. In 1907 it was the Hashomer who provided security to the settlements. In 1919, the unofficial Jewish army, the Haganah, was formed. They stockpiled weapons in various parts of the country and were trained by the British. In 1941 a special commando unit was formed and by 1943 there were an estimated 43,000 Jewish volunteers in Palestine with arms. By 1942 British officials were convinced that the Zionists were ready to resort to “direct action”. That year at the American Zionist Organisation meeting, held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, the 600 strong delegation unanimously agreed “that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth” dropping any pretences of “national home” and openly pursuing their goal of a Jewish state in Palestine. This was fully supported by the then American President Theodore Roosevelt and the life-long supporter of Zionism, Winston Churchill in the UK. The latter however was put in a compromising position when two Zionist terrorist shot and killed the British Minister Resident in the Middle East, Lord Moyne in Cairo. Churchill said of this “if our dreams of Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labours for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently in the past” It’s interesting that even before the creation of the settler colonial state, it was being likened to Nazi Germany by those in the highest office in the UK.

Immediately after the war, with the election of a Labour government who also supported the displacement of the Palestinians in favour of a Jewish state, Prime Minister Attlee, received a letter from President Truman urging him to support the admission of 100,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine. The British responded that they would only issue the certificates if the Zionist ended their campaign of terror. In 1946 they had blown up eight road and rail bridges across the country. British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin also caused a diplomatic storm after claiming that the Americans wanted an immediate release of 100,000 certificates because “they didn’t want too many Jews in New York” It was American sabotage in 1946 that led to the British finally handing over their control of Palestine to the UN. Interestingly, although Truman was a advocate for the Zionist project and a Jewish state and pushed for the British to allow 100,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine, domestically the Truman administration only admitted 25,000 Jews into the US between 1945 and 1948. The final chapter of part two explains the UN partition of Palestine and the Arab resistance to it. The Arabs insisted that since the mandate was administered through the League of Nations, it should also be dissolved with the dissolution of the League in 1946. On 29th of November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which recommended the partition of Palestine by a vote of 33 in favour, 13 against and 10 absentees. The US and the Zionist finally had their two-third majority, which they had managed through collusion, coercion and intimidation. James Forrestal, then Secretary of Defence recalled “the methods that had been used… to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered closely onto scandal” The British abstained. Pakistan’s Ambassador, Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan, expressed his dissatisfaction that was echoed throughout the Arab and Muslim world in his statement. I’ve included the full statement as I think it is as relevant today as it was 75 years ago:

"A fateful decision has been taken. The die has been cast. In the words of the greatest American, 'We have striven to do the right as God gives us to see the right.' We did succeed in persuading a sufficient number of our fellow representatives to see the right as we saw it, but they were not permitted to stand by the right as they saw it. Our hearts are sad but our conscience is easy. We would not have it the other way round.



"Empires rise and fall. History tells us of the empires of the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, the Arabs, the Persians and the Spaniards. Today, most of the talk is about the Americans and the Russians. The holy Koran says: We shall see the periods of rise and fall as between nations, and that cycle draws attention to the universal law. What endures on earth is that which is beneficent for God's creatures.



"No man can today predict whether the proposal which these two great countries have sponsored and supported will prove beneficent or the contrary in its actual working.



"We much fear that the beneficence, if any, to which partition may lead will be small in comparison to the mischief which it might inaugurate. It totally lacks legal validity. We entertain no sense of grievance against those of our friends and fellow representatives who have been compelled, under heavy pressure, to change sides and to cast their votes in support of a proposal the justice and fairness of which do not commend themselves to them. Our feeling for them is one of sympathy that they should have been placed in a position of such embarrassment between their judgment and conscience, on the one side, and the pressure to which they and their Governments were being subjected, on the other.



"Pakistan desires to wash its hands of all responsibility for the decision that has just now been taken. It will, therefore, take no part in the election of the United Nations Commission which will be set up to implement that decision."

The UN had clearly violated article 1 of its charter, “respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples” It had no legal rights to the land of Palestine and abused its power by deciding to create a state in Palestine for the Jews. The UN continues to show its hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to Palestine as we continue to see its inability to halt a genocide in Gaza today.

The final part of the book explores the establishment of “israel” and the destruction of Palestine. This part of the book was absolutely fascinating and I’ve highlighted every other passage. The temptation to reproduce it all here is almost more than I can bear, but I will resist as I really do want you to read this book. Zionist had been ramping up their campaign of terror, amongst the most notorious of these was the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 killing almost 100 British officials and Arabs. When Britain declared their intention to withdraw from Palestine in May 1948, the Zionist began to execute their master plan “Plan Dalet” which according to Haganah literature from March 1948, was their plan to expel as many Palestinians from their towns and villages as possible. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, it was also to grab land and seize control of government offices and public services. This campaign to clear Palestine of its indigenous population resulted in at least 35 massacres, the worst of which was in the village of Deir Yassin. On Friday the 9th of April 1948 Zionist terrorists attacked the village and slaughtered 254 men, women and children. “A team from the International Red Cross was the first to visit the village after the atrocity. Its Swiss representative , Jaques de Reynier, counted 150 bodies thrown into a cistern. Of the total 254 that he counted 145 were women of whom 35 were pregnant.” Having been a witness of Nazi war crimes in Europe, Reynier said, “All I could think of was the SS troops I had seen in Athens”

The Zionist expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their towns and villages in 1948. This expulsion resulted in the depopulation and destruction of 531 villages and the mass exodus of up to three-quarters of the population and is commonly known as the Nakba. On the 14th of May 1948, Britain relinquished its self-acquired mandate over Palestine. One minute later David Ben Gurion proclaimed the birth of the ‘State of Israel’. 10 minutes later America recognised the rogue state, born out of the expulsion and massacres of its indigenous population. The settler colonial state had achieved its first objective, in stealing the land and designating it a Jewish Homeland. Now they needed to populate it so that Jews were the majority and finally they needed to ensure the Jews has special privileges and preferential laws. They set about doing this in the following years. Israel had stolen far more land than it had been offered by the UN and it had captured the Western part of Jerusalem, which under resolution 181 had been designated as an international zone. In 1948, when “israel” applied to become a member of the UN it was rejected on these counts but also because of the assassination of Count Bernadotte, who reported the the general assembly on the 16 of September 1948 “the right of innocent people (Palestinians), uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective …” The following day he was shot dead by Zionists along with another UN official Colonel Andre Serot.

It is fascinating to me that the notion of antisemitism is associated with Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. Anyone who has read a history book, not written by a modern day, right-wing imperialist, will recognise that Jewish people lived all over the middle east for thousands of years with little persecution. Jewish historians such as Professor Avi Shlaim, a Fellow of St Antonys College and a Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, has written books on his research in the involvement of Mossad in destabilising Arab countries, such as Iraq where he was born, in order to get Jewish people from the middle east to populate the newly created state of Israel post 1945, as the Arab Jews didn’t have the same history of persecution as the European Jews, and didn’t want to leave their homelands. As he so eloquently puts it, anti-semitism is a European malady. The second world wasn’t because the Muslims were persecuting the Jews, it was because the Germans, and many other countries in Europe, were. The British involvement in the Balfour Declaration was also largely due to the fact the fact the British wanted to deal with their “Jewish problem” and the same can be said for the Americans.

Palestinian resistance has taken many forms, from the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in March 1928 to the Higher Arab Committee (HAC) who called on the Arab League to proclaim an independent state of Palestine. Many of the Arab countries that we know now were only formed after the Great War, in collusion with their colonisers. Therefore their rulers felt indebted to the British, who had installed them in power. Due to this, the idea of a Palestinian government died in its infancy. King Abdullah of Jordon formally completed the annexation of the West Bank in 1950. Egypt, in 1953, agreed to resettle Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the Sinai, however the Muslim Brother spearheaded the resistance, and foiled the Israeli plan. Fateh was born in the late 1950’s by a group of mostly Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including Yasser Arafat. It was initially a covert organisation who published a magazine called “Our Palestine”, which was circulated secretly. Fateh knew that they couldn’t fight a conventional war against “israel”, they didn’t want to provoke outside intervention, and they also knew that the Arab armies were not united nor willing to go against “israel” hence they called for guerrilla activities. In September 1963 the Arab League convened a meeting in Cairo to explore ways of establishing a Palestinian state. They formed a Palestinian delegation to represent then at the UN General Assembly in November that year. It was led by Ahmed Shuqayri, who declared that that the struggle for Palestinian people was not for humanitarian assistance, but the liberation of their homeland. In December, the Egyptian Leader Nasser delivered a major political statement on Palestine, the Zionist threat and “israels” diversion of water from the River Jordon. It was here that they decided to appoint Shuqayri to form the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The following two decades are riddled with regional wars and significantly disunity amongst the Arab nations. By 1966 Arab countries were divided into two hostile camps, one led by Egypt and the other Saudi Arabia over the overthrowing of the monarchy in Yemen. As the Arab nations battled each other in Yemen, “israel” was planning its own attack, backed by the US and the UK. Having stocked up its weapons and with multiple clashes with the Syrians on their common border, the colonisers were determined to make any country allying with Palestine pay a high price. Egypt and Syria decided to formalise a mutual defence pact in November 1966, which Iraq joined the following year. “israel” launched its attack on Egypt on the 5th of June 1967, destroying its entire air force, it did the same to Jordanian and Syrian forces. on the 6th day of the war the “israelis” occupied the Syrian Golan Heights. Its estimated that 10,000 Egyptians, 6,094 Jordanians and 1,000 Syrians were martyred by the occupying forces. Four ceasefires were ordered by the Security Council, all of which were ignored until “israel” had occupied the West Bank, Jordan River, The Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the old city of Jerusalem. As a result of the war around 1,850,000 Palestinians came under “israeli” occupied rule. The 1967 war changed the geopolitical map of the region, it also changed the battle cry of the Arabs from “Arab unity is the way to the liberation of Palestine” to “the liberation of Palestine is the way to Arab unity” There are so many echoes from the 1967 war, which was allegedly a collaboration between “israel”, The US and Britain, and the current genocide in Gaza. The book lays out in greater detail the consequences and destabilisation of the region as well as the shifting political allegiances over the following decades.

A History of Palestinian Resistance goes up to the year 2000, and eloquently lays out the facts of occupation and means used to achieve its ends. The author argues passionately that reading history identifies the pitfalls of the past and helps extract guidelines for the future. As with all colonial missions, those supporting the Zionists were advocates of the notion that it was the white mans burden to civilise the barbarians ( anyone who isn’t white) of the world. Whilst that may have been an argument at the end of the nineteenth century, it is an abhorrent notion in 2024, to any right thinking person. Yet still somehow the occupation finds those who defend it as it attempts to steal the remaining 22% of Palestine from its indigenous population. The claim to divine right, supported by so-called secular countries, is because international law, for what its worth, doesn’t recognise the acquisition of territory by force or conquest. These same countries cry for restraint and for all parties to return to the negotiating tables, whilst actively funding one side with billions of dollars in arms. This is not a complicated or unresolvable struggle. Would any people submit to living in refugee camps whilst foreign immigrants occupy their homes? The liberation of Palestine is a Human Rights issue, it will be the definitive marker of our time. We can’t claim to learn from our history if we continue to allow, and fund, occupation and genocide. I can’t think of a better book for a short concise history of Palestine and I would recommend this as a starting point to anyone wanting to learn about the history of Palestinian resistance.