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id	eprints-38454
recordtype	eprints
institution	SOAS, University of London
collection	SOAS Research Online
language	English
language_search	English
description	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.
format	Journal Article
author	Wallach, Yair
author_facet	Wallach, Yair
authorStr	Wallach, Yair
author_letter	Wallach, Yair
title	The racial logic of Palestine's partition
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2023
url	https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/38454/