The racial logic of Palestine's partition

Wallach, Yair

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.

Citation

Wallach, Y. (2023). The racial logic of Palestine's partition. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 46(8), 1576-1598. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2151845

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 17, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Dec 9, 2022
• Publication Date: May 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 20, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2022
• Journal: Ethnic and Racial Studies
• Print ISSN: 0141-9870
• Electronic ISSN: 1466-4356
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1576-1598
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2151845
• Keywords: Partition, Palestine, whiteness, settler colonialism, ethno-nationalism, semitism
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2022.2151845
• Additional Information: Data Access Statement : Data can be found alongside the article.