Author's View: Empire, City Finance and Palestine

Summary

The author argues British imperial and City of London finance interests shaped Zionist settlement in Palestine on the model of the Ulster Plantation, that Palestinians are the project's primary victims, and that Gaza's deaths are deliberate policy whose true name is refused.

What it argues

1. Ulster model for PalestinePolitics

   Sir Ronald Storrs, 1917 British military governor of Jerusalem, called the plan a "little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism". The author says this named a direct model: plant a loyal settler population among natives to hold ground for empire. The author argues Palestine's settlement reused the strategy Britain had applied in Ulster.

2. Balfour and former RIC menPolitics

   The author calls the 1917 Balfour Declaration a wartime contract, addressed to banker Lord Walter Rothschild rather than to Jewish people. Britain disbanded the Royal Irish Constabulary and Black and Tans after the Anglo-Irish Treaty; about 750 arrived in Haifa in April 1922 on Churchill's order. The author says Britain transferred both its Irish strategy and its Irish personnel to Palestine.

3. Gaza deaths and the labelPolitics

   The author says deaths in Gaza are deliberate policy that London governments shield, not a natural catastrophe. Others, the author writes, call it conflict, war or self-defence rather than genocide, which the author likens to Britain once naming the Irish Famine "weather". The author argues the word genocide is being refused as the word for the Famine once was.

4. Rothschild and City financeEconomics

   Herzl's plan was addressed to the Rothschild banking family rather than to Europe's persecuted Jews, the author says. Baron Edmond de Rothschild funded early settlements before Herzl and is remembered by Israelis as the "Father of the Settlement". The author calls City of London finance, not the settlers, the project's architect.

5. Who benefitsEconomics

   The author asks who gains from permanent conflict in the Levant and an Arab world kept unable to unite. The author answers that it is the same international capital and empire that benefited from Ireland's division. The author argues division in the region serves finance and empire, not its inhabitants.

6. Settlers and the land narrativeSociety

   The author says the "land without a people" story was false; Palestine had been continuously inhabited for millennia. Jewish settlers were victims too, the author says, fleeing persecution with few other places open to them, but Palestinians are the project's primary victims. The author says both peoples were used, with Palestinians bearing the greater cost.

Open questions

• The claim that finance and empire jointly designed the settlement rests on the author's own argument, with no other sources cited.
• Whether the Gaza deaths amount to genocide is disputed; the author reports others calling it conflict, war or self-defence.
• The piece does not present evidence for its claim that the Gaza deaths are a deliberate policy.