The Revisionist Union and Britain: From declarations of “loyalty” to the employment of “methods of bullying”

0483815 - OÚ 2018 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Zouplna, Jan
The Revisionist Union and Britain: From declarations of “loyalty” to the employment of “methods of bullying”.
Journal of Israeli History. Roč. 36, č. 1 (2017), s. 23-45. ISSN 1353-1042. E-ISSN 1744-0548
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : Palestine Mandate * Israeli right * British Empire
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
Impact factor: 0.263, year: 2017
Method of publishing: Limited access

The nature of British rule in Palestine, as it settled down after the approval of the Mandate in 1922, had its critics among the Zionist ranks. Using original sources, this paper examines the attitudes of the leadership of the Revisionist Union (RU) towards the British from the first quarter of the 1920s till the mid-1930s. Unlike the later paramilitary organizations, the Revisionist founders, convinced, in their own words, of the common interests shared with the British Empire, had no intention of terminating the British presence, but sought to transform it in order to serve Zionism’s objectives. While official Zionism preferred backstage diplomacy, the RU pursued a different strategy – appealing directly to the masses and making its cause as public and vocal as possible. Eventually, the RU’s strategy combined the principle of pro-British orientation with merciless criticism of Palestine policies on the ground. As far as the British were concerned, the Colonial Office was at best willing to tolerate a set of proposals they saw as unrealistic. Once these started to actively erode the integrity of British policy in the region, unsolicited “enthusiasm” was reclassified as dangerous “extremism.”
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0280417