Random Precision
18th September 2009, 04:20
Bit of a synthesis paper I've written for my class on the origins of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Hope y'all find it educational. :)
British involvement in Palestine that paved the way for the establishment of the state of Israel can in the end be reduced to the economic concerns of the Empire during the 19th century; in particular the growing integration of Palestine into the world market, and inter-imperialist rivalry which fueled concerns that competitors such as France and Tsarist Russia might achieve dominance in Palestine and the surrounding region, which in turn coincided with the evangelical Anglican idea that the ingathering of the Jews would lead to Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.
Far from being either a territory dominated by the Ottoman Empire, which stalled development of the region, as the Palestinian nationalist narrative tends to reduce 19th-century Palestine to, or an undeveloped backwater only made viable through European Jewish colonization, as the Zionist narrative tends to see it, Palestine during the 19th century was a quite viable agricultural producer whose importance on the world market was steadily increasing. Through the port of Jaffa, a surplus of grains, dura, sesame, olive oil and soap, as well as oranges was exported, the main buyers being France and Britain, while through the ports of Haifa and Acre the same goods were exported to France and Britain as well as Italy, Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor. The increasing exportation of the agricultural surplus to Europe meant that the “transmission links between European demand and the adjustment of production to the requirements of the European market after 1850 were European consular agents… the representatives of European commercial houses in the ports, and their partners and middlemen in the interior of the country”. The influence of consular agents was often accented by the fact that they were in the exportation business themselves. The influence of European demand on Palestinian agriculture can be summed up in the example of cotton, for which 6% of the cultivated land of Palestine was given up. Cotton was of course an unsustainable crop; nevertheless Palestinian farmers took to growing it to meet demand from the global market:
A reorientation [toward cotton cultivation] took place… when the price of raw cotton rose toward the end of the 1850’s because of increased English demand, and especially after the outbreak of the American Civil War. Having the price quotations of the past twelve months before their eyes, in spring 1863 agriculturists in northern Palestine sowed three times the amount of cotton they had grown in the preceding year. Thus, in 1863 and 1864 cotton regained its position as a first-rate export commodity. This position was short-lived, however, as European demand subsided in the second half of the 1860s… in the 1870’s this produce lost importance for good.
Cotton was an extraordinary example of course, but the efforts that the fellahin made to produce it, well beyond what would have been necessary to produce a commodity like sesame, for instance, demonstrates that Palestine was becoming an integrated part of the capitalist world market, and thus worthy of interest by those that controlled that market, especially Great Britain. The amount of exports from Palestine, which fueled this interest, progressively increased as Ottoman authorities lowered export duties until they stood at only 1% by 1869.
The process that made Palestine a part of the global market is curious in that during the 19th century, it did not include industrialization of any sort, or even different methods of agriculture during this period. Alexander Schlöch notes that “The overall increase in exports… was not caused by an intensification of agriculture, improved methods of production, or the development of an agrarian infrastructure (including irrigation), and only to a small degree was the overall increase in the production of some commodities due to the neglect of others. The main factor was rather the extension of the area under cultivation…”. Furthermore, European officials were astonished by the large disproportion between imports and exports in Palestine. A country that exports much and imports little was a prime target for European capital investment. This was accented by the fact that the fellahin producers of the agricultural surplus did not attempt to put their money back into capital circulation, or go into business for themselves. The British consul in Palestine during 1858 noted that the peasantry of Palestine “have accumulated an unprecedented degree of wealth – but they bury the coin in holes, they purchase arms, and they decorate their women”, which made investment in Palestine all the more attractive for Europeans.
Britain was only able to take Palestine as a colony for itself only after a period of inter-imperialist competition. At the outset, however, it was at a disadvantage to other imperialist powers. In 19th-century Palestine sizable communities of religious minorities existed alongside the Muslim majority, and European powers were able to expand their presence in Palestine by taking these communities under their “protection”; which is to say that members of these communities could be tried by consular courts in the case of a crime rather than the Ottoman authorities, as well as pay taxes to that foreign power . Through this method, France was able to get a foothold in Palestine by extending its protection to the Catholic Maronite community, and the Russian Empire as well through its protection of the Greek Orthodox community. Due to its fear of having these rivals outstrip it in links that could lead to domination of Palestine and the region it surrounded, Britain sought a similar community to “protect”; at first there were attempts to convert indigenous Jews and Orthodox Christians into an Anglican community, however this gave way to the idea of returning the Jews to Palestine.
The idea of the Jews returning marks a point where the aims British imperial policy in Palestine and the Middle East coincided with the aims of Anglican evangelical fervor. “Britons rejoice!”, read one evangelical pamphlet produced during the Crimean War. “It will fall to you to lead the long dispersed members of the neglected race of Judah back to their beautiful land and, by planting in their homeland a colony… put another obstacle in the path of the meancing intruder,” or Russia. As Schlöch explains,
According to this doctrine, the fulfillment of the prophecies about the Last Day was invisibly linked to the return of the Jews to the land of their fathers, to which they had an inalienable right. Their physical and religious “restoration”- that is, the end of the diaspora, their gathering in Palestine, and their acceptance of Christian gospel – was conceived of as an essential component of the divine plan for human redemption and as a prerequisite for the advent of the Kingdom of Christ.
More and more, the idea of the Jews returning to Palestine gained currency in Britain, as well as the notion that Britain itself was chosen to carry out God’s will in this regard . Thus, one evangelical writer was able to write in 1882 that “[I]f persuasive eloquence was my particular gift, I would preach throughout Christendom a new crusade – of the plough and pruning-hook – for the obliteration from the sacred soil of Palestine of every trace of the grass-destroying hoof-prints of the Muslim spoiler.” This sort of evangelism turned into a political objective meant that “it has become a recognized duty of powerful and prosperous nations to interfere for the protection of oppressed peoples, and the better ordering of ill-governed lands.”
In conclusion, therefore, British interest in Palestine primarily arose from the integration of Palestinian agriculture into the capitalist world market, of which it stood at the head; Palestine was seen as a source of future profit with more capital investment. Furthermore, Britain sought to get on even terms with France and Russia, who both had “protected” religious communities in Palestine, thus to combat their further penetration into Palestine and the Ottoman Empire in general. The selection of the Jews as Britain’s community to protect emerged out of a coinciding of imperialist competition and Anglican religious fervor that saw the return of the Jews to Palestine as being Britain’s special role to play in bringing about the divine plan for the end of days.
Sources:
Alexander Schlöch, “The Economic Development of Palestine, 1856-1882,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 10 no. 3 (Spring 1981)
Alexander Schlöch, “Britain in Palestine 1838-1882: The Roots of the Balfour Policy,” Journal of Palestine Studies 22, no. 1 (Autumn 1992)
British involvement in Palestine that paved the way for the establishment of the state of Israel can in the end be reduced to the economic concerns of the Empire during the 19th century; in particular the growing integration of Palestine into the world market, and inter-imperialist rivalry which fueled concerns that competitors such as France and Tsarist Russia might achieve dominance in Palestine and the surrounding region, which in turn coincided with the evangelical Anglican idea that the ingathering of the Jews would lead to Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.
Far from being either a territory dominated by the Ottoman Empire, which stalled development of the region, as the Palestinian nationalist narrative tends to reduce 19th-century Palestine to, or an undeveloped backwater only made viable through European Jewish colonization, as the Zionist narrative tends to see it, Palestine during the 19th century was a quite viable agricultural producer whose importance on the world market was steadily increasing. Through the port of Jaffa, a surplus of grains, dura, sesame, olive oil and soap, as well as oranges was exported, the main buyers being France and Britain, while through the ports of Haifa and Acre the same goods were exported to France and Britain as well as Italy, Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor. The increasing exportation of the agricultural surplus to Europe meant that the “transmission links between European demand and the adjustment of production to the requirements of the European market after 1850 were European consular agents… the representatives of European commercial houses in the ports, and their partners and middlemen in the interior of the country”. The influence of consular agents was often accented by the fact that they were in the exportation business themselves. The influence of European demand on Palestinian agriculture can be summed up in the example of cotton, for which 6% of the cultivated land of Palestine was given up. Cotton was of course an unsustainable crop; nevertheless Palestinian farmers took to growing it to meet demand from the global market:
A reorientation [toward cotton cultivation] took place… when the price of raw cotton rose toward the end of the 1850’s because of increased English demand, and especially after the outbreak of the American Civil War. Having the price quotations of the past twelve months before their eyes, in spring 1863 agriculturists in northern Palestine sowed three times the amount of cotton they had grown in the preceding year. Thus, in 1863 and 1864 cotton regained its position as a first-rate export commodity. This position was short-lived, however, as European demand subsided in the second half of the 1860s… in the 1870’s this produce lost importance for good.
Cotton was an extraordinary example of course, but the efforts that the fellahin made to produce it, well beyond what would have been necessary to produce a commodity like sesame, for instance, demonstrates that Palestine was becoming an integrated part of the capitalist world market, and thus worthy of interest by those that controlled that market, especially Great Britain. The amount of exports from Palestine, which fueled this interest, progressively increased as Ottoman authorities lowered export duties until they stood at only 1% by 1869.
The process that made Palestine a part of the global market is curious in that during the 19th century, it did not include industrialization of any sort, or even different methods of agriculture during this period. Alexander Schlöch notes that “The overall increase in exports… was not caused by an intensification of agriculture, improved methods of production, or the development of an agrarian infrastructure (including irrigation), and only to a small degree was the overall increase in the production of some commodities due to the neglect of others. The main factor was rather the extension of the area under cultivation…”. Furthermore, European officials were astonished by the large disproportion between imports and exports in Palestine. A country that exports much and imports little was a prime target for European capital investment. This was accented by the fact that the fellahin producers of the agricultural surplus did not attempt to put their money back into capital circulation, or go into business for themselves. The British consul in Palestine during 1858 noted that the peasantry of Palestine “have accumulated an unprecedented degree of wealth – but they bury the coin in holes, they purchase arms, and they decorate their women”, which made investment in Palestine all the more attractive for Europeans.
Britain was only able to take Palestine as a colony for itself only after a period of inter-imperialist competition. At the outset, however, it was at a disadvantage to other imperialist powers. In 19th-century Palestine sizable communities of religious minorities existed alongside the Muslim majority, and European powers were able to expand their presence in Palestine by taking these communities under their “protection”; which is to say that members of these communities could be tried by consular courts in the case of a crime rather than the Ottoman authorities, as well as pay taxes to that foreign power . Through this method, France was able to get a foothold in Palestine by extending its protection to the Catholic Maronite community, and the Russian Empire as well through its protection of the Greek Orthodox community. Due to its fear of having these rivals outstrip it in links that could lead to domination of Palestine and the region it surrounded, Britain sought a similar community to “protect”; at first there were attempts to convert indigenous Jews and Orthodox Christians into an Anglican community, however this gave way to the idea of returning the Jews to Palestine.
The idea of the Jews returning marks a point where the aims British imperial policy in Palestine and the Middle East coincided with the aims of Anglican evangelical fervor. “Britons rejoice!”, read one evangelical pamphlet produced during the Crimean War. “It will fall to you to lead the long dispersed members of the neglected race of Judah back to their beautiful land and, by planting in their homeland a colony… put another obstacle in the path of the meancing intruder,” or Russia. As Schlöch explains,
According to this doctrine, the fulfillment of the prophecies about the Last Day was invisibly linked to the return of the Jews to the land of their fathers, to which they had an inalienable right. Their physical and religious “restoration”- that is, the end of the diaspora, their gathering in Palestine, and their acceptance of Christian gospel – was conceived of as an essential component of the divine plan for human redemption and as a prerequisite for the advent of the Kingdom of Christ.
More and more, the idea of the Jews returning to Palestine gained currency in Britain, as well as the notion that Britain itself was chosen to carry out God’s will in this regard . Thus, one evangelical writer was able to write in 1882 that “[I]f persuasive eloquence was my particular gift, I would preach throughout Christendom a new crusade – of the plough and pruning-hook – for the obliteration from the sacred soil of Palestine of every trace of the grass-destroying hoof-prints of the Muslim spoiler.” This sort of evangelism turned into a political objective meant that “it has become a recognized duty of powerful and prosperous nations to interfere for the protection of oppressed peoples, and the better ordering of ill-governed lands.”
In conclusion, therefore, British interest in Palestine primarily arose from the integration of Palestinian agriculture into the capitalist world market, of which it stood at the head; Palestine was seen as a source of future profit with more capital investment. Furthermore, Britain sought to get on even terms with France and Russia, who both had “protected” religious communities in Palestine, thus to combat their further penetration into Palestine and the Ottoman Empire in general. The selection of the Jews as Britain’s community to protect emerged out of a coinciding of imperialist competition and Anglican religious fervor that saw the return of the Jews to Palestine as being Britain’s special role to play in bringing about the divine plan for the end of days.
Sources:
Alexander Schlöch, “The Economic Development of Palestine, 1856-1882,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 10 no. 3 (Spring 1981)
Alexander Schlöch, “Britain in Palestine 1838-1882: The Roots of the Balfour Policy,” Journal of Palestine Studies 22, no. 1 (Autumn 1992)