THE ROOTS OF SEPARATISM IN PALESTINE : BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICY 1920-1929. By Barbara J. Smith. London. I.B.Tauris. 1993. 258 pp.

(British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.22. No. 1 & 2 , 1995).

There seems to be a scholarly lag between the unfolding of historical events and the ability or willingness of writers and researchers to successfully uncover and describe them. We are currently approaching what promises to be the final cycle of the Arab Israeli conflict ushered in By Sadat's conclusion of a separate peace at Camp David, more recently legitimised by the Palestinians recognition of Israel's "right to exist", and acquiescence in the offer of limited self rule. Ironically, a wave of revisionist history, a large part of which is authored by Israeli scholars, has finally come to recognise the Palestinian's own narrative as constituting a discourse more consistent with the factual evidence available, than the ideologically motivated body of "scholarly work" which has for so long dominated the field. Barbara Smith's contribution is a welcome addition in illuminating not only the thrust towards separatism inherent in zionist practice at a stage when the Jewish presence in Palestine was still in its infancy, but also in shedding light on the economic imperatives of British colonialism. Like colonial rule elsewhere, once stripped of the facade of paternalism and the pursuit of "sound government", what is revealed is imperial greed and the absence of any commitment to the indigenous peoples welfare or interests.

Notwithstanding the fact that Smith does not carry the story beyond the first decade of the Mandate, and that what we are presented with is almost exclusively history from above with an almost total reliance on the official correspondence between London and Jerusalem, the narrative makes two things abundantly clear. First, that London was adamant that the Mandate should pay for itself. Second, that without the provision of a colonial context that offered basic administrative direction and provided infrastructure services, the zionist experiment in Palestine would not have achieved the success that it did.

Smith shows that the British administration did not at any time during its presence in Palestine posses a coherent development policy and was unwilling to extend any sort of financial support in order to further the welfare of the country's inhabitants. When economic affairs did manage to

bring themselves to the attention of Colonial Office mandarins in London, this was only in relation to conditions affecting the metropolis itself, the World recession, or the rate of unemployment in Britain. To be sure, local British officials did not often see eye to eye with London, and frequent clashes took place. Mandate officials tended to extend more sympathy to the needs and requirements of the local economy. Consequently the direction of economic development in Palestine was the source of constant conflict between the Treasury, the Colonial Office, and the local Mandate administration. Both Samuel and Plumer clashed with their political masters, and lost. Smith paints a general picture of the workings and machinations of colonial government and the relations between colonial officials and their superiors. Skillfully she shows how developments in Palestine can be shown to illustrate the workings of colonial rule. The building of Haifa Harbour, the development of the Palestine railways, and the establishment of the Trans Jordanian Frontier force, were all schemes

that were paid for by the inhabitants of Palestine, but whose aim was to serve the wider strategic interests of the British Empire

Palestine was of course different from other colonies and mandated territories. The Balfour Declaration introduced obligations to an additional party, which according to most readings superseded those owed to the " non Jewish inhabitants" of the country. In Smiths's words, the

Declaration " effectively nominated the scattered Jewish people rather than the British as the agent of civilisation, settlement and enterprise". This relieved the British of an obligation which experience elsewhere has shown they were never keen to shoulder. At the same time, this set them on a collision course with the Zionist movement, and set the scene for the ensuing conflict between the Palestine Arab National Movement and the Jewish community in Palestine. Most importantly, at least in the first decade of the Mandate, this implied support for the zionist movement's efforts at settlement, land buying and emigration, the necessary ingredients for the building up of the National Home. Throughout the Mandate, British officials would continue to find themselves having to fend of zionist demands for a more dynamic economic policy, and for a distribution of government expenditure in proportion to the revenues collected. Yet right from the start, the officials of the Colonial Office would remain adamant that Britain was under no obligation to provide Jewish

immigrants with all the amenities of western civilisation, and to spend money on the modernisation of the country. The development of the Jewish national home was to be a self financing project. London would continue to support zionist settlement and land buying, but the British Treasury

"remained unsympathetic to the attractions" of the Jewish National Home policy, and did not regard it as financial concern deserving of the British taxpayers support.

In her outline of various British economic policies, whether immigration, unemployment, land legislation, employment policies, labour affairs, the introduction of protective tariffs, or the granting of monopoly rights to Jewish enterprises, Smith illustrates how British officials were torn between the strict tenets of colonial administration and the demands for Zionist support. In many instances, and as a result of political pressure exerted by the Zionist lobby in London, political considerations outweighed the usual colonial concerns in the realm of economic policy. As far as the indigenous population was concerned, British officials subscribed to the legend that Jewish development

would serve as example to the Arabs, who would eventually duplicate it by imitation. The end result by the close of the twenties was that British policy had "unwittingly" paved the way for the development of an independent Jewish enclave with few ties with the indigenous population. Yet Smith finds it hard to arrive at a consistent evaluation regarding the main thrust of British policy. At times she describes the British administration as being increasingly sympathetic to the zionist enterprise, while at others, she shows that even senior members of the Palestine administration were unsympathetic to the national home project, who in the event found themselves at one with British Treasury officials and to " a climate of considerable hostility in Britain to the Mandate" itself. This assertion itself poses a question which the book does not address itself to. If true, why did it take the British a three year Arab revolt, a world war. a violent zionist insurgency, and eighteen years to evacuate the country.