Appeasement and the Problem of Palestine

Abstract

Laymen, Zionist leaders, and both Jewish and gentile analysts have maintained that in the 1930S the British government's policies toward Palestine were strongly affected by Britain's general orientation toward appeasement. Both contemporaneously and ex post facto, critics have made three assumptions about these policies. First, the decision-making elite which launched Britain's policy of appeasement was also responsible for Middle Eastern policies in general and policies toward Palestine in particular. Second, British actions in Palestine were an integral part of the general trend in British foreign and defense policies. Third, out of selfish interests Britain sacrificed the weaker democratic Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) to its more aggressive protagonist (the Palestinian Arab community) which was supported by the leaders of neighboring Arab countries.