Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917–2017: Summary & Key Insights

The story begins with a single letter — the Balfour Declaration — issued by Britain in 1917, promising a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This was a moment charged with idealism and imperial ambition. As I retrace its impact, I show how it embodied the contradictions of empire: a commitment to one people that ignored the existence of another. British officials viewed the declaration as a strategic move in wartime diplomacy, yet for Palestine’s Arab population, it marked the beginning of dispossession.

In the book, I portray the declaration not as an isolated statement but as a seed of future conflict. The Zionist movement saw it as moral validation; Palestinian Arabs received it as betrayal. The British government’s vague wording — pledging to protect “civil and religious rights” of non‑Jewish communities without recognizing their political aspirations — engineered a permanent imbalance. What followed was not simply a clash over land, but over legitimacy and memory. Many of the Arab testimonies I weave into this chapter evoke the feeling of invisibility — a whole society unacknowledged by the power that ruled it and the movement that sought to transform it.

This opening chapter carries the rhythm of unfolding tension. I wanted the reader to grasp how a short diplomatic gesture, drafted in London’s corridors of power, could set in motion generations of struggle. The Balfour Declaration created overlapping promises to Jews and Arabs; it introduced a moral question that still reverberates: can justice for one people coexist with justice denied to another?

The British Mandate emerged from the ashes of the First World War and lasted nearly three decades. In this period, I examine the interplay between imperial administration and competing national projects. Britain was tasked with preparing Palestine for self‑government, but in reality, it had accepted incompatible obligations. Jewish immigration accelerated, driven by European fear and Zionist ambition; Palestinian Arabs resisted, sensing the erosion of their homeland.

As the Mandate evolved, Palestinian society fragmented. Economic disparities widened, and the British policy of divide and rule intensified mistrust. Throughout the book, I draw on archival records and eyewitness accounts to convey how ordinary life in towns like Jaffa and Jerusalem became punctuated by violence — riots in 1920, 1921, and the great revolt of 1936–39. To one community, these years symbolized progress and revival; to the other, loss and rebellion.

By 1947, the British had lost control. The Mandate’s contradictions were exposed for all to see: promises could not reconcile peoples with incompatible visions. I invite readers to experience the collapse of colonial authority not as a distant political event, but as an intimate transformation of daily existence. Streets once shared became boundaries; faith turned into identity, and identity hardened into ideology. The seed planted in 1917 was now flowering into conflict that even Britain could not contain.