Jews, Palestinians, and the Coming of the 1948 War

• In Event: Toward 1948

Abstract

This paper explores the imagination of Jews and Palestinians in the 1940s with respect to the future of the Land of Israel and Palestine. My method is to read closely written sources from the period—diaries, letters, newspapers, articles, and speeches. How did Jews and Palestinians imagined the political future of the land, the relations with the other national group, the development of their society? My aim is to give voice, and to capture the subjective experience of, contemporaries. Reading carefully this evidence, I argue, we can trace some specific future plans, specifically among Jews, and also a great deal of anxiety, among all. How did Jews and Palestinians imagine the land in the years before 1948—this is the topic of the paper.

Author

• Alon Confino, UMass Amherst