Mandate

The British ruled over Palestine, the state that would become Israel, from the end of World War I to 1948. In those three decades, writes A.J. Sherman, British colonial administrators "dimly appreciated that Palestine might present something of a problem, since it contained not merely a native Arab population firmly attached to their lands and traditions, but also a European-educated, sophisticated class of Zionist Jewish immigrants and settlers." That dim recognition, and the fond hope that Palestine would somehow fit into the scheme of a worldwide Pax Britannica, quickly gave way to resignation in the face of guerrilla war conducted by Arabs and Jews alike, waged against each other and against their occupiers, whose story Sherman ably tells. --Gregory McNamee