Philip Crockatt

Nevill Barbour was a Times journalist and editor who lived with his family in Jerusalem from 1933 to 1939, returning to become a BBC Arab specialist. His wife, Violet Barbour, worked in the Jerusalem Folk Museum where she created a collection of Palestinian costumes and culture. Nevill Barbour’s deeply researched book suggests the founding of Israel was fatally flawed. He shows how nineteenth century Messianic Zionism, leading to political activism and settler colonialism, treated Palestine as a nulls terra, an empty land, promised to the Jews by God, when in fact it had had an indigenous Arab population for thousands of years. This fundamental issue, at the core of the Palestinian question, is as relevant today as it was in 1946. In a richly researched and documented history Nevill Barbour lays out the evidence that from 1922 the British Mandate and government broke their promises of sovereignty to the Arabs, given as thanks for their support in the First World War. He quotes from the Mc Mahon correspondence with the Sherif of Mecca which details these promises. The British Government, despite extensive debates in parliament, supported the Zionists and sidelined the Arabs. Palestine was a twice promised land. Nevill Barbour’s distinctive contribution to understanding the history of the conflict is showing that the “land grab” by the Zionists was already happening in 1920s. In the early years of the Mandate, huge areas of Palestinian land were bought from ex-pat, absentee landlords and settled by a first wave of Zionist immigrants. These settler colonialists expelled the local farmers who had lived on the land for thousands of years. Despite Arab protests, the balance of power between Arab and Jew in Palestine was changed forever. Nevill Barbour demonstrates that this pattern was well established by the early 1930s, well before the rise of Hitler and the second wave of immigration into Palestine. Nevill Barbour was a tolerant man and a realist. He knew from personal experience that the “Holy Land” was important to Muslims, Jews and Christians. He agreed that there should be a homeland for the Jews in Palestine, but that it should be shared with the indigenous population. 1947 he and a group representing the three religions drew up and published a draft constitution in which a democratic Palestine would be shared between Muslims, Jews and Christians. He believed that a purely Zionist state would be disastrous for the Middle East. One year later, however, Israel proclaimed itself a Jewish nation state. Nevill Barbour’s worst fears were realised. Since then, just as he feared, Israel has been involved in a continuous, ethnic war with the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab countries. Nisi Dominus, though published long ago, was a groundbreaking work highlighting the core issues of the Israel - Palestine conflict. It anticipates more recent analyses and deserves to be studied by all interested in understanding the roots of the problem. Philip Crockatt 15.2.2025