God, Guns & Israel: Britain, The First World War And The Jews In The Holy Land

by Jill Hamilton

This book is a fascinating and unique account of the political and military origins of the modern Jewish state and its origins in the British army.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published December 9, 1997

About the author

Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, was "a woman of indomitable energy".

Jillian Robertson was born in Sydney on January 30, 1940, the daughter of a First World War veteran, and grew up in Townsville, Queensland. In 1961 she began to train as a newspaper reporter with Donald Horne, and after three years she was sent to report from London as one of his newspaper group's youngest foreign correspondents. She gave up journalism in about 1968 after becoming pregnant, and shortly after married the father - fellow journalist Martin Page. The marriage shortly ended in divorce, and was later annulled by the Catholic Church.

She remarried firstly to newspaper dynast Edward Hulton, and then in 1988 to the Scottish peer Angus, 15th Duke of Hamilton. All three marriages ended in divorce, after which she swore not to remarry and returned to her previous career in journalism and writing. Her son by her first marriage was her only child.

She died in 2018 in Oxford from cancer.

Reviews

[Michael Connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, Syria and Lebanon were given to the French, while Iraq and Palestine were given to the British. Part of the reason Britain wanted control of Palestine was to help protect the Suez Canal. David Lloyd George was the main force behind the Palestinian Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. Chaim Weizmann persuaded Balfour to support the cause of Zionism. Before the Balfour Declaration, the land of Israel and Jordan had been part of South Syria. There was no province of the Ottoman Empire called Palestine, and no people called Palestinians, neither Arab nor Jew. The term Palestine occurred rarely outside of the Bible. Lloyd George believed that the Jews should have a country of their own, so he created Palestine from South Syria.
Hamilton explains why Lloyd George was so interested in the Jews. Lloyd George was a poor boy from Wales and an advocate for the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of England. The Anglicans ran Great Britain, and the other Protestant denominations, to say nothing of the Catholics, were treated as second class citizens. Lloyd George had an affection for the Jews, because he had spent a great deal of time reading the Old Testament when he was growing up. The non-Anglican Protestants had more interest in the Old Testament, than did the Anglicans or Roman Catholics.
Originally, all of the land of present-day Israel and Jordan were to be part of the Jewish state, but later Jordan was given to the Hashemite Arabs, after they had been chased out of Arabia by the Saudis.

[Anne Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book that treats in-depth of any particular aspect of the lead-up to the Balfour Declaration or the formation of the 'Jewish Legion' during World War I. It covers so much territory that it scoots along like a summary of events; as an introduction it is superb, recounting fascinating details and drawing out unusual connections.

I didn't know much about this background at all, so I found its comprehensive overview to be excellent - enabling me to find areas I wanted to investigate further.

About three-quarters of the way through the book, it seemed like the money for editing ran out. Strange repetitive phrasing and inaccurate spellings appear in quite a few sentences, momentarily making the reading very difficult.

As a point of disclosure: Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, is no relation to me.

[David Thrale · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that postulates that British non-conformists had a key influence on the establishment of a Jewish homeland.