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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2023, p. 66

Middle East Books Review

Palestine in the Victorian Age: Colonial Encounters in the Holy Land

By Gabriel Polley, I.B. Taurus, 2022, paperback, 264 pp. MEB $35

Reviewed by A. Bustos

WHILE THE HISTORY of Britain and Palestine is much discussed, the scope of the conversation tends to be confined to the start of the 20th century. Covering the period from the 1830s-1880s, Gabriel Polley’s Palestine in the Victorian Age: Colonial Encounters in the Holy Land broadens the analysis by exploring a neglected era of Palestine-Britain relations. Polley details how Victorians, buoyed by Protestant revivalism in England during the 19th century, traveled to Palestine, with many documenting what they experienced when they arrived. 

Mining through travel accounts, newspaper articles and memoirs, the author analyzes these primary sources within the historical and political context of the time, bringing the era alive in vivid detail. Central to the study is the argument that the ideological roots of British support for Zionism in the 20th century stretch further back into the Victorian era. On top of this, rather than viewing the travel literature as being merely a record of a lost past, Polley convincingly argues that the production of that literature was itself part of a process that facilitated the eventual dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Palestine in the Victorian Age is split into seven chapters, the first examining the travels of the explorer Edward Robinson in 1838 and 1852, who paved the way for later Victorian expeditions. The second chapter describes Victorian encounters with the city of Jerusalem and the contrast between the lived realities of its residents (both Palestinians and the small Jewish community) and the Orientalist and often overtly racist depictions of them by English travelers. The third chapter tells the fascinating story of Kerem Avraham, a farm built by James and Elizabeth Anne Finn, who raised money in Britain to support the creation of what became a prototype Jewish settlement.

The fourth and fifth chapters shift focus toward the indigenous Palestinian population in the city of Nablus. The 1856 Nablus Uprising in chapter four and the life and times of the Samaritan Ya’qub Al-Shalabi, in chapter five, describe two different reactions from Palestinians toward the colonial ambitions of Victorian travelers in their country. Far from being passive agents, Polley details how Palestinians used what little means they had to either resist, in the case of the 1856 Uprising, or, in Shalabi’s case, exploit imperial fascinations for his own personal advantage.

The final chapter focuses on the role of Laurence Oliphant, who, having served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Quebec, Canada, where he celebrated the dispossession of Indigenous people, brought those same ideas over to Palestine. He would become a fervent advocate of Jewish settlement under British sponsorship which, as Polley argues, proved of great interest to early Zionist thinkers who read and drew on his theories. 

While today the interest of fundamentalist Evangelical Christians with the Holy Land is usually associated with the U.S., Palestine in the Victorian Age demonstrates that this really began in England. Contrary to popular belief, Christian Zionist fascination with ideas of a Jewish “return” to Palestine, often fuelled by overtly anti-Semitic theories, were not fringe ideas. In fact, as Polley shows, they enjoyed an audience among the higher echelons of the British political elite. 

Polley does not argue that Britain “invented” or directed Zionism. Instead, he indicates that there was already strong support among Britons for the removal of the existing Palestinian population to make way for the arrival of a more “suitable” people. This helped lay the foundations for the later colonization of the country. 

Palestine in the Victorian Age therefore illuminates how Britain’s role in that country has deeper roots than is often believed. The consequences of British actions in both the 19th and 20th centuries continue to have a profound impact on the Palestinians.

A. Bustos is assistant director at ­Palestine Deep Dive.