CONCluSION • 237are reminded of “the formal and repeated protestations of his holiness
the Pope.”^8 Did not the Pope “make clear,” asks the editor of the pub-
lished speech rhetorically, “that it is forbidden for Jews to rule in the
homeland of Christ [waṭan al- masīḥ] and for other religions and races to
be subjugated in it on account of Jewish domination?”^9 Even with this
powerful reference to Palestine as “Christ’s homeland,” though, this is a
defense of all “other,” i.e., non- Jewish, “religions and races.” My book
provides some of the necessary context to understand this intermixing of
religious and racial language in the development of a national identity.
Race as a Tool of Inclusion or AnnexationSecond, it is worth emphasizing the way in which the racial perspec-
tive of Zionists like Ben- Zvi informed their perceptions of nationalism.
In contrast to Europe, where race in the fin de siècle was generally
a language and tool of national differentiation, in the sphere of Pales-
tine, racial discourse was able to serve an entirely opposite end. As
we saw in chapter 3, Ben- Zvi imagined that Palestine’s fellahin, who
were in his view racially Jewish, “might become a distinct nation, or
they might be dragged toward one of the nations that is established
in Palestine in the process of national differentiation that has begun
in our time.”^10 In other words, in the context of Palestine, race per-
mitted, in the minds of some, a marked flexibility in the boundaries
of nationhood. The concept of race could be employed by nationalists
not merely to divide communities and to legitimate that division as
primordial and scientific; it could also be employed by nationalists to
unite apparently disparate communities, for no less national ends.
Religion and Race in the Age of the MandateIf religion and race were among the dominant categories in the Late Ot-
toman period, what came of these categories in the subsequent years of
the British Mandate? The encounter that these later decades witnessed
is typically viewed as a textbook case of nationalist conflict, that is, as
(^8) This reference is presumably to Pope Benedict XV (served from 1914 to 1922), who
had expressed his opposition to Zionism. See Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism; Kreutz,
Vatican Policy on the Palestinian- Israeli Conflict. The previous pope, Pius X, had also fa-
mously opposed Zionism in his meeting with Theodor Herzl. See Canepa, “Pius X and
the Jews.”
(^9) ʿAbboud, al- Arḍ al- muqaddasa wa- ṣ- ṣahyūniyya, 29.
(^10) Ben- Ẓevi, ha- Tenuʿah ha- ʿarvit, 20– 21.