British-Israelists and the “State of Israeli” in the Twentieth Century

British-Israelism was a significant movement in British culture in the twentieth century. At its high-point in the mid-twentieth century, card-carrying members of the British-Israel World Federation numbered in the tens of thousands. Several members of the royal family — including King George VI — publicly declared their adherence to British-Israelist doctrine. They have shared this belief with lawmakers and generals, poets and television personalities. British-Israelists believe that the descendants of the biblical polity of Israel are the Anglo-Saxon people of Britain. As such, the British occupation of Jerusalem in 1917 was seen by British Israelists as an event of incomparable prophetic significance. This article explores the ways in which British-Israelists responded to the changing status of Palestine over the course of the short twentieth century. Drawing on the insights of Zygmunt Bauman and of Andrew Crome, I contend that British-Israelism — at times philo-Semitic, at times anti-Semitic — is fundamentally allosemitic in its attitude towards Israel and the Jews. As such, to paraphrase Crome, British-Israelists can “never interact with Israel on its own terms.”