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My
Enemy's Enemy
Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948
Laura Zittrain Eisenberg |
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My
Enemy's Enemy is the first comprehensive study
of pre-state Zionist policy toward Lebanon. Laura Zittrain Eisenberg identifies
early Zionist perceptions about Lebanon, considers efforts to construct
a lucid Zionist policy toward that country, and characterizes the nature
and course of Zionist-Lebanese relations prior to 1948.
Friendly overtures from the dominant Lebanese Maronite
Catholic community encouraged many Zionists in the belief that Lebanon offered
special opportunities for ending their isolation in the region. By the early
1930s, the striking similarity of circumstances in which the two groups
found themselves suggested to many that the minority Jewish and Christian
communities in the overwhelmingly Muslim Middle East shared common goals
and suffered common opponents. Eisenberg concludes that although the alliance-of-minorities
concept was a logical one for Zionist foreign policy makers to explore,
it was an unwise policy to pursue. |
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"This
well-researched book treats a tantalizing subject that has hitherto remained
little explored: the clandestine flirtations between the Zionist movement
in the pre-1948 period, and such leaders of the Maronite community in Lebanon
as happened to be favorably disposed toward the realization of the Zionist
dream in Palestine. Laura Eisenberg gives an account of this curious affair
in a lucid and highly readable narrative. Hers is a truly valuable contribution
to the new literature on the making of the Modern Middle East."—Kamal
Salibi, American University of Beirut |
