Zionist identity and the British Mandate: Palestine's internment camps and the making of the Western native

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between British police officers, Jewish guards, and German internees in Palestine's internment camps during World War II. Using the reports of the Jewish guards, the paper investigates the role of Western‐identified actors in the Zionist identity‐making project. The reports evince a surprising rapport between the British and their German prisoners and the mistreatment of the Jewish guards by their British superiors. The paper analyses these Jewish accounts in the context of identity‐ and ethnic boundary‐making and argues that they illustrate Zionism's intent to construct itself as a Western but noncolonial movement and Zionists in Palestine as natives but not “Orientals.” The reports also reveal a breach between the formal hierarchy—British officers, Jewish guards, German internees—and the ethnic order, which situated British and Germans at the apex and the Jews at the bottom. The paper highlights the utility of researching group‐making interactions in different contexts to develop a more nuanced understanding of identity‐making processes.