J.E. Thomas challenges the common assumption that Israel was founded to right a historical wrong. A unique event--the handing over of an entire country by another that did not own it, to a people who simply laid claim to it by virtue of their myths and traditions--happened in 1917 when the British "gave" Palestine to the Jews via the Balfour Declaration. The Palestinian Arabs never accepted the theft of their land, but they have been powerless to resist the weight of support for the Jews given by the strongest nations. Despite the foundation of Israel in 1948, the region has been plagued by wars, injustice, and a vast refugee "problem" that has dominated the lives of millions. Today, a dire future for the Palestinians seems inevitable. In this thorough new examination, J.

E. Thomas delves deep into the foundations of the issue, analyzing the Zionist claim to the Holy Land in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Israel's ongoing campaign to dispossess Palestinian Arabs.