Annual Hannah A. Quint Lecture in Jewish Studies - The Struggle for Palestine on the World Stage, 1947-1949

Speaker:
Derek J. Penslar FRSC
William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History
Director, Center for Jewish Studies
Harvard University

This talk links the Palestine Question with the formation of a new global political order after the Second World War. Between 1947 and 1949, debates about Palestine within the United Nations pulled dozens of countries directly into the determination of the land’s fate. A complex mixture of national interests and transnational sympathies shaped attitudes towards the partition of Palestine and the ensuing Arab-Israeli war. A comparison of governmental documents and the popular press shows that in most of the world high diplomacy was in sync with public opinion. The war riveted the attention of the world – for reasons that still apply in our own day.