‘Palestine May Again Become A Civilized Country’

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In the nineteenth century, the desolate land that was Palestine was catching the attention of Christian statesmen in Britain. They began expressing the idea that it would be in the best interests of the Jews and the world if the Jews returned to Palestine and reclaimed it as their homeland. No one seems to have been aware of the existence of any people called the “Palestinians.” Palestine was universally known to be the homeland of the Jews.

In 1838, Lord Lindsay published the first edition of his Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land after traveling through Palestine. He opined that “it is possible that, in the changes of the Turkish empire, Palestine may again become a civilised country, under Greek or Latin influences; that the Jewish race, so wonderfully preserved, may yet have another stage of national existence opened to them; that they may once more obtain possession of their native land, and invest it with an interest greater than it could have under any other circumstances.”

Lindsay characterized the absence of the land’s actual indigenous people to be its chief drawback:

Many, I believe, entertain the idea that an actual curse rests on the soil of Palestine, and may be startled therefore at the testimony I have borne to its actual richness. No other curse, I conceive, rests upon it, than that induced by the removal of the ancient inhabitants, and the will of the Almighty that the modern occupants should never be so numerous as to invalidate the prophecy that the land should enjoy her Sabbaths so long as the rightful heirs remain in the land of their enemies…. [T]he land still enjoys her Sabbaths, and only waits the return of her banished children, and the application of industry commensurate with her agricultural capabilities, to burst once more into universal luxuriance, and be all that she ever was in the days of Solomon.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh earl of Shaftesbury, a member of Parliament and a devout Christian, was of much the same mind. On July 24, 1838, he wrote that he was “anxious about the hopes and destinies of the Jewish people”:

Everything seems ripe for their return to Palestine; ‘the way of the kings of the East is prepared.’ Could the five Powers of the West be induced to guarantee the security of life and possessions to the Hebrew race, they would now flow back in rapidly augmenting numbers…. The inherent vitality of the Hebrew race reasserts itself with amazing persistence; its genius, to tell the truth, adapts itself more or less to all currents of civilization all over the world, nevertheless always emerging with distinctive features and a gallant recovery of vigour. There is an unbroken identity of Jewish race and Jewish mind down to our times: but the great revival can take place only in the Holy Land.

Shaftesbury was determined not just to talk about this but to act upon it: “By the blessing of God I will prepare a document, fortify it by all the evidence I can accumulate, and, confiding to the wisdom and mercy of the Almighty, lay it before the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”

Shaftesbury went to Lord Palmerston, who was the secretary of state for foreign affairs at the time, and laid the proposal before him. He recorded Palmerston’s measured reaction in his diary:

August 1st, 1838.—Dined with Palmerston. After dinner left alone with him. Propounded my scheme, which seemed to strike his fancy; he asked some questions, and readily promised to consider it. How singular is the order of Providence! Singular, that is if estimated by man’s ways! Palmerston had already been chosen by God to be an instrument of good to His ancient people, to do homage, as it were, to their inheritance, and to recognise their rights without believing their destiny. And it seems he will yet do more. But though the motive be kind, it is not sound. I am forced to argue politically, financially, commercially; these considerations strike him home; he weeps not like his Master over Jerusalem, nor prays that now, at last, she may put on her beautiful garments…

Meanwhile, Shaftesbury continued to spread the idea that Jews should return to Palestine. He read Lindsay’s work and was impressed. In a January 1839 magazine article, he gave Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land an enthusiastic review and proposed making Lindsay’s hope a reality by resettling the Jews in Palestine under British rule or at least military protection. This would, he argued, be in the best interests of Britain itself:

The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and olive oil is now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land. Capital and skill are alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine; and the Jews, who will betake themselves to agriculture in no other land, having found, in the English consul, a mediator between their people and the Pacha, will probably return in yet greater numbers, and become once more the husbandmen of Judaea and Galilee.

It was Lord Shaftesbury who coined the apposite phrase “A land without people, for a people without a land.” Quite aside from British interest in the region, the people of the land who had been exiled from it were beginning to return to it.