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Lobbying for Zionism reviewed by David Miller

By David Miller | July 30, 2026

Did Zionism begin as a Christian project which was only later a Jewish movement?

This is what Ilan Pappé says in the book Lobbying for Zionism.

In my review of the book, I show this is wrong.

Here is an excerpt:

The contribution of the first section of the book is to unearth the hidden history of the Christian Zionist movement. This is a fascinating and useful account of the contribution of a certain ­ fraction of practical British imperialism to the idea of the construction of a Jewish state in the historic territory of Palestine.

In the conclusion, Pappé mentions that ‘Christian fundamentalists, who, as I’ve shown, were the first Zionists in the modern era’. He also states that ‘Zionism began as a Christian project, and thus the early lobbyists were what we would call Christian Zionists today.’ He goes on to criticise Mearsheimer and Walt, saying they ‘described this Christian lobby as a junior partner in the overall lobbying effort in the USA. This appeared to be the case in 2007 — but the picture was very different nearly a decade later during the Trump era.’

But of course, the picture was not very different either during Trump’s first or second presidency. Christian Zionists do have greater numbers of foot soldiers than do Jewish Zionists, but they have only a handful of representatives at the top of the Trump power matrix (for example, Pence and Pompeo in the first period, and Hegseth and Huckabee in the second). As reporting in the Forward, or JFeed, shows, it is Jews that dominate in terms of power players and finance.

Pappé’s conclusion is predicated on his analysis at the start. The opening words of the book are: ‘Zionism began as an evangelical Christian concept and later an active project.’

The main progenitors of the idea were, according to Pappé, Lord Shaftesbury, Colonel Henry Churchill, and Sir George Gawler from the 1830s onward. Though Jewish Zionists of the time are mentioned, such as Sir Moses Montefiore, this all predates the moment when, as Pappé writes, ‘the first settlers arrived [in Palestine] on 6 July 1882’, a group of 14 Russian Jews who arrived at Jaffa Port.

But, as Pappé surely knows, Jewish settlement in Palestine long pre-dates 1882 (see below). Except for Montefiore, none of these figures are mentioned in Pappé’s index and Pappé does not mention Montefiore’s numerous visits to Palestine, or his role in financing Jewish settlement.

In the end, then, the book appears to be advancing a case which is not supported either by the known facts on Jewish settlement in Palestine or by empirically grounded research on the activities of the Zionist movement.

Read the full review via The Column, the new magazine from @ukcolumn .

August 1, 2026 - Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , ,

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