When colonialism and nationalism meet - but speak a different language: the case of Haifa during the British Mandate

This paper addresses the convergence of British colonialism and Zionist aspirations in Mandatory Palestine. As research so far explored this topic mainly as a confluence of colonial-national interests, this paper is an attempt to look at it from another vantage point, based on the different interpretations of European Modernism and Orientalism by these two groups. The new variable is the Zionist perception of nationalism, and its ties to European Modernism, which strengthened Zionist autonomy in a way that countered British interests to some extent and strengthened Zionist advantages in Palestine over Arab society. These processes were particularly prominent in mixed cities. Haifa was central to this concept as it was free of historical or symbolic baggage. The British developed Haifa as a strategic economic centre, and as a modern space. Promoting unilateral national interests was the very opposite of the British intention for the city. Yet, they allowed and even encouraged Zionist entrepreneurs to create an autonomous national community. We contend that the British had a certain blindness to the symbolic significance that the Zionists attached to the process of urban development, not only as a Modern-European development process but as a basis for national autonomy.