The Foundations of Zionism
Translated into English for the first time since its original publication by the PLO's Palestine Research Center, this book extensively details the origins of Zionism and its development as an ideology and political project that has wrought havoc in the Middle East and beyond over the last century.
The Foundations of Zionism chronicles this development from Zionism's early origins up to the establishment of the British mandate over Palestine in 1923, refuting many of the movement's own foundational myths - from its early relationship to the Palestinians to its exclusively religious character. Sabri Jiryis delves into Zionism's successive congresses and factional struggles, its early failures to settle in Palestine and the formation of armed militias, and its temporary alliances with the Ottoman Empire before the movement eventually secured support from Western colonial powers such as Britain. In a newly written conclusion, Jiryis reconsiders the Zionist project 100 years on from the Balfour Declaration and amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
"A magisterial and comprehensive analysis of Zionism from its earliest iterations to the present. Every person who claims to oppose Israeli genocide needs to read this book for a proper understanding of Zionist motivations and attitudes, told from the point of view of its primary victims. The translation of Jiryis's opus gives Anglophone observers of Palestine the opportunity to bypass the anguished dilemmas of one-time Zionists that dominate discourse in the Global North and instead engage with one of the finest texts of the Palestinian intellectual tradition." -Steven Salaita, Professor in the English and Comparative Literature department, The American University in Cairo
"A foundational and vital work. Jiryis' book is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand Zionism's monstrous rise from myth to mandate, and a sobering reminder that there is no redeeming it." -Mohammed el-Kurd, Palestinian writer and poet
"Sabri Jiryis has written a most comprehensive and detailed history of the foundations of Zionism. An accomplished Palestinian historian in his own right, Jiryis' 1976 book on the history of the Israeli state's subjection of Palestinian citizens after 1948 remains an indispensable classic. His new book on Zionism, originally published in Arabic, has finally been translated to English and at a most auspicious moment in the history of the ideology and the movement. Based on extensive research from Zionist and Israeli sources, Jiryis' The Foundations of Zionism will be equally indispensable to readers and specialists interested in the policies of the state of Israel and its official ideology. Erudite and thorough, the book reminds us that nothing the state of Israel does falls outside the foundations of its ruling ideology. This compelling book is essential reading." -Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University
Sabri Jiryis is a Palestinian scholar, lawyer and writer. An Israeli citizen who lived through the Nakba as a child, he graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and dedicated his life to the study of the Palestinian cause and Zionism. He served in the Palestine Liberation Organization as director of its Research Center, member of the Palestine National Council and Fatah Advisory Council, and advisor to Yasser Arafat on Israeli affairs. He is the author of the seminal The Arabs in Israel (1966 in Hebrew). In 2025, Jiryis received the Arab Historian Award from the Union of Arab Historians, Baghdad, in recognition of his contributions to Arab historical research and writing.
Fida Jiryis is a writer and editor. She is the author of Stranger in My Own Land (Hurst, 2022) and three Arabic collections of short stories on life in Israel and the West Bank. She contributed to Kingdom of Olives and Ash, a Washington Post bestseller on fifty years of Israeli occupation, and Amputated Tongue, a Hebrew-language anthology of Palestinian literature. Fida is the author's daughter and has translated and edited this book from its original Arabic.
