‘No Virtue in Consistent Lying’ Israel Zangwill, Zionism and Race

Israel Zangwill’s diverse and changing political outlooks and activities have often led to scholarly confusion as to how to understand his contributions to Jewish politics. The efforts of Zionist historians, such as Benzion Netanyahu, have reduced the nuances of Zangwill’s various political endeavours to a purely Zionist narrative. Departing from the premise that an intellectual-biographical lens offers the best approach to make sense of the seeming inconsistencies that appear during an individual’s lifetime, this article employs a deep reading of some of Zangwill’s political writings and correspondence. I identify and explore three inter-related thematic frameworks in which the Anglo-Jewish writer has been often understood most reductively: his changing position vis-à-vis Zionism; his engagement with issues of race and indigeneity in both a Western and a colonial/imperial context; and his presumed advocacy of the transfer of Arab Palestinians.