Translator’s note
Preface

Introduction
1. Pioneers of Zionism: Early Thinkers (1862-1884)
2. Lovers of Zion: Early Practitioners (1882-1904)
3. Herzl and the Zionist Organization: The Jewish State Project and its Agencies (1897-1904)
4. The Second Aliyah: Foundations of the Zionist Entity (1904-1914)
5. The First World War and the Balfour Declaration: The Alliance of Colonialism and Zionism (1914-1917)
6. British Mandate over Palestine, Part 1: The Mandate System and its Frameworks (1918-1923)
7. British Mandate over Palestine, Part II: Foundations of the “Jewish National Home” (1918-1923)
Conclusion: Zionism in the Service of Colonialism

Bibliography
Index

"Sabri Jiryis’ magisterial book illustrates how the stories that Zionists tell of themselves, to themselves, are often the most damning indictments."

Nicholas Glastonbury in The Key

“The Foundations of Zionism is, then, an indispensable book. It restores a major Palestinian voice to the English-language conversation and reminds readers that some of the strongest analyses of Zionism were produced not yesterday, but decades ago, often under conditions of exile, censorship and violence.”

Hossam el-Hamalawy in the Middle East Eye

“On every page, there is a fact about Zionism published originally by a Jewish writer that contradicts some part of today’s hasbara machine.”

Sasha Frere-Jones in Protean Magazine

"Jiryis dispels the idea that things started in 1948, 1940, or 1917. Zionism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as a European response to European questions. By the time of the first Zionist Congress at the turn of the twentieth century, Zionism had reached a convergence on a Jewish national home in Palestine. But Jiryis tracks the lesser known role of various European actors, Jewish and non-Jewish, in making this possible, exposing possible turning points decades before Theodor Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat. What we encounter today as impenetrable reality is in fact a long series of decisions deliberated over time, none inevitable. What comes together can come apart."

Mary Turfah in The Baffler

“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’ contributions to the Palestinian intellectual tradition have long been significant, and this history of the rise of Zionism is a work of tremendous scholarship undergirded by Jiryis’ singular familiarity with a prodigious array of Hebrew-language sources. For a global audience seeking to understand how the settler colonial state in Palestine first came to be, the English-language translation of The Foundations of Zionism will be essential.”

Isabella Hammad, Palestinian writer and author of The Parisian (Jonathan Cape, 2019), Enter Ghost (Grove Press, 2023), and Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative (Grove Press, 2024)

“Books differ from all other propaganda media, primarily because one book can significantly change the reader’s attitude and action to an extent unmatched by the impact of any other single medium… this is, of course, not true of all books at all times and with all readers – but it is true significantly often enough to make books the most important weapon of strategic (long-range) propaganda.”

Head of Covert Action, CIA, 1961.

This series, a collaboration between Liberated Texts and Ebb Books, is dedicated to re-publishing, or publishing in English for the first time, works of ongoing relevance that have been forgotten, underappreciated, suppressed or misinterpreted in the cultural mainstream since their release.

We do so in the belief that despite the dramatic shift in the educational and media landscape that has taken place in the six decades since the statement quoted above was made, books remain powerful tools with the ability to fundamentally transform people’s view of the world and spur them into action to change it for the better.

Series Editor, Louis Allday

October 2025
614 pages, Ebb Books
9781738468744