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Finding Jerusalem: Archaeology between Science and Ideology. Katharina Galor, (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017). Pp. 269. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520295254

Husseinis’ rival elite clan, the Nashashibis, to mobilize collaborationist “peace bands” for reconquering rebel-held areas (p. 203). Rebel fighters were encircled by a network of blockhouses, fortified barracks, patrolled infrastructure, and border defenses designed by Sir Charles Tegart, a consulting expert in colonial repression, presaging their eradication. Overwhelming reinforcements settled matters in late 1938, following the postponement of war in Europe. What constitutes intelligence, politics, security, and counterinsurgent warfare and their mutual influence gets somewhat submerged, and momentum lost, by Wagner’s reversion at key junctures to a familiar political narrative. More could be done on actual intelligence work and how internecine differences predominated in British institutional praxis. For example, Eldad Harouvi, has shown how the Palestine Police’s CID reinvented itself after 1938, in part defying the army, as a resourceful, innovative unit, vigilant towards Zionist as well as Arab terrorism. More importantly, that Palestine experienced a British military/security state coup needs prime reiteration. As Wagner concludes, this coup decisively institutionalized Zionist intelligence/paramilitary capabilities, with crucial future implications. Finally, using newly-available signals intelligence records, Wagner offers a novel explanation of Colonial Secretary Malcolm Macdonald’s seemingly paradoxical 1939 White Paper on Palestine; it severely restricted Jewish immigration, served to rehabilitate leading Arab Palestinian nationalists, (save arch-fiend Haj Amin) while, as Zionists saw it, reneging on the Balfour Declaration’s prime directives on Palestine as the Jewish National Home. This interpretation is that during Britain’s 1936 expedient of engaging neighboring rulers to broker peace, King ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Saʿud was revealed to be an amenable asset. With other Arab loyalties unclear, securing a pro-British Saudi orientation became strategically crucial. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s price was to dictate Macdonald’s turn away from Zionism and towards Palestinian Arab grievances, and he remained steadfastly pro-British thereafter. Like so many ideas in this stimulating monograph, it is an intriguing signpost, if a debatable conclusion.