History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

In 1875, the same year Melmotte made his appearance, Warren published The Land of Promise: or, Turkey’s Guarantee. Largely with British help, the number of Jews in the Holy Land had slowly risen, passing the 10,000-mark in the 1840s. Warren now proposed, rather on Disraelian lines, that a British chartered company should be created to colonize Palestine (in return for taking on part of Turkey’s national debt), ‘with the avowed intention of gradually introducing the Jew, pure and simple, who is eventually to occupy and govern this country’. In Warren’s view large-scale finance and systematic and scientific development could eventually enable the country to support fifteen million people. In