Books by Nir Arielli
What makes people fight and risk their lives for countries other than their own? Why did diverse ... more What makes people fight and risk their lives for countries other than their own? Why did diverse individuals such as Lord Byron, George Orwell, Che Guevara, and Osama bin Laden all volunteer for ostensibly foreign causes? Nir Arielli helps us understand this perplexing phenomenon with a wide-ranging history of foreign-war volunteers, from the wars of the French Revolution to the civil war in Syria.
Challenging narrow contemporary interpretations of foreign fighters as a security problem, Arielli opens up a broad range of questions about individuals’ motivations and their political and social context, exploring such matters as ideology, gender, international law, military significance, and the memory of war. He shows that even though volunteers have fought for very different causes, they share a number of characteristics. Often driven by a personal search for meaning, they tend to superimpose their own beliefs and perceptions on the wars they join. They also serve to internationalize conflicts not just by being present at the front but by making wars abroad matter back at home. Arielli suggests an innovative way of distinguishing among different types of foreign volunteers, examines the mixed reputation they acquire, and provides the first in-depth comparative analysis of the military roles that foreigners have played in several conflicts.
Merging social, cultural, military, and diplomatic history, From Byron to bin Laden is the most comprehensive account yet of a vital, enduring, but rarely explored feature of warfare past and present.
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Leah Trachtman-Palchan was an ordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life. This was a life of ... more Leah Trachtman-Palchan was an ordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life. This was a life of migration, dissent, exile and survival. Born in the final years of the Tsarist Russian Empire, her family was forced to leave their native shtetl, in what is now eastern Ukraine, by the repeated pogroms of the Civil War era. A two-year voyage followed, bringing the family, after some hardship, to British Mandate Palestine in 1921. Here what seems like a typical Jewish story of migration from Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century took an unexpected turn. As a teenager Leah joined the Communist movement in Palestine – illegal under the British Mandate. She was arrested, imprisoned and eventually deported by the British back to her native country which had, by then, transformed into the USSR. For the next forty years, she was trapped in the Soviet Union.
This memoir is filled with colourful, and sometimes harrowing, sketches of the people
who passed through her life. It provides a unique glimpse into the lives of newly
arrived immigrants in Tel Aviv of the 1920s, factory workers in Moscow during the first
Five Year Plan, peasants uprooted from their lands in the years of Stalinist collectivization, and international Leftist dissidents who came to find shelter at the heart of Communism. Leah captures the pitiful fate of the deportees and political émigrés from Palestine in the Soviet Union, many of whom were arrested during the Great Purges of the late 1930s. She depicts the extremely harsh conditions which workers’ families endured during the evacuation of factories to Siberia during World War II. She also describes the renewed atmosphere of repression of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her memoir ends with the thaw of 1956 which gave Leah a unique opportunity to visit her family in Israel. Offering a unique perspective on Mandate Palestine, the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union and life in Israel in the mid-1950s, Between Tel Aviv and Moscow reveals the remarkable story of a woman living through some of the most pivotal events of twentieth-century history.
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The history of military mobilization does not fit neatly into national boxes, not even in the mod... more The history of military mobilization does not fit neatly into national boxes, not even in the modern era. The traditional military history narrative, at least as far as Europe is concerned, sees the French Revolution as an important turning point in the 'nationalization' of military service. The essays in this volume seek to challenge this view by examining largely overlooked aspects of military mobilization from the eighteenth century to the present. Whether as colonial troops, ideological volunteers, mercenaries, adventurers or soldiers who were recruited in prisoner of war camps, men (and occasionally women) have often found themselves fighting for a country other than their own. On numerous occasions, pressing wartime needs have compelled states to turn to transnational recruitment. At the same time, the willingness of individuals to commit to cross-border military service has endured despite the advent of nation-states; a trend that could become more prevalent in the twenty-first century.
Truly global in scope, the book offers an alternative way of reading the military history of the last 250 years.
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Under Mussolini’s leadership, Fascist Italy sought to increase its influence in the Middle East. ... more Under Mussolini’s leadership, Fascist Italy sought to increase its influence in the Middle East. This book examines the motivations behind Italy’s policy, the diverse methods the regime employed and the reasons why Italian efforts ultimately failed. By looking at the interplay between foreign, colonial, cultural and military policies, Fascist Italy and the Middle East provides a new and challenging interpretation of the ambitions and contradictions that characterized Mussolini’s Italy. It analyses the ways in which the Fascist regime sought to befriend the Islamic world and looks at how Italian policies were received by Middle Eastern societies. It also uncovers for the first time the grandiose plans that were prepared in the summer of 1940 for Fascist territorial expansion in Africa and the Middle East.
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Papers by Nir Arielli
Journal of Israeli History, 2023
The article examines the changing relationship Kibbutz Ein Gedi has developed with its environmen... more The article examines the changing relationship Kibbutz Ein Gedi has developed with its environment over a period of more than 60 years. It focuses on two interrelated themes: the considerations that influenced decisions on how best to use the land around the kibbutz, the freshwater at its disposal and the labor of its members; and the community's changing self-image and "environmental imaginary." Initially, the space in which the community lived was shaped by agriculture and a pioneering ethos. Then, because of the growth of consumerism and the development of tourism, Ein Gedi began to brand itself as a unique holiday destination. However, since the 1990s, the fast-retreating Dead Sea shoreline and the appearance of sinkholes have reshaped Ein Gedi's environmental imaginary and altered its decision-making priorities.
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European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2020
The image of the foreign fighter (or foreign war volunteer), whether true or imagined, is clearly... more The image of the foreign fighter (or foreign war volunteer), whether true or imagined, is clearly a potent one. This article aims to challenge some of the popular images associated with foreign volunteering. First, it examines the gap between the often romantic and idealistic descriptions of foreign volunteering and the far less romantic realities they faced. It then explores the exaggerated importance that has often been ascribed to cohorts of foreign volunteers by their contemporaries, using both historical and recent examples. Finally, the article illustrates how the image that surrounds foreign volunteers is sufficiently powerful to influence the way conflicts abroad are remembered.
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War in History, 2019
This is an introduction to a special issue on the role played by veterans of the Spanish Civil Wa... more This is an introduction to a special issue on the role played by veterans of the Spanish Civil War’s International Brigades during the Second World War. It argues that the study of these veterans is worthwhile for three reasons: the extraordinary mobility that the antifascist struggle of the years 1936–45 enabled; the microcosm it provides for the assessment of what happens when ideologically fuelled concerns meet pragmatic wartime needs; and the relevance of how governments and military organizations have dealt with suspect returnees in the past for present-day dilemmas that several governments face.
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War in History, 2021
British servicemen and policemen who had been stationed in Palestine towards the end of the Briti... more British servicemen and policemen who had been stationed in Palestine towards the end of the British Mandate and deserted their units to serve with either Jewish or Arab forces have only received cursory academic attention. This article retraces their story, while drawing parallels and highlighting contrasts between both groups of deserters. It analyses their motivations, wartime roles, and experiences and how they were remembered after the war ended. It also places them within the emerging literature on transnational military service.
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Journal of Modern European History, 2016
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Journal of Modern European History, 2016
This article examines two instances where thousands of foreigners - predominantly, though not exc... more This article examines two instances where thousands of foreigners - predominantly, though not exclusively, Jews - offered their services to the Israeli state in the context of a military conflict. It assesses wartime encounters between the volunteers and their Israeli hosts in 1948 and 1967. After each of these conflicts, the state sought to incorporate as many foreign volunteers as possible into Israeli society. However, the majority of the volunteers saw their mobilization as temporary and chose to return to their countries of origin. Furthermore, they expected the Israelis to do more to acknowledge their contribution. Yet, as the article shows, official recognition emerged gradually over the course of several decades.
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The International History Review, 2016
Foreign enlistment has made headline news in the current Syria crisis and with the rise of the te... more Foreign enlistment has made headline news in the current Syria crisis and with the rise of the terror group ISIS. The problem is an old one. How can states prevent their citizens from joining foreign forces? Whatever the motives of volunteers, states have usually reacted with the implementation of domestic laws in the hope of gaining a grip on the situation. Britain has one of the oldest pieces of legislation in place, the so-called Foreign Enlistment Act. Dating back to 1819, the history of the Act is largely unexplored. An analysis of British state practice related to the Act brings a history to light which reaches far beyond the domestic sphere where the Act is firmly placed today. The article shows that the Act originated in the realm of foreign policy, shaping legal concepts, such as non-intervention, recognition, and neutrality in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century the Act was increasingly discussed in domestic policy, where current debates on foreign enlistment also take place. Thus, the article examines the changing role of the Foreign Enlistment Act in the context of 200 years of British domestic and foreign policy, illustrating how this domestic legislation shaped the understanding of concepts in international law.
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British Journal for Military History, 2015
The vast majority of the force employed by the Italians to crush local resistance in Tripolitania... more The vast majority of the force employed by the Italians to crush local resistance in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was composed of Libyans, Eritreans and Ethiopians. The article examines why the Italians came to rely so heavily on colonial soldiers. It highlights two key predicaments the Italians faced: how to contend with the social, economic and political repercussions that military recruitment for the counter-insurgency created in East Africa; and the extent to which they could depend on forces raised in Libya itself. Finally, the article offers an initial assessment of how the counter-insurgency exacerbated tensions between Libyans and East Africans.
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Journal of Military History, Apr 2014
The literature on foreign, or "transnational," war volunteering has focused overwhelmingly on the... more The literature on foreign, or "transnational," war volunteering has focused overwhelmingly on the motivations and experiences of the volunteers. This approach has largely overlooked other aspects of the phenomenon such as the military and political use that host states can derive from foreign fighters. This article focuses on the enlistment of international volunteers by the Israeli armed forces in the war of 1948-49. Drawing on a combination of archival material, interviews with veterans, and secondary literature, the article assesses the relative importance of "Machal" (Israel's overseas volunteers) by comparing the role played by these foreigners with that of transnational volunteers who fought in other twentieth-century conflicts.
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Contemporary European History, 2012
Foreign war volunteers are a recurring phenomenon in modern warfare. The Yugoslav Wars (1991–95) ... more Foreign war volunteers are a recurring phenomenon in modern warfare. The Yugoslav Wars (1991–95) saw the participation of foreign fighters on all sides. The article focuses on foreigners who joined the Croatian armed forces (excluding returning Croatian émigrés). It examines where the volunteers came from, what brought them to the Balkans and how they represent and commemorate their wartime experiences. It argues that their participation in the conflict can be understood as part of an individual search for meaning, comradeship and empowerment.
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Despite there being no recruitment office in Palestine, dozens of members of the local Communist ... more Despite there being no recruitment office in Palestine, dozens of members of the local Communist Party, mainly Jews, left the country to take part in the Spanish Civil War. First, this article examines the political and social circumstances which influenced individuals’ decisions to volunteer. The Palestine Communist Party operated illegally. A combination of pressure from the British mandate authorities, hostility from the Zionist establishment and acute internal disputes, following the party’s participation in the Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936–9), created strong push factors that encouraged many Party members to leave the country. The article also examines the volunteers’ ideological motivation and the transport and support networks that were necessary to bring them to the war zone. By exploring these issues, the article seeks not only to illuminate the particular case of the volunteers from Palestine, but also to make a contribution to the comparative study of foreign volunteers in modern conflicts.
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Middle Eastern Studies, Jan 1, 2010
This is an electronic version of an article published
in Middle Eastern Studies, 46, no. 3 (2010... more This is an electronic version of an article published
in Middle Eastern Studies, 46, no. 3 (2010), pp. 331-47.
The air raids against civilian and military targets during the Second World War have been a relatively unexplored chapter in Palestine's tumultuous history. This article examines the circumstances that led the air forces of Italy, Germany and Vichy France to launch attacks against Palestine. It surveys the damage these raids caused and assesses their effect on the country's population. The article raises three central arguments: although the attacks caused considerable damage in Haifa and in Tel Aviv, they failed to alter the course of the war in the Middle East; despite the hostility between Arabs and Jews before and after the war, the period of the air raids saw displays of solidarity between the two communities; and the experiences of the Second World War, including the air raids, played a part in the state-building process of the Yishuv (Jewish community).
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British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Jan 1, 2008
Italian involvement in the Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936–1939) was perhaps the most explicit exa... more Italian involvement in the Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936–1939) was perhaps the most explicit example of Rome's attempt to destabilize London's position in the Middle East, prior to Italy's entry to the Second World War. This article examines the mechanisms of Fascist Italy's assistance to the rebels in Palestine, focusing on the secret contacts between Italian officials and the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni. It describes the financial support given by Italy as well as the attempts to smuggle arms to Palestine. The article also analyses Rome's diplomatic manoeuvres in connection with Palestine and its pro-Arab propaganda. It is argued that Italian policy in Palestine was governed by, and subordinate to, wider considerations of Italian policy such as imperial competition with Great Britain and a desire to increase Italy's influence in the Middle East. In fact, Fascist involvement in the ‘first Intifada’ teaches us more about Italian foreign policy than it does on the course of events in Palestine during the Arab rebellion.
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MONDO CONTEMPORANEO, Jan 1, 2006
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British Journal for Military History - OA journal by Nir Arielli
British Journal for Military History
The BJMH is a pioneering Open Access, peer-reviewed journal that brings high quality scholarship ... more The BJMH is a pioneering Open Access, peer-reviewed journal that brings high quality scholarship in military history to an audience beyond academia.
"The birth of the British Journal for Military History will be as welcome as it is long overdue" - Professor Sir Michael Howard
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Talks by Nir Arielli
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Books by Nir Arielli
Challenging narrow contemporary interpretations of foreign fighters as a security problem, Arielli opens up a broad range of questions about individuals’ motivations and their political and social context, exploring such matters as ideology, gender, international law, military significance, and the memory of war. He shows that even though volunteers have fought for very different causes, they share a number of characteristics. Often driven by a personal search for meaning, they tend to superimpose their own beliefs and perceptions on the wars they join. They also serve to internationalize conflicts not just by being present at the front but by making wars abroad matter back at home. Arielli suggests an innovative way of distinguishing among different types of foreign volunteers, examines the mixed reputation they acquire, and provides the first in-depth comparative analysis of the military roles that foreigners have played in several conflicts.
Merging social, cultural, military, and diplomatic history, From Byron to bin Laden is the most comprehensive account yet of a vital, enduring, but rarely explored feature of warfare past and present.
This memoir is filled with colourful, and sometimes harrowing, sketches of the people
who passed through her life. It provides a unique glimpse into the lives of newly
arrived immigrants in Tel Aviv of the 1920s, factory workers in Moscow during the first
Five Year Plan, peasants uprooted from their lands in the years of Stalinist collectivization, and international Leftist dissidents who came to find shelter at the heart of Communism. Leah captures the pitiful fate of the deportees and political émigrés from Palestine in the Soviet Union, many of whom were arrested during the Great Purges of the late 1930s. She depicts the extremely harsh conditions which workers’ families endured during the evacuation of factories to Siberia during World War II. She also describes the renewed atmosphere of repression of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her memoir ends with the thaw of 1956 which gave Leah a unique opportunity to visit her family in Israel. Offering a unique perspective on Mandate Palestine, the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union and life in Israel in the mid-1950s, Between Tel Aviv and Moscow reveals the remarkable story of a woman living through some of the most pivotal events of twentieth-century history.
Truly global in scope, the book offers an alternative way of reading the military history of the last 250 years.
Papers by Nir Arielli
in Middle Eastern Studies, 46, no. 3 (2010), pp. 331-47.
The air raids against civilian and military targets during the Second World War have been a relatively unexplored chapter in Palestine's tumultuous history. This article examines the circumstances that led the air forces of Italy, Germany and Vichy France to launch attacks against Palestine. It surveys the damage these raids caused and assesses their effect on the country's population. The article raises three central arguments: although the attacks caused considerable damage in Haifa and in Tel Aviv, they failed to alter the course of the war in the Middle East; despite the hostility between Arabs and Jews before and after the war, the period of the air raids saw displays of solidarity between the two communities; and the experiences of the Second World War, including the air raids, played a part in the state-building process of the Yishuv (Jewish community).
British Journal for Military History - OA journal by Nir Arielli
"The birth of the British Journal for Military History will be as welcome as it is long overdue" - Professor Sir Michael Howard
Talks by Nir Arielli
Challenging narrow contemporary interpretations of foreign fighters as a security problem, Arielli opens up a broad range of questions about individuals’ motivations and their political and social context, exploring such matters as ideology, gender, international law, military significance, and the memory of war. He shows that even though volunteers have fought for very different causes, they share a number of characteristics. Often driven by a personal search for meaning, they tend to superimpose their own beliefs and perceptions on the wars they join. They also serve to internationalize conflicts not just by being present at the front but by making wars abroad matter back at home. Arielli suggests an innovative way of distinguishing among different types of foreign volunteers, examines the mixed reputation they acquire, and provides the first in-depth comparative analysis of the military roles that foreigners have played in several conflicts.
Merging social, cultural, military, and diplomatic history, From Byron to bin Laden is the most comprehensive account yet of a vital, enduring, but rarely explored feature of warfare past and present.
This memoir is filled with colourful, and sometimes harrowing, sketches of the people
who passed through her life. It provides a unique glimpse into the lives of newly
arrived immigrants in Tel Aviv of the 1920s, factory workers in Moscow during the first
Five Year Plan, peasants uprooted from their lands in the years of Stalinist collectivization, and international Leftist dissidents who came to find shelter at the heart of Communism. Leah captures the pitiful fate of the deportees and political émigrés from Palestine in the Soviet Union, many of whom were arrested during the Great Purges of the late 1930s. She depicts the extremely harsh conditions which workers’ families endured during the evacuation of factories to Siberia during World War II. She also describes the renewed atmosphere of repression of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her memoir ends with the thaw of 1956 which gave Leah a unique opportunity to visit her family in Israel. Offering a unique perspective on Mandate Palestine, the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union and life in Israel in the mid-1950s, Between Tel Aviv and Moscow reveals the remarkable story of a woman living through some of the most pivotal events of twentieth-century history.
Truly global in scope, the book offers an alternative way of reading the military history of the last 250 years.
in Middle Eastern Studies, 46, no. 3 (2010), pp. 331-47.
The air raids against civilian and military targets during the Second World War have been a relatively unexplored chapter in Palestine's tumultuous history. This article examines the circumstances that led the air forces of Italy, Germany and Vichy France to launch attacks against Palestine. It surveys the damage these raids caused and assesses their effect on the country's population. The article raises three central arguments: although the attacks caused considerable damage in Haifa and in Tel Aviv, they failed to alter the course of the war in the Middle East; despite the hostility between Arabs and Jews before and after the war, the period of the air raids saw displays of solidarity between the two communities; and the experiences of the Second World War, including the air raids, played a part in the state-building process of the Yishuv (Jewish community).
"The birth of the British Journal for Military History will be as welcome as it is long overdue" - Professor Sir Michael Howard
School of History – Leeds Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds
10 – 11 July 2018
The conference seeks to explore traditions of transnational military engagement associated with political radicalism and the legacy of Garibaldi as well as to examine how practices of volunteering to fight against colonial occupation and perceived oppression continued into the Cold War.
We particularly encourage papers dealing with the participation of foreign volunteers in anti-colonial and/or Cold War conflicts in post-1945 Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Enquiries and proposals of up to 300 words (in English) should be sent to: E.Acciai@leeds.ac.uk by 31 January 2018.
The conference will be held at the University of Leeds on 10 and 11 July 2018.
A keynote lecture will be given by Professor Lucy Riall (European University Institute). Limited funds will be available to help pay for the travel expenses of participants, with preference given to early career researchers.
Enrico Acciai (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow)
Nir Arielli (Associate Professor of International History)