CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Danesh, Ethan |
|---|---|
| Title | Allegiances up in the air: British and Commonwealth pilots serving in the Israeli Air Force and British sociopolitical discourse, 1948-1950 |
| Summary | In this thesis I investigate evidence available regarding the formation and negotiation of senses of national allegiance among British, Imperial and Commonwealth pilots who served in the newly-founded Israeli Air Force (IAF) during the 1948 Palestine War, and the impact these pilots and their roles had on how British Jews and British non-Jews approached the discourse over Zionism and the question of whether British Jews were British, Zionist/Israeli, or could be both equally. The image of the Israeli military pilot has become central to Israeli nationalism throughout its history as a symbol of combat effectiveness and technological prowess on the battlefield, and so I use this study to help better understand how early cohorts of IAF Machalnik - or foreign volunteer pilots who had served in the Royal Air Force or came from the air forces of its former Imperial holdings understood their own national and ideological affiliations in the face of a British government which in policy and practice outright opposed the Israeli project’s establishment, going so far as to assist and reinforce Arab militaries at that time with British equipment and troops, and actively take measures to stem the flow of British military equipment and personnel to Israel. By focusing on memoirs and personal accounts of these pilots, this thesis will detail how these pilots navigated and rationalised parallel senses of duty to Israel and political Zionist ideals, the consequences of wartime restrictions on Jews in military service, and the debates which were spurned by their service regarding the loyalty of British Jews to the Crown, and whether Jews could be both loyal British subjects and Zionists simultaneously. The thesis identifies a variety of frameworks of allegiance and self and group identification as it changes in the course of the wars evolving outcomes, which can be grounded in political Zionism, non-Zionist interpretations of muscular Judaism, humanitarian duty and the opportunity to put aerial combat skills to use after post-war demobilisation. It further examines how these individual experiences contributed to the mythologisation of the Israeli pilot and set a precedent for the perception of the Israeli military by the country and the world alike. |
| Supervisor | Jan Rybak |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/danesh_ethan.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University