ABSTRACT
Mahatma Gandhi’s view of Judaism through the lens of Christianity and his placing of Palestine within the Jazirat- ul-Arab proved to be a deadly combination against Zionism. If his ignorance about the Jewish faith was a choice, the contextualization of Palestine within the Islamic context was a domestic compulsion. While the latter was more pronounced during the Khilafat phase, the former came out more vividly in his November 1938 article. One, Gandhi’s recognition of the Jews as the “untouchables of Christianity” was accompanied by a view that the Jews enjoyed the same rights as the Christians of Europe. While observing that “Palestine belongs to Arabs”, Gandhi added: “The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French.” By imagining that the Jews and Christians had the same rights in Europe, especially in the late 1930s, Gandhi revealed his unfamiliarity not only with Zionism but also contemporary Europe.
