A Fascist ‘Jihad’: Captain Robert Gordon-Canning, British Fascist Antisemitism and Islam

Little exists in the literature on British fascism to suggest the pivotal importance of Palestine to British antisemites and fascists during the interwar period. This lacuna is especially surprising given that Britain was the Mandatory power in Palestine from 1920 until 1948. This study explores the interaction between British fascists and Palestinian Arabs during the interwar period and the immediate aftermath of the Second World War through the activities and views of Captain Robert Cecil Gordon-Canning (1888-1967), one of the leading luminaries of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). The study will examine the physical and ideological connections of British fascism outside of its European context, a focus that has dominated previous studies on the trans-national rather than trans-continental, in order to offer some provisional insights into the relationship between leading British and Islamist extremists prior to the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948.