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===British thought: Disraeli===

===British thought: Disraeli===

[[Benjamin Disraeli]] (1804-1881), a popular novelist and politician (later prime minister), was outspokenly philo-Semitic. He was a romantic who embraced his own Jewishness (although he had become a member of the Church of England as a young teenager) and in culture, habit, and political policy followed a pattern of Orientalist (spiritual, intuitive, and emotional rather than rational and practical) behavior. He clearly believed that Orientalism, rooted in Turkish and Semitic - both Arabian and Jewish - tradition, if supported and protected by the colonial powers, could offer much of value to the Christian West. Fueled by contemporary ethnology and race theories, Disraeli argued that Jews were a superior, "aristocratic" race destined to become the spiritual and intellectual guides for modern Europe. Enabling such claims was Disraeli's skillful manipulation of Orientalist discourse, whereby he routinely reversed its stereotypical privileging of West over East. Following the example of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847 satiric response to Disraeli in the story "Codlingsby,"; however, Schweller (2006) argues that Disraeli's "strategy of reversals" ultimately failed because it did not adequately comprehend traditional Western associations and meanings of "aristocracy,", a fundamental misunderstanding that, for Disraeli's political enemies and critics, exposed him yet again as a foreigner, an Oriental, and a Jew.<ref>Ivan Davidson Kalmar, "Benjamin Disraeli, Romantic Orientalist." ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 2005 47(2): 348-371. Issn: 0010-4175 Fulltext: in Cambridge Journals;  Russell Schweller, "'Mosaic Arabs': Jews and Gentlemen in Disraeli's Young England Trilogy." ''Shofar'' 2006 24(2): 55-69. Issn: 0882-8539 Fulltext: in Ebsco</ref>

[[Benjamin Disraeli]] (1804-1881), a popular novelist and politician (later prime minister), was outspokenly philo-Semitic. He was a romantic who embraced his own Jewishness (although he had become a member of the Church of England as a young teenager) and in culture, habit, and political policy followed a pattern of Orientalist (spiritual, intuitive, and emotional rather than rational and practical) behavior. He clearly believed that Orientalism, rooted in Turkish and Semitic - both Arabian and Jewish - tradition, if supported and protected by the colonial powers, could offer much of value to the Christian West. Fueled by contemporary ethnology and race theories, Disraeli argued that Jews were a superior, "aristocratic" race destined to become the spiritual and intellectual guides for modern Europe. Enabling such claims was Disraeli's skillful manipulation of Orientalist discourse, whereby he routinely reversed its stereotypical privileging of West over East. Following the example of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847 satiric response to Disraeli in the story "Codlingsby,"; however, Schweller (2006) argues that Disraeli's "strategy of reversals" ultimately failed because it did not adequately comprehend traditional Western associations and meanings of "aristocracy," a fundamental misunderstanding that, for Disraeli's political enemies and critics, exposed him yet again as a foreigner, an Oriental, and a Jew.<ref>Ivan Davidson Kalmar, "Benjamin Disraeli, Romantic Orientalist." ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 2005 47(2): 348-371. Issn: 0010-4175 Fulltext: in Cambridge Journals;  Russell Schweller, "'Mosaic Arabs': Jews and Gentlemen in Disraeli's Young England Trilogy." ''Shofar'' 2006 24(2): 55-69. Issn: 0882-8539 Fulltext: in Ebsco</ref>

Proudman (2005) presents a detailed critique of Said's representation of Disraeli as the archetypal Orientalist. Far from functioning as a producer of knowledge about the East that undergirded imperialism, Disraeli remained consistently sympathetic to Islam, both in his 1847 novel ''Tancred'' and in his political involvement with the Balkan crises of the 1870s. The novel, published one year after the division of the Tory party, was primarily a critique of British liberalism, in which Disraeli used a romanticized vision of the Orient to attack the values of post-Enlightenment Europe. Said, in failing to take into account Disraeli's political environment, committed factual errors that included erroneously holding him responsible for the occupation of Egypt in 1882.<ref>Mark F. Proudman, "Disraeli as an 'Orientalist': the Polemical Errors of Edward Said." ''Journal of the Historical Society'' 2005 5(4): 547-568. Issn: 1529-921x Fulltext: in Ebsco</ref>

Proudman (2005) presents a detailed critique of Said's representation of Disraeli as the archetypal Orientalist. Far from functioning as a producer of knowledge about the East that undergirded imperialism, Disraeli remained consistently sympathetic to Islam, both in his 1847 novel ''Tancred'' and in his political involvement with the Balkan crises of the 1870s. The novel, published one year after the division of the Tory party, was primarily a critique of British liberalism, in which Disraeli used a romanticized vision of the Orient to attack the values of post-Enlightenment Europe. Said, in failing to take into account Disraeli's political environment, committed factual errors that included erroneously holding him responsible for the occupation of Egypt in 1882.<ref>Mark F. Proudman, "Disraeli as an 'Orientalist': the Polemical Errors of Edward Said." ''Journal of the Historical Society'' 2005 5(4): 547-568. Issn: 1529-921x Fulltext: in Ebsco</ref>