.In a work of 1917, titled A Short History of England, Chesterton considers
the year of 1290, when, by royal decree, Edward I expelled Jews from England, a policy
that remained in place until 1655. In writing of the official expulsion and
banishment of 1290, Chesterton writes that Edward I was a "just and
conscientious" monarch, never more truly representative of his people than when
he expelled the Jews, "as powerful as they are unpopular". Chesterton writes
Jews were "capitalists of their age" so that when Edward "flung the alien
financiers out of the land", he acted as "knight errant", and "tender father of
his people". [41]

In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a "Jewish Problem" in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (though not Jewish ethnicity) separated itself from the nationalities of Europe.

[42] He argued that he was quite in favor of a Jew becoming Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor, under the condition, though, that "every Jew must be dressed like an Arab [...] The point applies to any Jew, and to our own recovery of healthier relations with him. The point is that we should know where we are; and he would know where he is, which is in a foreign land." He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists who saw him as an ally in their cause. Later he grew out of the notion of Palestine as a Jewish homeland, and suggested somewhere in Africa instead.