This paper contributes to the efforts to bring sociology into the research on the British mandatory rule in Palestine by analyzing two high-profile assassinations—of Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State in the Middle East in 1944, and Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator for Palestine in 1948. By offering a new reading of the two mini case studies I analyze how these historical events were abstracted from their context and can be understood only in a wider, historical and comparative framework of imperialism and colonialism. By applying the concept of path dependence which implies that a specific decision or event pushes the community along a specific evolutionary path, I argue that the institutional legacy of the Zionist community in Palestine and the representations and articulations of the British rule did not come to an end at the time of decolonization, but continued to be mobilized, reworked and mediated by Israel in its early years in Israel's turbulent relationship with the UN. Thus, the assassinations of Moyne and Bernadotte, which seem to be irrational and counterproductive can explain how the relationship between Israel and the international community have developed.