The Israel/Palestine Question
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THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE QUESTION The Israel/Palestine Question assimilates diverse interpretations of the origins of the Middle East conflict with emphasis on the fight for Palestine and its religious and political roots. Drawing largely on scholarly debates in Israel during the last two decades, which have become known as ‘historical revisionism’, the collection presents the most recent developments in the historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a critical reassessment of Israel’s past. The volume commences with an overview of Palestinian history and the origins of modern Palestine, and includes essays on the early Zionist settlement, Mandatory Palestine, the 1948 war, international influences on the conflict and the Intifada. Ilan Pappé is Professor at Haifa University, Israel. His previous books include Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (1988), The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–51 (1994) and A History of Modern Palestine and Israel (forthcoming). Rewriting Histories focuses on historical themes where standard conclusions are facing a major challenge. Each book presents 8 to 10 papers (edited and annotated where necessary) at the forefront of current research and interpretation, offering students an accessible way to engage with contemporary debates. Series editor Jack R.Censer is Professor of History at George Mason University. REWRITING HISTORIES Series editor: Jack R.Censer Already published THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WORK IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE Edited by Lenard R.Berlanstein SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN THE SLAVE SOUTH Edited by J.William Harris ATLANTIC AMERICAN SOCIETIES From Columbus through Abolition Edited by J.R.McNeill and Alan Karras GENDER AND AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1890 Edited by Barbara Melosh DIVERSITY AND UNITY IN EARLY NORTH AMERICA Edited by Philip D.Morgan NAZISM AND GERMAN SOCIETY 1933–1945 Edited by David Crew THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1989 Edited by Vladimir Tismaneanu THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Recent debates and new controversies Edited by Gary Kares Forthcoming HOLOCAUST: ORIGINS, IMPLEMENTATION AND AFTERMATH Edited by Omer Bartov STALINISM Edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE QUESTION Edited by Ilan Pappé London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “ To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Selection and editorial matter © 1999 Ilan Pappé; individual contributions © 1999 the individual contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data The Israel/Palestine question/[edited by] Ilan Pappé. p. cm.—(Rewriting histories) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Jewish-Arab relations—History—1917–1948. 2. Israel-Arab war. 1948–9—Historiography. 3. Palestinian Arabs-Israel. I. Pappé, Ilan. II Series: Re-writing histories. DS119.7.I82619 1999 956.04′2–dc21 98–36351 CIP ISBN 0-203-00376-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-26964-0 (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-415-16947-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-16948-8 (pbk) CONTENTS Series editor’s preface vii Acknowledgements viii 1 Introduction: new historiographical orientations in the research on the Palestine Question ILAN PAPPÉ 1 PART I The history of Palestine rediscovered 8 2 Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: writing Palestinians into history BESHARA B.DOUMANI 10 3 The rise of the sanjak of Jerusalem in the late nineteenth century BUTRUS ABU-MANNEH 36 PART II The origins of Zionism in Palestine reconsidered 47 4 The colonization perspective in Israeli sociology URI RAM 49 5 Zionism and colonialism: a comparative approach GERSHON SHAFIR 72 PART III The social history of the conflict 86 6 Railway workers and relational history: Arabs and Jews in British- ruled Palestine ZACHARY LOCKMAN 88 7 The role of the Palestinian peasantry in the Great Revolt (1936–9) TED SWEDENBURG 114 PART IV The new history of the 1948 war 148 8 The debate about 1948 AVI SHLAIM 150 9 The causes and character of the Arab exodus from Palestine: the Israeli defense forces intelligence service analysis of June 1948 BENNY MORRIS 169 10 A critique on Benny Morris NUR MASALHA 184 PART V Palestinians in Israel 192 11 The democratization of a traditional minority in an ethnic democracy: the Palestinians in Israel NADIM ROUHANA AND AS’AD GHANEM 194 PART VI The Intifada in historical perspective 215 12 From salons to the popular committees: Palestinian women, 1919–89 ISLAD JAD 217 Index 234 SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE Few fields can claim to be more energized than the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For decades after the founding of Israel, scholars associated with the fledgling state wrote works that defended its every aspect. For example, such historians claimed that Arab states encouraged Palestinians to evacuate the contested areas in 1948. Thus, in these versions, the Arabs caused the refugee problem. This volume focuses on the tremendous outpouring of recent studies that reinterpret the history of this struggle by depicting the Palestinians’ perspective in a far more supportive light. Arguing that they have consulted the archives much more carefully, these scholars have shown, among many other findings, that efforts at solidarity among Arab and Israeli workers went awry because of limits on both sides. Likewise, the 1948 exodus relates significantly to Israeli policy. Throughout this work, responsibility is more equally shared, and the Palestinians receive more direct attention. Indeed, this volume collects a series of essays with which any serious student of the period will have to grapple before making conclusions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All articles and extracts in this volume (except for Chapter 1) have already been published. We should like to thank the following copyright holders for permission to reproduce their work. Chapter New historiographical orientations in the research on the 1 Palestine Question (written for this volume by Ilan Pappé). Chapter Reprinted from Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 21/2 2 (winter 1992), no. 82, pp. 5–28. Chapter Reprinted from The Palestinians and the Middle East 3 Conflict, Haifa University 1979, pp. 21–32. Chapter Reprinted from Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 6 4 no. 3 (September 1993), pp. 327–50. Chapter Reprinted from Michael N.Barnett (ed.), Israel in 5 Comparative Studies: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom, State University of New York Press, New York 1996, pp. 227–44. Chapter Reprinted from Comparative Studies in Society and 6 History, vol. 35 no. 3 (July 1993), pp. 601–27. Chapter Reprinted from Albert Hourani, Philip S.Khoury and 7 Mary C.Wilson (eds), The Modern Middle East, I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 1993, pp. 467–502. Chapter Reprinted from the International Journal of Middle 8 Eastern Studies 27 (1995), pp. 287–304. Chapter Reprinted from 1948 and After: Israel and the 9 Palestinians, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990, pp. 69–88. Chapter Reprinted from Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 21/1 10 (autumn 1991), no. 82, pp. 90–7. Chapter Reprinted from Eddy Kaufman, Shukri B.Abed and 11 Robert L.Rothstein (eds), Democracy, Peace and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, Lynne Rienner Publishers: London and Boulder, 1993, pp. 163–88. Chapter Reprinted from Jamal R.Nassar and Roger Heacock 12 (eds), Intifada—Palestine at the Crossroads, Praeger, New York, 1990, pp. 105–23. 1 INTRODUCTION New historiographical orientations in the research on the Palestine Question Ilan Pappé This reader focuses on the history of the Palestine Question which is at the heart of the Arab-Israel conflict. This collection wishes to present, to students and experts alike, some of the most recent developments in the conflict’s historiography. In doing that, this collection does not cover every aspect or historical chapter in the history of the conflict. Its mode of selection is contemporary and fed by the current and most recent areas of scholarly interest. It includes only works which have challenged previous conceptions and paradigms in the historiographical enterprise. As such, the collection does not represent a balanced view of the old and new scholarly interest in the conflict’s history; it rather stresses the new at the expense of the old. It should be seen as a summary of a phase in the conflict’s historiography—a phase characterized by challenges to the conventional and mainstream historiography. But even that categorization has proved to be too broad. The space given to a reasonable reader could not include all the challenges made in the last few years. I have been content with works which represent trends appearing in other similar works. All the contributions to this volume are slowly becoming part of the accepted literature on the conflict. In fact, one could easily say that it is impossible to teach or read about the conflict without referring to the points and challenges made by the contributors presented here. The new scholarship displays several discernible characteristics. It provides a history of the conflict which is influenced by recent historiographical debates taking place around the academic world at large. Thus, the works here present a double-edged wish to introduce an interdisciplinary methodology into the research as well as to inject a more skeptical view towards historical narratives written under the powerful hand of nationalist elites and ideologies. 1 A more skeptical view towards national elites as well as towards the history of elites, is part of an effort, following recent trends in European historiography, to rewrite into history the lives of peasants, workers, women and anyone else excluded in the past by hegemonic groups of historians.