Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine

Two Worlds Collide

Alan Dowty

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780253057259
• eBook ISBN: 9780253038678
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

The historian and expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations offers "a well-written, well-balanced" account of cultural conflicts in the region before WWI (Anita Shapira, author of Israel: A History).

When did the Arab-Israeli conflict begin? Some discussions focus on the 1967 war, some go back to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and others look to the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922. Alan Dowty, however, traces the earliest roots of the conflict to the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, arguing that this historical approach highlights constant clashes between religious and ethnic groups in Palestine.

Dowty demonstrates that, during the 19th century, there was an overwhelming hostility to European foreigners, and that Arab residents viewed new Jewish settlers as European. He also shows that Jewish settlers had tremendous incentive to minimize all obstacles to settlement, including the inconvenient hostility of the existing population. Dowty's thorough research reveals how events that occurred over 125 years ago shaped the implacable conflict that dominates the Middle East today.

INDEX

Acre, as main port of northern Palestine, 14

agriculture: Arab farmers, 112, 148; arable land and, 17; commercialization of, 11; Druze tenant farmers, 189; end to tax farming, 8; European superiority of, 95; eviction of Arab tenants, 192; fellahin and, 7, 11; grazing disputes, 128–30; Jewish newcomers in settlements and, 89; “limited population transfer” of Arab farmers to Syrian districts, 256; oranges as prime export, 10–11; in Ottoman Palestine, 10–13; payment of compensation to evicted tenant farmers, 191; state versus private land in Palestine, 11; subsistence agriculture as economic base of Ottoman Palestine, 10–11; Templers’ agricultural practices, 23; tenant farmers, 170, 198; working hands to farm, 116–17. See also settlements

Ahavat Zion (Mapu), 81

Ahuzat Ba’it society, 256

al-Ahram, 239

al-Asma’i, 238

Alawiyya, 5–6

Alexander II (Tsar of Russia), 57, 62–63, 154; assassination of, 62–63

Alexander III (Tsar of Russia), 63, 65, 154

Alexandrovich, Sergei (Grand Prince), 154

Algeria, 18; Muslim settlers from, 26

aliya: description of, viii; first, viii, 29, 144–47, 193, 194; second, viii, 164

Alkalai, Yehuda Hai (Rabbi), 53

al-Karmil, 238, 239, 247

Alliance Israélite Universelle, 52, 71, 80, 104, 112, 168

al-Manar, 210, 239–40

al-Muqattam, 247

Altneuland (Herzl), 166, 205–6

Amalak, Haim (British vice-consul), 106

American University of Beirut, 27

an-Nashashibi, Raghib, 244

anti-Semitism: Herzl, Theodor, and, 200; invention of term, 74; Lilienblum and, 69; nationalism and, 52; traditional, 52. See also Lueger, Karl

anti-Zionism, 241–48; organizations, 247

Antonius, George, 6, 28, 41n125, 233

Arab Awakening (Antonius): criticism of, 41n125

Arabi, Ahmed (Colonel), 100

“Arab-Israeli conflict”: Arab reaction to New Yishuv, 271; beginning of, 269; civilization divide, 272–73; foreign access to Palestine, 271–72; Jewish “benefit theory,” 272; Jewish construction of their own society, 272; Jewish identification with European civilization, 272; Jews entering Palestine after 1882, 272; negoti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• One: Palestine before Zionism
• Two: Russian Jews before Zionism
• Three: Two Worlds Collide
• Four: Unneighborly Relations
• Five: Truth from the Land of Israel
• Six: The Arena Expands
• Seven: Battle Lines
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author