Whose Land? Land Tenure in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Palestine
The present article aims to uncover the different meanings attached to land ownership in Palestine during the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras and to show how a ‘modern’ understanding of ownership was imposed on the local population, particularly the fellahin (peasants), without a consideration of their needs and traditions. Many widespread claims are challenged, first and foremost the one according to which, at the time of the partition of Palestine (1947), ‘over 70 percent’ of it did not ‘legally’ belong to the local Arab majority, but to the British Mandate power, an assumption that has had political, cultural and social ramifications that have lasted until the present day.
Israel Remains on the Right. The Historical Reasons Behind a Long-established Political Supremacy
As a result of the last Israeli elections 48 out of 120 members of the previous Knesset will not return for another term something hard to imagine in most democratic countries of the world. Despite this, the coming government will remain firmly on the right. This is explained by the fact that what is commonly considered the center is actually the right (at least with regard to the conflict). This paper analyses the historical conditions that favoured this longestablished political supremacy. It is argued that demographic, regional and Palestinian related factors are relevant aspects for a comprehensive understanding of the issue, but that only a deeper analysis that takes on board the way in which religion, security and international law have been (mis)used can provide a full-fledged explanation.
The Essential Chaim Weizmann: The Man, the Statesman, the Scientist , compiled and edited by Barnet Litvinoff. Pp. xi + 291. Holmes and Meier, New York1982.
institutions of the Zionist movement. This fits with the author's model of a "pioneering economy," but it is also important to remember how many of the crucial "collective goods," such as defense, immigration, land acquisition and development, and language training, were provided by "national institutions." While treating the controversy in the early twentieth century over Jewish vs. Arab labor, Kimmerling provides fascinating insights into how the heightened political consciousness and strategic position of Arab transport workers help explain the success of the Arab general strike of 1936. He also asks why Jewish opposition to Arab labor has been so weak since 1967, compared to the 1920s and 1930s. His answer leads to discussion of the position of Sephardic Jews in the Israeli economy and their interest in maintaining the availability of cheap Arab labor to insure themselves higher status and higher paying jobs. In bis analysis of the political uses the Zionist political center has made of massive amounts of free capital, both that contributed by foreign governments and individuals and that seized from Arab refugees, Kimmerling argues that the mainline Zionist leadership feared from a very early stage that immigrants from Muslim countries would be susceptible to the demagogic appeals of extremists. The author contends that this leadership's clumsy and patronizing use of readily available resources to "Israelize" these Sephardic Jews partly explains the swing of these voters to the right and the bitter sort of alienation that now helps make many Ashkenazi Jews feel as if they are "living under foreign rule" (p. 141). Kimmerling's concluding discussion treats the impact of increasing consumer demands on public institutions still officially subordinated to achieving "national-political" objectives. But in contrast to the period before 1967, the most important of these objectives, the absorption of the West Bank and Gaza, is opposed by large and important segments of the Jewish Yishuv and Zionist movements. Thus, although it does not contain an indepth analysis of Israeli Zionist economic activities in the West Bank and Gaza, Zionism and the Economy does provide an excellent point of departure for consideration of de facto annexation as an economic, ideological, and political challenge to what socialist Zionism has aspired to build.