Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-israeli Towns (Re-Materialising Cultural Geography)

MIXED TOWNS, TRAPPED COMMUNITIES

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Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-Israeli Towns

Edited by DANIEL MONTERESCU Central European University, Hungary and DAN RABINOWITZ Tel-Aviv University, Israel

© Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Mixed towns, trapped communities : historical narratives, spatial dynamics, gender relations and cultural encounters in Palestinian-Israeli towns. - (Re-materialising cultural geography) 1. City and town life - Israel - History 2. City and town life - Israel 3. Palestinian Arabs - Historiography 4. Israel - Ethnic relations - History 5. Israel - Ethnic relations 6. Israel - Historiography I. Monterescu, Daniel II. Rabinowitz, Dan, 1954 305. 8’0095694 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mixed towns, trapped communities: historical narratives, spatial dynamics, gender relations and cultural encounters in Palestinian-Israeli towns / edited by Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz. p. cm. - (Re-materialising cultural geography) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-4732-4 1. Palestinian Arabs. 2. Return migration. 3. Repatriation--Israel. 4. Repatriation--West Bank. 5. Repatriation--Gaza Strip. I Monterescu, Daniel. II. Rabinowitz, Dan, 1954– DS113.6.M585 2007 305.80095694--dc22 2006034023 ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-4732-4

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Table of Contents Preface and Acknowlegments Introduction: The Transformation of Urban Mix in Palestine/Israel in the Modern Era Dan Rabinowitz and Daniel Monterescu

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Part 1 History, Representation and Collective Memory 1

Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City Salim Tamari

2

‘The Arabs Just Left’: Othering and the Construction of Self amongst Jews in Haifa Before and After 1948 Dan Rabinowitz

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“We Were Living in a Different Country”: Palestinian Nostalgia and the Future Past Jasmin Habib

65

Cross-National Collective Action in Palestine’s Mixed Towns: The 1946 Civil Servants Strike David De Vries

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4

5

How is a Mixed Town to be Administered? Haifa’s Municipal Council, 1940–1947 Tamir Goren

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113

Part 2 Spatial Dynamics: Ethnic Urban Mix and its Contradictions 6

7

Planning, Control and Spatial Protest: The Case of the Jewish-Arab Town of Lydd/Lod Haim Yacobi

135

Heteronomy: The Cultural Logic of Urban Space and Sociality in Jaffa Daniel Monterescu

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A Nixed, not Mixed, City: Mapping Obstacles to Democracy in the Nazareth/Natzerat Illit Conurbation Laurie King-Irani

179

Exit From the Scene: Reflections on the Public Space of the Palestinians in Israel Raef Zreik

201

Part 3 Gendered Perspectives on Mixed Spaces 10

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Contested Contact: Proximity and Social Control In Pre-1948 Jaffa and Tel-Aviv Deborah S. Bernstein

215

Mixed Cities as a Place of Choice: The Palestinian Women’s Perspective Hanna Herzog

243

Part 4 Cultural Encounters and Civil Society 12

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Cooperation and Conflict in the Zone of Civil Society: Arab-Jewish Activism in Jaffa Amalia Sa’ar

261

Nationalism, Religion and Urban Politics in Israel: Struggles Over Modernity and Identity in ‘Global’ Jaffa Mark LeVine

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Mixed as in Pidgin: The Vanishing Arabic of a “Bilingual” City Anton Shammas

Index

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Preface and Acknowledgments This project began as a dialogue between us in the summer of 2001. It soon evolved into intellectual synergy exercised in two fascinating and most productive academic workshops. One took place as an extended panel at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans in late 2002, where eight papers were read and discussed. The second was a three-day international workshop sponsored by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which took place at Van Leer in June 2003. On that occasion, sixteen scholars convened to present, debate and further develop their work - an event which expanded and enhanced our collective endeavor considerably, and eventually facilitated the publication of this volume. We wish to thank all participants who contributed to these significant gatherings for their unrelenting enthusiasm and commitment to the project throughout the process. We are particularly indebted to Dr. Glenn Bowman from the Department of Anthropology at Kent University, whose interventions in both conferences as commentator were invaluable. We wish to thank also Dr. Haggith Gor-Ziv, Ms. Nadira Asous, Prof. Ghazi Falah, Prof. Elizabeth Faier and Prof. Rebecca Torstrick for their insightful and illuminating input. Special thanks are due to Prof. Hanna Herzog for making the initial contact with the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute; to Dr. Shimshon Zelniker, Van Leer’s Director for the generous funding of the 2003 workshop without which this book would not have been possible and to Mr. Shim’on Golan for his skillful navigation of he budget. We are particularly grateful to Ms. Kinneret Lahad at Van Leer, whose resourcefulness, masterful organizational skills and professionalism were essential to the success of the conference and the fortunate completion of the project as a whole. The work on this volume was completed at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Central European University and at Tel-Aviv University, with which we are respectively affiliated. We are grateful for the collegial critique and intellectual exchange with faculty and students in both departments. Daniel Monterescu acknowledges with thanks the support of The University of Chicago; the Palestinian-American Research Center (PARC); the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust at the Hebrew University; the National Science Foundation (Doctoral Improvement Grant); the United States Institute of Peace; CRFJ (Centre de Recherche Français de Jérusalem); Tel-Aviv University (the Herczeg Institute and the Dan David Prize); the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Josephine

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de Kármán Foundation; assistance from all of them at various stages of this project was invaluable. Dan Rabinowitz acknowledges with thanks the support of the Fulbright Foundation New Century Scholars Program and of Tel-Aviv University’s Institute of Social Research for their assistance. Thanks are due also to Tamar Neugarten for her work on the index and to Roy Fabian for his skillful assistance in designing the figures. At Ashgate we were fortunate to work with an experienced, committed, and highly professional team. We wish to thank Valerie Rose, the Senior Commissioning Editor, as well as Neil Jordan, Pauline Snell, Donna Elliott, Margaret Younger, Carolyn Court and Nikki Dines, for their excellent work and dedication and for making the process so smooth, efficient and enjoyable.

The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past... The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.

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Introduction: The Transformation of Urban Mix in Palestine/Israel in the Modern Era Dan Rabinowitz and Daniel Monterescu

Conceptual and Theoretical Focus Modern urban spaces are, by definition, mixed (Weber 1958, Redfield and Singer 1954). In many ways, their ubiquitous success as complex human projects hinge on the ethnic variety, professional diversity, multilayered class structure and ongoing exchange of cultural traits and ideas which they enable and invite. This mixture is not necessarily harmonious. Inherent to the process of urbanization are the differential production of marginalized groups, cultural alterities, class subordination and racial segregation (Smith 1996, Isin 2002). The modern city as we know it is thus a dynamic, ongoing combination of confluence, diversity and conflict. As Simmel indicates in his essay on metropolitan mental life (1903), this complexity is often played out in individuality and individual freedom posed against estrangement and subordination to what Simmel calls Objective Culture. Another central element of modern urbanity is its association with the other dominant feature of modernity: the concept of the nation. Modern nations, in Europe and elsewhere, may have invented themselves through idealized, nostalgic imaginations of rural heritage and earthy effigies of ancient peasantry (Anderson 1991). Their feet, however, have always been firmly grounded in the political and economic theaters of modern cities, with their exuberant supply of human energy, material resources and political momentum (Holston 1989, Holston and Appadurai 1999). The 19th and 20th centuries, which saw an exponential growth in the number and size of urban centers as well as in their salience for human kind, had a special role for what we universally recognize today as capital cities, some of which also served as metropolitan centers for colonial projects (King 1991). The economic and political centrality of emerging national hubs was closely linked to their symbolic roles as emblems of the nation’s future. This primacy enabled many capitals to build on human confluence and feed on the ever growing popularity of the notion of the nation (Lefebvre 1996). The salience of capital cities notwithstanding, one must

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not succumb to this metropolitan bias or otherwise underestimate the role of lesser towns as focal points for urban growth and ethno-national sensibilities. A different type of analytic bias we wish to distance ourselves from is the focus on the city as a site of religious authenticity and concomitant cultural autochthony, so often found in studies of urbanity in the Middle East (Grabar 1976, Peters 1986). Etched in tropes of “holy cities,” like Jerusalem, Mecca or Najaf, Middle Eastern urban space is heavily associated with the “sacred” and is replete with assumptions of eschatology, redemption and fixation with “stagnation” “traditionalism,” “backwardness” and “despotism (cf. Said 1978).” This volume, which mostly looks at towns other than capital cities or holy sites, seeks to theorize the relationship between modernity, the concept of the nation and the dynamics which engender and characterize the growth of urban spaces. This theoretical project is well served by an informed analysis of the particular case of mixed towns in Palestine and later Israel. The urban centers of this territory, which displayed unmistakable signs of modernization already under late Ottoman rule (Owen 1982, Doumani 1995), saw the concept of the nation assuming central social and political position by the 1920s, and played a major role in the tumultuous events that befell the territory in subsequent decades. Unlike most modernizing European territories in the 19th century, however, Palestine had two competing national projects – an indigenous Palestinian Arab one and an incoming colonizing Jewish-Zionist one – vying for supremacy through competing narratives of entitlement and historicity stressing native indigenous rights on the one hand and biblical promise and redemption on the other. This is a feature of the situation which requires closer examination. The territorial logic of the nation hinges on clear-cut definitions and discrete boundaries (Ruggie 1993). The Israeli-Arab conflict, however, with its intense focus on territory, has both sides attempting to gain maximum control of as much land with as few members of the Other, treating this imperative as a sacred duty of existential importance. Protracted and proactive Zionist settlement in and near existing urban centers produced a pattern of territorial and residential mix which became a major component of pre-1948 Palestine, creating a reality whereby the same urban space was perceived by both national projects as empty and available. As a result, a fascinating array of contradictions, overlaps, collusions, protrusions and, at times, mimicry and cooperation developed. Jewish and Palestinian urbanites interacted and still do interact in a complex, multivaried web of relations that included on the one hand land purchase, dispossession and territorial feuds, and on the other hand commercial partnerships, class based coalitions, residential mix and municipal cooperation. This constitutes the two groups and their identities in a series of dialectic oppositions. Historically and analytically, the Palestinian and the Jewish entities oppose each other, but at the same time create each other, albeit in asymmetrical relations of power (Portugali 1993). A border zone thus emerged whereby two politically constructed ethno-territorial groups compete in what most actors see as a zero sum game. At the same time, however, individuals and institutions on both sides often cooperate in the interest

Introduction

3

of personal gain, communal persistence and resistance against state power. This twilight area is the theoretical and analytical territory our book explores. The classic variant of European nationalism, with single nations embodied in unitary political projects which claim sovereignty over specific bounded territories, often hinged on the invention, construction and transformation of the social group that would eventually become identified with ‘the nation’. Homogeneity was taken for granted: the notion of the nation was potent enough to iron out differences and produce coherent tapestries with which most members could identify. This, as we have indicated, was never that simple in Palestine, were competition over space, including urban space, was part and parcel of reality from the initial stages of the bifurcated national effort. Different from the classic European case as Palestine may have been in this respect, taken in global historical analytical perspective it is by no means singular. In the post World War II era, as European empires were dissolving, many post-colonial states in Africa and South East Asia had two or more ethno-territorial groups vying for control of rural expanses, urban spaces and, most importantly, political and economic dominance in the emerging state (Mbembe 2001). Some bifurcated (or multi-factioned) states saw one of the competing ethnic groups gaining absolute control, integrating other segments into the ideologoy of the new nation and operating the state at a more or less acceptable level of integrity and calm. Others are still haunted by the bloody consequences of these old divisions. The Etymology and Usage of the Concept ‘Mixed town’ The definition of a ‘mixed town’ which we propose to use here is two pronged. One element of it is a straight-forward socio-demographic reality: a certain ethnic mix in housing zones, ongoing neighborly relations, socio-economic proximity and various modes of joint sociality. The second element is discursive, namely a consciousnessbased proximity whereby individuals and groups on both sides share elements of identity, symbolic traits and cultural markers which signify the mixed town as a shared locus of memory, affiliation and self identification. This, we believe, is what distinguishes a “mixed” town (like Haifa in the 1930s) from a “divided” one (like post-1967 Jerusalem). Superimposed on the history of modern urbanism in Palestine and, later, Israel, this working definition will inform a diachronic review (below) of the concept of the mixed town and of the urban realities which evolved in it as the twentieth century unfolded. This historicization, we hope, will later help contextualize case studies presented by the various contributions in this volume. Our working definition notwithstanding, the term “mixed towns” has had a history of its own in Palestine/Israel (Monterescu 2005:365). It was and still is used by Israelis and Palestinians in diverse historical and political contexts, serving a number of discursive goals. A survey we conducted of two main Hebrew and Arabic newspapers from the early 1940s through the present yielded that the first to use the

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term were Labor Zionist spokesmen trying to depict the peculiar situation of Jewish communities in predominantly Arab cities under British rule. In fact the earliest mention of the term is in an article published in 1943 (Yedioth Aharonot 1943), quoting Aba Hushi, a prominent Jewish Labor politician who later became Haifa’s omnipotent mayor. The article has Hushi commenting on the “unique circumstances” of Haifa as ‘a Mixed town’, and on the special challenge it presents to the Histadrut, the Zionist trade union federation of which Hushi himself was local leader: ensuring that in spite of being a minority, Jewish workers will manage to ‘stand fast’ and gain proper employment in international, governmental and municipal projects (ibid). The implication is of course that a ‘mixed town’ is an impediment to proper protection of Jewish labor and its interests, which, one assumes, Hushi believes would have been better served by an exclusively Jewish municipal administration. The debate about mixed towns that took place in Jewish and Zionist leadership circles in the 1940s was later summarized in a short article that appeared in 1953 (Yediot Tel-Aviv-Yafo 1953 vol. 22 issue. 1-3 p.28), which looks into the question whether or not Jaffa should have been defined ‘a mixed town’ (‘ir me’orevet) in the 1940s. As in the case of Hushi’s allusion to Haifa, here too the term appears to have been coined in an attempt to properly account for the peculiar situation of a Jewish minority population under Arab majority rule. A systematic survey of the Arabic daily Al-Ittihad from 1944 to the present yielded no mention of the term “mixed towns”. Jaffa, Haifa, Ramle, Lydda and Acre were all perceived and represented in the paper as ‘Arab’ towns, before and, even more significantly, after 1948. It seems that a Palestinian recognition of the existence of mixed towns as a category did not evolve until the 1990s. The concept in its current Palestinian use emerged, it seems, as the second generation of Palestinians born as citizens of Israel sought to define the position of what were effectively mixed towns vis-à-vis the state, the municipality, the Supreme Monitoring Committee of the Arabs in Israel and other institutions. This need was accentuated following the breakout of the second Intifada in the Occupied Territories and the violent events of October 2000 inside Israel, some of which took place in mixed towns (Jaffa, Acre). These tumultuous events, in which many Palestinians felt that their personal security was breeched, yielded an assertive position on mixed towns (mudun mukhtalata). Resorting to the language of rights, this position, which has since gained some visibility in Palestinian public discourse within Israel, demands that Palestinian populations in mixed towns should be represented in the Supreme Monitoring Committee of Arabs in Israel, and calls to address the unique needs of their residents through negotiations and joint projects with local authorities and NGOs.1 1 Examples of such projects include the NGO Shatil’s “Mixed Cities Project – Equal Access to Housing Rights”, and various initiatives by the Arab Center for Alternative Planning. A recent publication in Hebrew and Arabic by Shatil, entitled “the Arab citizens in mixed towns” (Jabarin 2002) has addressed the predicament of the Palestinian communities in cities life Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle.

Introduction

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These sensibilities were brought to the attention of the Jewish public in Israel through increasing media coverage and public debate. A particularly visible example is a comprehensive series in Ha’aretz, authored by Ori Nir and Lili Galili in late 2001, which looked at mixed towns in the wake of the October 2000 events. The debate about mixed towns, Nir and Galili argue, is important as “mixed towns are a metaphor for the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict” (Nir and Galili 2001a). Fifty years after the establishment of the State of the Israel and the destruction of Palestinian urbanism, Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli public discourses constitute mixed towns as a marked cultural and political category, deeply intertwined with the future of State of Israel and its Palestinian minority. The discourse on mixed towns was conducted not only positively but also negatively, by denying its very existence. A certain Palestinian scholarly discourse thus rejects the very characterization of such towns as mixed (Bashir 1999), maintaining they are nothing but ideological figment of the Zionist imagination. In reality, this position claims, they are nothing but Jewish cities with marginalized and oppressed Arab communities (cf. Yacobi, this volume). This critical view rejects the discourse of mixed towns as liberal, preferring to define such towns as “targeted towns” (mudun mustahdafa) or, in a rarer and more optimistic vein, “shared towns” (mudun mushtaraka).2 On the Jewish Israeli side, local leaders in mixed towns such as Natzerat Illit have been known in the 1980s to suppress statistical data that indicated that their town, perceived and represented in their books as exclusively Jewish and Zionist, had a Palestinian component meaningful enough to render it a mixed town (cf. Rabinowitz 1997). These processes of simultaneous discursive constitution and negation suggest that the concept ‘mixed towns’ underwent a structural inversion throughout the twentieth century. Originally coined to describe the predicament of Jewish neighborhoods under Arab municipal dominance, it currently denotes the predicament of the Palestinian minority in towns where the majority is Jewish, and is sometimes hidden by Zionist leaders wishing to avoid what they see as a Palestinian stigma of their town. Furthermore, whereas Palestinian discourse traditionally constructed Jaffa, Haifa, Ramle, Lydda and Acre as an unmarked category (an “Arab town”, see for example Al-Ittihad 1945 1), thus symbolically erasing the presence of Jewish communities in their midst, the effects of the Nakba and the Judaization of urban space entailed the transformation of these towns into a marked Palestinian category that demands cultural definition and political mobilization. The unfolding vicissitude of the discourse on “mixed towns” encapsulates many of the issues pertinent in the history of Jewish-Arab relations in the twentieth 2 This term was used a number of times by Palestinian speakers in public meetings and academic conference in 2002-3. The alteration between ‘targeted city’ and ‘shared city’ is often strategic. For example, during a meeting with potential donors from the Arab world, the term ‘targeted’ will be employed, to underline the Israeli majority and the state as a shared enemy of those seeking assistance and the potential donor. In contexts in which cooperation with Jews and Israeli institutions is the goal, ‘shared town’ will be more likely to be used.

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century. This dialectic inversion corresponds to what Yuval Portugali has termed “implicate relations” (Portugali 1996), denoting the similarities in form and content that exist between the two national projects. The urban landscape is as good a context as one can find to illustrate how various aspects of politics, social philosophy and collective memory evolved in both communities in a process of dialectic opposition and reciprocal determination with the opposite side. The History of Urban Mix in Palestine This volume joins the unfolding saga of urban mix in Palestine in the 1920s – a time in which the dynamics of competing nationalisms began emerging in powerfully intricate ways under the aegis of the modernizing ethos. To properly historicize the cases represented in the volume, however, we set off with a brief history of urban mix in Palestine from the beginning of modern times. Taking the Ottoman conquest of 1517 as our starting point, our typology identifies six urban configurations, each a result of a specific set of socio-historic circumstances. These are: • • • • • •

The pre-national, pre-capitalist Ottoman sectarian town (1517–1858) The proto-national, mercantile mixed town (1830–1921) The bifurcated nationalizing mixed town (1917–1948) The truncated town as war-zone (1947–1950) The depopulated cum colonized mixed town (1948 to date) The newly-mixed town (1980s to date)

Rather than a strict periodization with discrete cut-off points between the different time periods, our typology emphasizes the dynamics that prevailed in each and the pattern of urban mix that emerged as a result. Overlaps between the periods are explained in the text below. The pre-national, pre-capitalist Ottoman sectarian town (1517–1858) Middle Eastern urban spaces in early modern times were predicated on the logic of religious communalism (Gottreich 2003). While some public spaces were ethnically neutral, residential patterns corresponded by and large to the administrative millet system of patronage and classification.3

3 Millet is the Ottoman term for an autonomous self-governing religious minority legally protected under Ottoman Law. The literal meaning of the Ottoman term refers to the separate legal courts under which minorities ruled their own with fairly little interference from the Ottoman government. The prominent millets were the Jewish and Christian ones (mainly Greek, Armenian and Catholic) – groups that were spread across the empire with significant minorities in many major cities. The autonomy of such groups could not have been premised on a territorial principle without challenging Ottoman sovereignty.

Introduction

Figure 1.1

7

Demographic ratio (Arabs:Jews) in selected Mixed Towns in Palestine/Israel, 1800–2003.

Pre-modern urbanism in Ottoman Palestine was no exception to the general Ottoman rule. Consisting of separate ethnic quarters where religiously defined communities, regulated under Ottoman rule, resided,4 it had cultural difference semiotically marked and socially recognized within the material and symbolic walls of the “Old City” (Raymond 1984, Bauman 1999, Tamari 1999).5 Using the religious idiom inscribed by the Ottomans as a primary marker of community, we can identify four towns in early Ottoman Palestine whereby Jews, Muslims, Christians and other ethno-religious communities coexisted: The old city of Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safad.

Each millet was under the supervision of a leader, most often a religious patriarch, who reported directly to the Ottoman Sultan. Each community was responsible to the central government for administrative obligations such as taxes and internal security, and had authority to supervise functions not provided by the state. Beginning in 1856, the secular legal reforms known as the Tanzimat (“Reorganization”) eroded much of the religiously based administrative autonomy of the millets, which was further altered by the increasing influence of European powers in the Middle East. 4 The Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, or the different “Neighborhoods of the Jews” (Harat al-Yahud) throughout cities in the Middle East are obvious examples. 5 This relatively stable structure of affiliation was known also in pre-modern Europe (see Meinecke 1972; Ruggie 1992).

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Under Ottoman administration, these communities, which were vertically subordinate to regional Ottoman rulers and, through them, to the metropole in Istanbul, conducted their affairs largely independently of one another – a reality which would be gradually changed with the advent of print capitalism. Like other multiethnic Middle Eastern cities they did not have, it would appear, a unified municipal framework or a city-based concept of citizenship, affiliation or organization. This was a period, after all, in which territorial nationalism was irrelevant for the identity and affiliation of most ethno-religious communities – immigrants and natives alike. It is interesting to note that this pattern of mixture, robust as it had been for centuries, did not survive the nationalizing wave which was about to sweep the country in the 20th century. As it happened, between 1929 and 1948 all four prenational Ottoman sectarian mixed towns suffered cataclysmic, violent events of ethnic cleansing. Hebron’s thriving Jewish community left the town en masse in the wake of a Palestinian assault in August 1929 which left 64 men, women and children dead; the Palestinian communities of Safad and Tiberias ceased to exist in April 1948, when the Israeli forces took control of the two towns and forced the Palestinians to flee to Lebanon and Syria; and the old Jewish quarter of Jerusalem was abandoned in July 1948, when its Jewish inhabitants were forced to leave under pressure from Jordanian army shelling as their hope of being joined by Israeli forces faded. The proto-national, mercantile mixed town (1830–1921) The second pattern of mixed urbanism in Palestine, which began to emerge in the 1830s, reflects a transition phase between the pre-nationalist, pre-capitalist, community-based social order known before and a capitalist colonial order under new forms of imperial rule. In the 1830s Jewish immigrants from North Africa arrived in Jaffa (Kark 1984:160), to form the basis of a steadily growing Jewish community in the town. A steady influx followed in subsequent decades which included Arabs from adjacent territories and from the rural hinterland, as well as Christian and Jewish immigrants from Mediterranean and European countries. As a result, the towns of Palestine saw rapid population growth and accelerated modernization. Then, come the first decade of the 20th century, they became sites of an additional phenomenon: ethno-national competition between Jews and Arabs. The period witnessed a new dialectic between two foci of economic activity and political mobilization: the mercantile coastline towns of Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre which were developing as a result of new trade with Europe, and the semi-rural inland towns of Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah and Nazareth (See Kimmerling and Migdal 1993: 39).6 Between 1880 and 1918, a period in which the urban population of Pealestine grew by 3 percent per year on average, coastal towns grew considerably faster. Haifa, 6 Jerusalem, with its many religious sects and administrative offices was the only center in the mountains which was truly urban. For a comparison between the coast and the inland mountains region of Palestine before 1948 see Tamari 2005.

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which in the 1830s had been a fishing village of less than 1000 inhabitants, had 3000 by 1850 and over 20,000 in 1939. Jaffa with an original size of 25 walled acres and 5,000 inhabitants, grew at the same period to nearly 400 acres and 50,000 inhabitants (Kimmerling and Migdal 1993). Growing European interest in Palestine resulted in the deployment on the ground of missionary outposts and various types of European economic agents. Centered largely in cities, missionary schools and institutions soon became key factors in the production of a new, predominantly Christian Palestinian elite and middle classes.7 This period saw towns in Palestine that hitherto had not been significantly mixed, particularly Jaffa and Acre,8 absorbing a new type of incoming Jewish immigrants. Originating in the Maghreb, the Balkans and elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, the newcomers were involved in commerce, finance, fishing and crafts – a stark opposition to the more traditional existence of Jews in the four pre-mercantile Ottoman mixed towns reviewed above. As of the 1860s, as security conditions in Palestine improved, new neighborhoods were established outside the city walls of Jerusalem, Jaffa and later Haifa, often at the expense of older quarters of the town.9 By the late 19th century, millet based correspondence between spatial boundaries and social grouping was blurring and crumbling. By the turn of the century new notions of public spheres were evolving, informed by national consciousness, which fed exclusionary demands for spatial separation. The expansion of new residential and commercial quarters beyond the old town walls created new opportunities for ethnic mix, economic exchange and national conflict. New forms of ethnic enclaves emerged, with nodes and networks, denominational divisions, class distinctions and solidarities. Jaffa which following the establishment of the agricultural school in adjacent Mikve Yisrael in 1870 became the chief urban hub for the emerging Jewish Yishuv, had new Jewish neighborhood established – Neve Tzedek in 1887 and Neve Shalom in 1885. This signaled a colonizing effort that would culminate in 1909 with the founding of Ahuzat Bait – the kernel of what would later become the exclusively Jewish town of Tel-Aviv (LeVine 2005). The latter part of the 19th century saw Muslim expansion north of the old city of Jaffa to what would become known as Manshiyya, and Christians colonizing the area south of the walled town. It is interesting to note, however, that although these 7 Secondary and vocational schools established and operated by European missionary orders were as open to Muslim and Jewish children as they were to Christian pupils. This notwithstanding, the main impact in terms of class was on the ascent of Christian Palestinians who later took center stage in the growth of Arab nationalism. 8 Prior to 1820 Jaffa had a small, unstable and largely insignicant Jewish population of some 200 (Kark 1984:134). Likewise, a Jewish presence in Acre had been in existence since 1744 (Luria 2000:173). 9 Jerusalem had Yemin Moshe built in the 1869s, the German colony in 1873, Abu Tor in the 1870s and Musrara established in 1875. In Jaffa had the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Tzedek and Neve Shalom established in 1887 and 1885 respectively.

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Figure 1.2 Note

Pre-national, pre-capitalist Ottoman sectarian towns (1517–1858), and proto-national, mercantile mixed towns (1830–1921).

This map does not aim to present comprehensive citation of all mixed towns that existed in the relevant period. Rather, it captures analytically the emergence of new urban compositions, either in the form of newly established settlements (e.g. West Jerusalem) or in the form of transformation of an older urban model into a new one (e.g. Jaffa).

Introduction

11

neighborhoods were established primarily for members of specific communities, they were, initially at least, places where all ethnicities mixed relatively freely – a point Bernstein’s chapter on Manshiyya in this volume illustrates well. This diffusion largely ceased, however, with the escalation of the ethno-national conflict in the 1920s and 1930s. Haifa and West Jerusalem present additional cases of modernizing urban mix. The Zionist influx in the 1890s and 1900s created a demand for residential properties and triggered an ambition to define segments of the urban area as not merely Jewish but also Zionist. Haifa was expanding west of the old Ottoman, predominantly Muslim walled town to include new Palestinian Christian areas, a German Christian colony, and later new Jewish Zionist presences in Hadar Ha-Carmel and beyond. Towards World War I, urbanism in Palestine was exhibiting patterns of modernization and spatial differentiation which were clearly divergent from the patterns that characterized the previous sectarian Ottoman town. Resonating and reifying the rapidly expanding logic of nationalism, these proto-nationalist, gradually politicized spaces would have dramatic historic impact under British rule. On the eve of the British conquest of Palestine in 1917, eight mixed towns can de identified in Palestine, broadly falling into the two categories reviewed so far. Old Jerusalem, Hebron, Safad and Tiberias were pre-national, sectarian Ottoman mixed towns; Haifa, Jaffa, Acre and West Jerusalem were mercantile, proto-national mixed towns. The reason we chose 1921 to mark the end of this transitional is that this year witnessed an emblematic event in the urban history of Palestine, one which had far reaching consequences for the wider ethno-national struggle. On May 1st and 2nd, 43 Jews, some of them residents of a hostel for new immigrants, were murdered by Palestinian militants in Jaffa (Ram 1996:328). For the first time ever, the urban landscape explicitly became a prime arena for the Arab-Jewish national struggle. Bifurcated national capitalist 'mixed' town (1917–1948) The third pattern of urban mix in Palestine emerges following the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the beginning of the “surrogate colonialization” of Palestine by both British forces and Jewish immigrants (Atran 1989). It was a time of escalating ethno-territorial conflict in which the urban space was being consciously drawn along national lines. But it was also, paradoxically, a fluid time in which nationally espoused boundaries were constantly challenged by more cooperative spirits and practices. Intercommunal relations, trade activities, residential patterns and social ties created a cognitive and interactional mixture whereby exclusionary nationalism, pre-national community-based ties and more recent ventures of Jewish-Arab economic and political collaboration were all at play. The nexus between Jews and Palestinians in Jaffa and in Tel-Aviv is a good illustration of this dialectic process (Monterescu 2005:42, LeVine 2005). Since its founding in 1909, Tel-Aviv had a problematic and ambivalent relationship with Jaffa – its mother-city which turned to be its rival. This relationship, like other cases of child-parent complexes, revolved around the theme of separation

12

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

and individuation.10 Tel-Aviv, which started as Jaffa’s “Jewish garden suburb” in Ahuzat Bait, overshadowed Jaffa economically and demographically in the 1930s,11 conquered it in 1948 and eventually “annexed” it in 1950, rendering it a dilapidated South Side and perpetuating its political and cultural otherness. The century-long relationship between the two cities manifests a tension between assimilation and distinction, cultural integration and spatial separation. This dialectical conflict, enmeshing Jaffa to this day, binds in one space social proximity and distance, political inclusion and exclusion, ethnic mix and segregation. We bring the Jaffa-Tel-Aviv dynamic in some length here as a case indicative of others. The two towns, we argue, are metonymic representations of macro-national orders. Both are perceived as the metropolitan embodiment of their respective national Geists. Tel-Aviv, “The White City,” has been mythified in the Zionist imagination as the “city that begat a State” (Ha’ir she-holida medina). Jaffa, for its part, is “the Bride of Palestine” (‘Arus Falastin), mythified in Palestinian imagination as the nation’s cosmopolitan, modern and secular bridgehead. The confrontation between the two towns was thus an existential battles for existence between two mutually exclusive national projects whereby the physical and discursive erasure of the Arab side was a pre-condition for the symbolic and physical growth of Tel-Aviv of Jewish Tel-Aviv (LeVine, this volume). In the 1920s Tel-Aviv’s self image as “The First Hebrew Town” encouraged the construction of Jewish neighborhoods in other cities such as Haifa (Hadar Carmel) and Jerusalem (Rehavia). The extent to which relations between Jewish and Arab residents were managed peacefully vary considerably, ranging between the 1929 Pogrom in Hebron to what Goren (in this volume) describes as equitable distribution of resources and balanced political system in the case of Haifa. As indicated above, the towns of Palestine were a magnet for new waves of immigrants on both sides. The major waves of Jewish immigration of the 1920s 10 In his preface to Aricha’s book on Jaffa (1957:7), Mayor Haim Levanon refers to the conquest of Jaffa as the forced normalization of a mother-child relationship. Quoting form the bible, he writes “Against its will, Jaffa exemplifies the verse ‘he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers’ (Malachi 3:23-24); the heart of the mother Jaffa – Ancient-new Hebrew Jaffa – turned to its daughter Tel-Aviv. And they became one, the city of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, subject to one municipal authority” 11 According to Golan (1999) Tel-Aviv grew into a small sized town of 15,000 in 1921, and 46,000 in 1931. Urban growth accelerated in the 1930s with the growing numbers of Jews who fled Europe. In 1934 Tel-Aviv, now the largest city of Palestine, became formally independent from Jaffa and in 1939 its population numbered about 130,000 and 166,000 in 1944. In parallel, Jaffa developed at a rapid but relatively lower pace. Numbering 50,000 (including 10,000 Jews) in 1913, its population decreased almost by half due to WWI and numbered 32,000 (including 5,000 Jews) in 1922. In the next decade Jaffa’s population doubled, from 51,000 (including 7,000 Jews) in 1931 to 94,000 in 1944 (including 28,000 Jews). The significant increase in the number of Jews in Jaffa after the 1921 violent Events is a result of the development of separate new neighborhoods (Florentin and Shapira) bordering on Tel-Aviv’s South Side. See also LeVine 1999:133.

Introduction

Figure 1.3 Note

13

Bifurcated national capitalist ‘mixed’ towns (1917–1948)

This map does not aim to present comprehensive citation of all mixed towns that existed in the relevant period. Rather, it highlights those cases in which older urban models were eclipsed by a new one. Jaffa and Acre are absent from this map since both are hardly relevant to the evolvement of the bifurcated national capitalist model of an ethnically mixed town. In both cases, the escalation of national conflict resulted in the 1920s in increasing Jewish flight, rendering them virtually ethnically homogenized (all Arab).

14

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

and 1930 from Europe were matched by large scale Arab labor migration from surrounding regions. The latter fed the planning and construction of new modern neighborhoods in every major town: Sheikh Jarah and Talbiye in Jerusalem, Wadi Nisnas and Halissa in Haifa, King Georges St. in Jaffa. It also contributed to the development of lesser towns like Ramle, Lydda, Acre and Bi’r al-Sab’. Palestinian civil society flourished in these cities, newspapers were printed and the economy, while obviously impacted by the upheavals of the 1930s, both in Palestine and abroad, steadily expanded.12 This transitional period, beginning in the middle of the 19th century ad typified by budding modernization, economic growth (see Owen 1980), incoming migration and a growing sense of national awareness (Khalidi 1997), had seven ethnically mixed towns. Four of them were old Ottoman sectarian towns - Old Jerusalem, Safad, Tiberias and Hebron (till 1929) and the modernizing towns of Haifa, Jaffa (till 1936) and Acre (till 1929).13 The dual process of nationalization and capitalist modernization consolidated spatial separation. At the same time, however, it also created new residential and economic “contact zones” (Pratt 1999) that would soon be recognized as political hot spots (see Bernstein, this volume). The inclusive, color-blind logic of capital consumption and production contradicted exclusionary, segregative ethnonational definitions.14 On the eve of the 1948 war, after the violent events of 1921, 1929 and the 19361939 Revolt which left Hebron, Acre and Jaffa with practically no Jewish population, only five towns could pass as genuinely mixed: West Jerusalem, The Old city of Jerusalem, Safad, Tiberias, and Haifa. Of these five, only Haifa would retain some of its ethnic complexion through the war of 1948. The rest were ethnically cleansed during the conflict. The truncated town as war-zone (1947–1950) The 1948 war and its aftermath marked a dramatic severance of Palestinian urbanism. By the time Acre was captured by the IDF on May 17th, Israeli forces had control of urban areas which had been home, prior to the war, to 215,000 Palestinians – almost 70% of the entire urban Palestinian population prior to the war (Golan 2004:915). Within a few months in the spring and summer of 1948, upwards of 85% of the Palestinians who had lived in the area that would eventually be included in the state of Israel were forced to leave the country. The event which enabled the Zionist movement to establish an independent Jewish state split and ruined the Palestinian 12 See Rabinowitz and Abu Baker (2005, c. 2) for an account of cultural life in Palestinian towns pre 1948. 13 In the 1920s Acre’s Jewish population grew to over 800 – 15% of the town’s 6,000 inhabitants. This was mainly due to the influx of European immigrants, who joined the small Sephardi community which had resided in the town since 1744. In the wake of the 1929 hostilities, most Jews left Acre and settled in Haifa and the viscinity (Luria 2000: 411). 14 This was the case of Jewish and Arab orchards’ owners and tradesmen attempting to retain their business relations through the turmoil of the 1936 Revolt and during warfare in 1947–8.

Introduction

15

community, turning most Palestinian residents to refugees. The residual group that stayed put became the kernel of the community now known as the Palestinian citizens of Israel.15 In 1947, even before the UN resolution of November 29th to divide Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, life in Palestine’s remaining five mixed towns (Haifa, East-Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, Safad and Tiberias) was becoming tense. Sniper shots, terror attacks and skirmishes forced the population, on both sides, to retreat to spatially defined ethnic quarters. Wealthier Palestinian families, anticipating a period of unrest akin to the one they had known in 1936-9, sought temporary shelter with relatives and friends in other parts of the Arab Middle East. Jews by and large stayed put. As incidents became more frequent, British-imposed curfew made the retreat into residential enclaves compulsory (see also Tamari 1999). The first mixed town to be emptied of its Palestinian residents was Tiberias, whose 5770 Palestinian inhabotants were forced to flee when the town was taken over by the Hagana on the 16th and 17th of April 1948 (Morris 1987, Goren 2004:172176). The Palestinian neighborhoods of Haifa, with 70,000 residents prior to the war, was seized by Jewish forces on April 21st and 22nd, creating a massive flood of refugees and leaving no more than 3,000 Palestinians in the town by May. West Jerusalem, where some 24,000 Palestinians resided prior to the war (Arenwald 2004:342), had virtually none left by the end of April, while the last of Safad’s 10,210 Palestinians were forced to flee, mostly to the East bank of the Jordan, on May 9th (Goren 2004:195). The old town of Jerusalem was emptied of its Jewish population in mid July. For a brief period during the war, the old mixed towns, now truncated, became semi void. The Palestinian quarters of Safad, Tiberias, Haifa and West Jerusalem, and the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem were in a state of sociological catastrophe: there was no community to speak of which could mourn the demise of the old existence (Khalidi 1992). The emptied Palestinian quarters of the old mixed towns soon became primary destinations for Jewish immigrants. In mid June 1948 the provisional government of Israel decided to bar Palestinians wishing to return to their homes when the hostilities receded from coming back (Morris 1987). The decision reflected apprehension on the part of Israel that areas densely populated by Palestinians would sway the UN to exclude them from the final territory of Israel, as well as a desire to make properties in them available for tens of thousands of Jews, newcomers as well as veterans, who had no proper housing (Golan 2004:923). Whereas Jaffa, and even more so Haifa, saw newcomers occupying Palestinian properties almost immediately, and on a very large scale (see Goren 1996:154-164) Jerusalem, where vacated Palestinian

15 The Palestinian Citizens of Israel, most often referred to in Jewish Israeli parlance ‘Israeli Arabs’ and ‘Arabs in Israel’, are labeled by themselves and by other Arabs ‘The Arabs of 1948’ or ‘Arabs of the Inside’. For a comprehensive discussion of the politics of labeling this groups see Rabinowitz 1993.

16

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

residencies were mainly along the eastern frontier, saw movement of this sort only in August 1948 (Golan 2004). In Tiberias, the demise of the Palestinian community was coupled, in early 1949, with mass destruction of their old properties. By March the Israeli army blew up and bulldozed 477 out of 696 buildings in the old city (Golan 2004:926). This left few buildings available for Jewish immigrants, which by April that year numbered only 500 (ibid). Safad, where most structures in the old Palestinian city stayed physically intact, had 1,400 new immigrants installed in Palestinian properties in the old city by April 1949. By 1949 only one of the five towns that had been effectively mixed on the eve of the war, namely Haifa, still had a Palestinian contingent to speak of. Most of the remaining folk were uprooted too, forced by the Israeli military to concentrate in Wadi Nisnas, a neighborhood downtown. This notwithstanding, their presence, and Haifa’s proximity to large concentrations of rural Palestinians in the Galillee who subsequently sought an urban outlet, became the basis for the considerable growth in coming years of a Palestinian community. The depopulated, colonized mixed town (1948 – to date) A number of semi-urban peripheral communities such as Majdal, Beisan, Mjeidal, Halsa and Bi’r al-Sab, which prior to 1948 had been exclusively Palestinian, and whose entire populations became refugees and displaced persons during the hostilities were eventually included within Israel’s post 1948 territory. Their locations were soon rebuilt, repopulated and reinvented as the exclusively Jewish Israeli towns now named, respectively, Ashkelon, Bet-Shean, Migdal Haemeq, Kiryat Shemona and Beer Sheva. These towns are of less interest for us here. More relevant for our analytical concerns are Acre, Lydda, Ramle and Jaffa which, while exclusively Palestinian before the war of 1948, became predominantly Jewish mixed towns after it. All of them had residual Palestinian populations concentrated in bounded compounds. In Jaffa these compounds were surrounded by barbed wire (Golan 2001:94), and submitted, at least until the summer of 1949, to martial law. These residual Palestinian communities were soon inundated by a large influx of newly arrived Jewish immigrants. The proportion between Palestinian veterans and Jewish immigrants varied. It was more balanced in Acre, at least initially, where a residual population of some 4,000 Palestinians was joined by mid 1949 by some 3,600 Jewish new immigrants (Golan 2004:928). And it was overwhelmingly skewed in favor of incoming Jews in Jaffa (now renamed Yafo), Lydda (Lod) and Ramle. In Jaffa, Jewish squatters penetrated zones that had been designated for Palestinian use alone, preferring empty houses there to transit camps established for them elsewhere. This movement, coupled with ever increasing willingness on the part of Palestinians to test the limits of the spatial limitations they were under, subverted the regime of spatial segregation devised for these localities by the security services. The pattern by which post 1948 Jewish newcomers penetrated urban spaces which hitherto had been predominantly Arab was by no means new. It had been part

Introduction

17

of the scene in Palestine ever since the first arrival modernized Jewish immigrants from North Africa to Jaffa in the 19th century. It happened in Haifa since the 1890s, in Acre in the 1920s and was part of the rapidly transforming urban landscape of West Jerusalem since the 1880s, where Jewish neighborhoods were built in tracts that had been the rural hinterland of some 20 Palestinian villages before (Tamari 1999). This time, however, penetration had a comprehensive, transformative effect. For one thing, Palestinian urban space was now almost completely empty. The old communities of Lydda, Ramle, Acre and Jaffa had been decimated, with rights in residential properties officially transferred, as of March 1950, to the state’s Custodian of Absentee Property. Secondly, and equally significantly, the process was unfolding now under unmitigated Israeli sovereignty. Urban space was not only available for individual penetration. It had the potential to become an Israeli space – a promise which strengthened the resolve of Jewish immigrants involved in it. While Zionist institutions treated the annexation and control of Palestinian urban space as an act reflecting historical justice, ordinary Jews who had maintained business and social ties with Palestinians and other Arabs in the region prior to 1948 were more ambivalent. Some were surprised by the sudden transformation of a familiar town into a space they now felt alienated from (Monterescu 2005:77). A Hebrew language guide-book on Jaffa, written in 1949 for Jewish immigrants about to settle in the town, reflects the incongruities associated with this rapid urban transformation: The massive immigration (‘Alliah) brought about the creation in Jaffa of a Jewish settlement (Yishuv) of fifty thousands and more – the largest urban community created by the current ingathering of the exiles. This New-Old Jewish city is like a sealed book - not only for the big majority of the Israelis, but also for the dwellers of near-by Tel-Aviv, and even for many of Jaffa’s own residents. […] (N)ames of quarters were changed and street names were revoked in Israeli Jaffa to the extent that it now has a new face […] Jaffa has already become an Israeli city but not yet a Hebrew city […] This is not the normal process of building a new city. Here the empty shell – the houses themselves – were ready-made. What was left to be done was to bring this ghost town back to life […]. Materially and externally, Hebrew Jaffa is nothing but the legacy of Arab Jaffa prior to May 1948. (The Jaffa Guide 1949:41, our translation, emphasis added).

Kimmerling (1983) identifies different patterns of control in ethno-nationally contested territories. Focusing on presence, ownership and sovereignty as the key elements, his model suggests that as Israel became a sovereign state, gaining the power to deploy residents (creating presence) and able to instate a legally sanctioned system of tenure (advancing ownership), its control of space was more or less complete. Rabinowitz (1992) takes Kimmerling’s model a step further by introducing a fourth element – visible environmental transformation. Israel usurped the freedom to have formerly Palestinian space metamorphosed into topi that no longer signified Palestinianness. Alternatively, the state neglected Palestinian space, to the point of rendering them frozen illustrations of the ostensibly pre-modern, archaic essence of

18

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

oriental Arabness - a further ploy to exercise control of newly Judaized space (see Yiftachel 1994). These Palestinian towns were now evolving to become mixed ones. Jaffa and Acre had hosted Jewish minority populations prior to the violence of the 1920s and the 1930s – in the case of Jaffa a substantial community (above). Lydda and Ramle hadn’t had Jewish residency to speak of prior to 1948, and were reconstituting their mixed communities from scratch. In all four cases, the task took place under stressful circumstances. The residual Palestinian population had to recover from shock of 1948, while the incoming immigrants, who were often housed in Palestinian property now classified as Absentee property were struggling with the difficulties associated with their own displacement (see Yaacobi 2003, Nurieli 2004 for the case of LyddaLod). The first decade after 1948 was characterized by an active drive to establish new lives, social networks and communal institutions, Jewish and Palestinian alike, with people on both sides sometimes sharing houses and even flats. This notwithstanding, resources received from central government and local councils for rehabilitation and personal welfare were anything but equally distributed. The Palestinian communities lagged behind in education, health-care, welfare, employment, planning and development (see Ghanem, Abu Rass and Rosenhak 2000). 55 years on, Palestinian communities in these mixed towns still include enclaves of poverty, poor educational achievements, widespread informal residential construction, anti-establishment subcultures and pockets of criminal activity. Predominantly Palestinian towns which were depopulated in 1948 and then immediately repopulated by newly arrived immigrants to become predominantly Jewish mixed towns reflect the tragedy of Palestinian urbanism since 1948. Bereft of a bourgeoisie, their political and cultural elites dispersed, these towns’ stride to modernize was suddenly severed. The former Palestinian quarters of Haifa, Lydda and Ramle suffered stagnation and urban disintegration. In Jaffa and in Acre they were developed into orientalist tourist ‘sites’ (cf. McCannel 1975), ensuring that capital gains and operational revenue remains in Jewish hands. The oldest part of Jaffa within the walled town, was gentrified by Jewish artists, and is known even today as ‘The Artists’ Colony’. Not surprisingly, these once-Palestinian urban centers still bear the scars of fifty years of exclusion, land expropriation and intentional neglect. Only recently have some of them begun a slow recovery in the hope to instigate social and cultural spaces for Palestinian urban rejuvenation. To be successful, however, these efforts will have to radically overturn the prevailing structural inequalities that still characterize these towns. Finally, as Salim Tamari’s contribution to this volume clearly indicates, old Palestinian town turned mixed towns feature strongly in the imagery of rootedness and return cultivated by Palestinian refugees abroad (Bardenstein 1998). Websites dedicated to the history of these Palestinian towns and to potential future rehabilitation of this heritage abound, as do literary and art productions which cultivate them as sites of memory (Nora 1988).

Introduction

19

Newly-mixed towns (1980s to date) The 1980s saw the emergence of a new form of urban residential mix in peripheral towns in Israel. New towns founded by the Israeli government in the 1950s and 1960s such as Natzerat-Illit, Carmiel and Hazor Ha-glilit, as well as old, predominantly Palestinian towns depopulated in 1948 and reconstituted as exclusively Jewish new towns such as Safad and Be’er-Sheva, were becoming attractive for Palestinian families, who started moving in to them. The key was real estate. Land scarcity and rapidly growing populations in most Palestinian communities, particularly in Galilee, created chronic shortages of land available for housing, pushing prices well above levels affordable for young Palestinian families. At the same time, adjacent Israeli new towns, established on cheap state-owned land (which in many cases had belonged to Palestinians prior to 1948), had heavily subsidized residential construction for new immigrants artificially pushing prices down. This was compounded, at certain periods, with negative migration of Jewish immigrants who after a few years in the peripheral new town were seeking relocation to the metropolitan parts of the country. Palestinian families from neighbouring communities soon began filling this void, renting and purchasing apartments, often becoming the only positive inflow of resources into the otherwise dormant local economy. In Natzerat Illit, for example, such a process led to the growth of a Palestinian contingent in the late 1980s which by the end of the decade accounted for approximately one tenth of the town’s population (Rabinowitz 1997). The extent to which Jewish Israeli residents of these newly-mixed towns see them as ‘mixed towns’ is an interesting issue. Unlike Haifa, Jaffa and Acre, where local politicians flag this ethnic mixedness, often manipulating it to their own advantage, the politics of demography in newly-mixed towns is much more charged. In Natzerat Illit, where a considerable increase in the size of the Palestinian population in the 1980s met Jewish intrasigence and fears (Rabinowitz 1997:8, 52-71), people asked about the Palestinian presence in the town tended to dodge and obfuscate the issue. During fieldwork in the town in 1988-9, local officials consistently refused to disclose any figures concerning the size of the local Palestinian community. A decade or so later the mayor did go on record admitting that the Arab minority accounts for 8% of the population, but rejected the notion that Natzrat Illit is a mixed town. In his view, “a town must have a minority of at least 10% to be qualified as mixed” (Nir and Galili 2001b). The phenomenon of Palestinians settling in newly-mixed peripheral towns is indicative of the growth of a vital Palestinian middle class, financially able and politically and culturally empowered to face the challenges which may arise in such circumstances. Significantly, however, this phenomenon is largely limited to residential use, as Palestinians by and large remain uninvolved in commerce, industry, education and culture in the newly-mixed towns, maintaining social ties and community focus in their neighboring communities of origin.

20

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

As indicated earlier, Safad and Beer Sheva are a unique subtype of such newlymixed towns. Predominantly Palestinian prior to 1948,16 both had their entire Palestinian populations displaced in the war, were reconstituted as exclusively Jewish towns since the 1950s, and were infiltrated by young Palestinian families since. Most new-comers, it should be noted, are not related to the original Palestinian residents – a phenomenon known also in Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle. Finally, a word on the recent phenomenon of young upwardly mobile Palestinians, including university graduates, professionals and artists who take residence in longestablished Jewish towns, particularly Tel-Aviv. Hanna Herzog’s contribution to this volume suggests that for these Palestinian Yuppies moving to Tel-Aviv, Haifa or Jaffa is a matter of choice. Such relocation, which is too small scale to make a noticeable dent in the demographic balance of any major Israeli city, enables young professionals to come closer to the economic, cultural and political hubs of Israel. Significantly they also allow women to break free from the patriarchal shackles of their extended families in the rural hinterland. Another component of this trend are mixed couples – mostly Jewish women and Palestinian men – who seek the larger city as a place in which they can express their complex identity and live their life more freely. This signals a new form of individual empowerment whereby, for the first time since 1948, they can successfully subvert the assumption, so widespread amongst Jewish Israelis, that “Arabs do not belong” in Israeli towns. Most Israeli-Jewish residents of mixed towns live in communities fraught with tensions of other dimensions. One significant split, evident particularly in Jaffa and Haifa, is along class lines, between lower-class new Jewish immigrants who replaced the original Palestinian inhabitants in the 1950’s, residual or in-coming Palestinian residents, most of whom are similarly less affluent, and middle class veteran Israelis, predominantly Ashkenazim. Whether the middle class Ashkenazim are erstwhile residents of well established older residential quarters or recent immigrants into gentrified parts that once belonged to Palestinians, their proximity often triggers resentment on the part of lower-class inhabitants, Jews as well as Palestinians. The tensions, contradictions and opportunities associated with life inside a mixed town in contemporary Israel is a vivid illustration of the predicament of Palestinian citizens of Israel as a “trapped minority.” Contemptuously labeled ‘Arabs’ by their Israeli neighbors, their ‘Israeliness’ is what keeps them apart from other Palestinians and Arabs elsewhere. Nominal citizens of a state which denies non-Jews a genuine sense of belonging, they are trapped in the political and cultural cross-fire between their state and their nation. Unlike most Palestinian citizens of Israel who generally live in purely Palestinian towns and villages, those living in mixed towns are members of a municipal minority as well as of a national one. A minority twice over, some of them refer to themselves as ‘a double minority’ (Monterescu 2003:128). Representing merely 10 percent 16 Prior to 1948 Safad had some 10,000 Palestinian residents and some 1,500 Jews. Beer-Sheva was exclusively Arab (Palestinians, Bedouins and Egyptians) prior to the war.

Introduction

Figure 1.4

21

Mixed towns in Israel, 1948 onwards: Depopulated, colonized mixed towns, and newly-mixed towns (1980s to date). Note The analytical category ‘newly mixed towns’ represents two variants: New Israeli towns (e.g. Natzerat Illit) established ex nihilo, which later attracted Palestinian residents; and new Israeli towns which replaced pre-1948 Palestinian towns and which later began attracting Palestinian residents (e.g. Be’er-Sheva).

22

Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities

of the million or so Palestinian citizens of Israel, they embody the impasse of the community at large as well as hope for novel forms of co-existence and imaginaries of solutions. Selection and Grouping of the Essays The book includes essays written by anthropologists, sociologists, historians, geographers and literary scholars. The essays are grouped thematically into four parts: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters/Civil Society. Part One, which focuses on history and its representations, looks at the ways nationalist ideologies, collective memory and the politics of identity play out in mixed towns. It analyzes the place these towns have occupied in Palestinian and Zionist historical imagination and their inter-communal relations since the outset of Zionism. Salim Tamari’s contribution looks at essays and paintings by Palestinian intellectuals with family origins in Jaffa who came to visit their ancestral town following the Oslo accords in the 1990s. Their work, Tamari shows, is often structured as a tacit comparison between memories handed down by family elders and the visitor’s own experience of the town today. Visitors, Tamari argues, consistently fail to acknowledge – let alone contextualize – the current residents of Jaffa, either Palestinians or Israelis. The reality of Jaffa today is thus absent from their narratives, which are given to an idealized, static and often distorted version of the past. One example is a Palestinian man who had been bragging to his wife for years about the orange orchards that his family had owned in pre-1948 Jaffa. This icon of family memory was shattered, however, when an aging uncle comes to visit and casually discloses to the wife that the family had always been modest shopkeepers: no orchards, no riches, no past glory. The mythical story of the lost Palestinian city as a “lieu de mémoire” (Nora 1988) and the narratives that comprise this story thus emerge as glosses for a variety of deeper tensions and conflicts along generational and class lines. The chapter’s apt title “Bourgeois Nostalgia” challenges the legitimacy and the positionality of middle class construction of its past. At the same time it also questions the tropes and perspectives which Palestinians currently residing in the town produce. Tamari’s contribution is a complimentary mirror image to Dan Rabinowitz’s essay on the absence of Palestinians from the memory of Israelis who lived in Haifa through the war of 1948. Rabinowitz shows how Israelis who were children and adolescents in Haifa at that tumultuous period construct an idealized version of the past in which the undesirable, rejected Other, whose very existence challenged the emergent nationalist ethos of the period, cannot be placed, not even retrospectively. This amnesia is reminiscent of the erasure, on the part of Palestinian visitors to Jaffa, of the Israeli Other and of the Palestinian citizens of Israel from their observation of the contemporary town.

Introduction

23

Both Tamari and Rabinowitz are preoccupied with the notion of Palestinian return, be it to the old mixed town or to other spaces, and with the role that memory could play in them. The old mixed town features in their work as a distant backdrop in a stage where idealized canonic memories of the past must come to terms with the contradictions and exigencies of real life as we know. The mixed town, where the existence of the Other keeps interfering with idealized renditions of the past, the present and the future, is a constant reminder of this tension between the ideal and the attainable. A third contribution to this section of the book is Jasmin Habib’s analysis of personal and collective renditions of pre-1948 urban life in Palestine as reflected by diasporic Palestinians. Palestinian refugees and immigrants whose origins are in pre-1948 mixed towns and who now reside in North America have conflicting recollections and reflections on past relations with Jews and the Jewish community. Some come across nostalgic, depicting the old days in the old country as a harmonious epoch in which children from both groups attend the same schools, join each other’s religious and ceremonial celebrations and seek shelter together even at times of ethnonational violence such as the thawra (insurgence) of 1936-9. Such renditions, which unsettle essentalist depictions of ‘The Jews’ versus ‘The Palestinians’, sometimes become narratives of betrayal, as in the case of a Palestinian family’s recollection of the protection it gave to Jews in 1936, only to be forsaken and betrayed by other Jews in 1947-8. Habib’s research yields an insightful finding: those who experienced life in a mixed town tend to present the future of Israel/Palestine on the basis of such “mixedness”. That is, their vision of a future Israel/Palestine is one of mixed, binational state, where individuals as well as the two communities at large are destined to be conjoined. The result is a presumption on the part of her interlocutors that a resolution of the Israel/ Palestine conflict hinges on members of the two communities recognizing that they are all ‘trapped’ in a mixed state. Addressing another realm of Jewish-Palestinian cooperation in mixed towns, David De Vries’s contribution looks at labor relations. The development of labor organizations and trade unions, and the prominence they assumed in 20th century politics, he demonstrates, was linked to the emergence of the modernist metropolis as a social and political hub. In pre-1948 Palestine, where the economy was dominated by foreign (mostly European) capital and markets, and where two national projects were waged in fierce competition much of which played out in shared metropolitan turf, this tension was particularly complicated. The colonial reality catapulted labor organizations on both sides – the Histadrut on the Jewish side and the Palestinian Arab Workers Society (PAWS) on the Palestinian side – to prominent positions in the respective national movements. Within this general context, De-Vries focuses on an unusual event. In April 1946 a rather bland labor organization representing lower rank civil servants in Palestine, which had a mixed Jewish-Arab leadership and an explicitly non-national agenda, staged a general strike. Astonishingly, the strike paralysed the country for two weeks, producing unprecedented concessions from the British government. The strike was

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a profoundly urban event, taking place mainly in Palestine’s mixed towns, making use of urban space to successfully fuse the interests of Jewish and of Palestinian civil servants. The result was a productive subversion of the national tenor labor organizations on both sides had hitherto cultivated. In short, joint industrial action by Jewish and Palestinian Government employees momentarily transcended national divisions both at the workplace and on the streets. Such moments of co-existence and cooperation, however transient, invite reflection on mixed towns as sites that are conducive to the blurring of inter-communal boundaries and to counter-intuitive configurations of political agency. In a similar analytic vein, Tamir Goren’s contribution to this section of the volume portrays a fascinating moment of local level political cooperation between Jews and Palestinians in Mandatory Haifa in the 1940s. His essay, which analyzes the modus operandi of Shabetay Levy’s pre war mayorship, shows that compared to other mixed towns, Haifa’s municipal affairs were characterized by an unusual degree of cooperation between Jews and Palestinians. Against the backdrop of an escalating ethno-national conflict, the mixed municipal council provided a solid scene of political cooperation. It had legitimate representatives sitting side by side and successfully negotiating needs and interests, making an impact on the wider context of inter-communal relations. The second group of essays in this volume looks at the perception, construction and use of space in mixed towns. Given the fact that so much of the history of Palestine/Israeli is played out as a struggle for exclusive ownership of space, these papers focus on what seems like a historical anomaly – the persistence and resistance of a Palestinian minority in strategic sites of the Zionist project. Looking at planning, gentrification, economic development and violence, contributors to this section provide some fascinating insights into mixed towns in contemporary Israel. Haim Yacobi’s piece on Lod (the current Israeli name for Lydda) is premised on a critique of the term ‘mixed towns’. He sees it as a liberal ideological construct which, while widely used in Israel, is based on the fond, naïve belief that Jews and Palestinians occupy shared urban space in equality and cooperation. As in other cases of ethnic nationalism, spatial and mental divisions between Palestinians and Jews in Israel suggest that occupying a mixed space is exceptional and involuntary. Rather than reflecting a happy spirit of cooperation, it stems from the brutal judaiziation of urban Palestinian turf. Building on Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space (Lefebvre 1991), Yacobi presents findings of fieldwork conducted in Lod from 1999 to 2003 which suggest that the withholding from Palestinian residents of housing opportunities and elements of infrastructure becomes the fuel that burns their struggle for identity and politicization. Yacobi argues that protest is often expressed through idioms of conceived space, perceived space and lived space. This highlights the role of spatial protest in urban resistance, whereby autonomous acts such as informal residential construction express a desire to subvert the interest of those in power and favor personal and collective needs of underprivileged members of the ethno-class.

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While Yacobi’s analysis is focused on the violent power of urban ethnocracy, Daniel Monterescu’s contribution probes the limits of nationalism in Jaffa. His essay, which argues that the struggle over the town is yet to be decided, seeks to transcend the analytic limitations of the territorial and identity variables of ethno-nationalism. Building on Ulrich Beck’s critique of “methodological nationalism” (the tendency to project the exclusionary concepts of normative nationalism on sociohistorical analysis) Monterescu emphasizes the overlapping spaces and multiple social logics of action and capital operating in the town. While the notion of nationalism relies on a political ontology of disjointed spaces and inherently antagonistic narratives, Jaffa seems to have produced urban forms, political coalitions, overlaps in residential patters, cultural images and intertwined social relations which challenge not only the Israeli state but also the logic of Palestinian and Jewish nationalisms. This dialectic tension between otherness and alterity is embodied in Jaffa in three sites of urban mix: public discourses, spatial dynamics and everyday neighborly relations. In Israeli media and other collective representations Jaffa is often portrayed as the crime-ridden slum and back yard of Tel-Aviv. At the same time, however, it is also represented as an Oriental site of Mediterranean charm and a bourgeois artistic attraction (“little Paris”). For the current Palestinian community, Jaffa, once the ‘Bride of Palestine’ (`Arus Falastin), is at the same time a sad reminder of the loss of a glorious national past and a pragmatic reminder of the need for bi-national cooperation. Jaffa thus assumes a dual image – both negative and positive – among both Jews and Palestinians in contemporary Israel. In terms of space, the urban history of Jaffa is characterized by alternating patterns of segregation and integration, producing Arab residential spaces in Jewish ones and Israeli spaces within Palestinian ones. Daily interactions between Palestinian and Jewish neighbors combine closeness and remoteness, familiarity and otherness, inclusion and exclusion, highlighting the simultaneous processes of Palestinization and Israelization that characterize the Palestinian minority in Israel. These contradictory forces constitute Jaffa as a heteronomous space that confronts opposing spatial imaginings of class, state and nation. Laurie King Irani’s contribution looks at what is currently one of the most severe problems for the Palestinian citizens of Israel – the limitations of urban space as autonomous political place in Galilee. Portraying the gloomy relations of dependence and violence between Nazareth and Natzrat Illit, her essay defines this cluster as a fragmented conurbation rather than a mixed town. Rather than exhibiting any ‘organic solidarity’ or ‘economic centralization’, she argues in a similar vein to Haim Yacobi, the nexus between the two towns is an ‘imposed and grudging cohabitation of culturally distinct and politically unequal communities’. Despite Nazareth’s reputation as the ‘Capital of the Arabs in Israel’ its residents harbor cynical views of their town’s reputation and likely fate. Some of them in fact assert that Nazareth is ‘not really a town at all’. King-Irani looks at state ideologies and policies towards urban development and municipal administration in the Nazareth/Natzrat-Illit conurbation, indicating how essentialized concepts of identity impact the design of built environments, everyday

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interactions, and intercommunal conflicts within Nazareth and with Natzrat Illit. Following violent clashes between residents of Nazareth and Natzrat Illit in October 2000, which resulted in the killing of three young Nazarene men, and in the wake of failure on the part of the municipality’s ambitious ‘Nazareth 2000’ urban renewal project, Nazarenes tend to view their town as a ‘nixed’, not ‘mixed’ town – at best a future Palestinian ghetto in an expanded Natzrat Illit that would eventually swallow the “independent republic of Nazareth.” The changing cognitive maps of Nazareth/ Natzrat Illit thus emerge as a contested political field, a danger zone, a space in which an overarching Israeli citizenship and a Palestinian urban modernity both fail to materialize. In Israel/Palestine, as elsewhere, the personal and the political are deeply implicated. Addressing the interface of personal experience and the political context of structural inferiority, Ra’ef Zreik’s contribution on what he calls “the politics of seeing” offers a reflexive account of spatial experience in Haifa. One level of his essay is a reflexive description of the public sphere of Haifa in the late 1990s – a moment comprised of vivid scenes, tracing the nuances of identity dynamics in a mixed town. The collection of vignettes he builds upon include the spatial and phenomenological status of a neighborhood football pitch, the Jewish-Arab community center, a church, a mall, the seashore and a suspended bridge which cuts across a Palestinian neighborhood, shrinking space and time and memory. A second theme in Zreik’s essay articulates the interplay of geography and history, seeing and remembering, public sphere and public time, home and homeland, individualism and nationalism, illustrating their embodiment in architecture and the politics of seeing in Haifa. Using a description of life in Haifa before 1948 and its depiction in historical accounts written by Palestinians and by Israelis, the essay demonstrates how tensions between what is seen and what is hidden, geography and history, the ‘me’ and the ‘us’ and, finally, time and space, convey a variety of transformations in the experience of Palestinians in Israel. The third segment of this volume looks at the expressions of gender relations in the daily lives of mixed towns. Drawing on archival material with supplementary use of daily newspapers published in Palestine in the 1930s, Debborah Bernstein’s contribution traces a fascinating dual history of social distance and patterns of contact between Jews and Palestinians in the border zone of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa. In line with other essays in this volume Bernstein is cognizant that residential proximity, shared employment and confluence of leisure habits yielded a vast potential for joint action. Significantly, however, Bernstein notes, cooperation never became a defining feature of identity or a phenomenon which shapes people’s routine experience of the town. On the contrary: contact was often perceived as a challenge to evolving ethno-national boundaries, a threat to their coherence. By the 1940s, she argues, the divisive force of nationalism on both sides effectively contained these boundary crossings, applying a variety of social controls. This analytical perspective highlights the salience of gendered boundary crossings as particularly threatening events for guardians of the collective spirit. Bernstein’s account of media representations of cafés and brothels in Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, where

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Palestinian as well as Jewish men were clients, provides a salient example of a dynamic of ‘contested contact’ which ‘removes us from the taken for grantedness of boundaries’. In doing so she shifts our attention from the center stage of the political arena to the semi-public/semi-private sphere of residence, neighborhood, leisure and consumption, aspects which are all too often absent from historical narratives. The sites which interest Bernstein simultaneously challenge and confirm the emerging ethno-national order constructed in the interbellum period both in Jewish Tel-Aviv and Palestinian Jaffa. Not surprisingly, it was the mixed neighborhoods on the geographical borderzone between Tel-Aviv and Jaffa – Manshiyya and the Yemenite Kerem, that displayed most vividly the clash between life’s fluid transnational realities on the one hand and the attempts to regulate relations through nationally sanctiones social control. Hanna Herzog’s essay focuses on the predicament of Palestinian society in Israel which, since 1948, was “stripped of the city”. This entrapment, Herzog argues, left Palestinians, and particularly Palestinian women, with no option other than the mixed town as a space of liberation and emancipation. The combination, following the war of 1948, of lost townscape, ruralization and limitations imposed by the state on the growth of sociocultural and political Palestinian space was lethal. Faced by institutional discrimination on the one hand and gendered oppression by patriarchal order in their home communities on the other, mobile, educated middle-class young couples and women often seek a fresh start in Haifa or in Jaffa. Prepared to lose support networks of extended family and community, these women often seek the mixed town as a site where they can struggle for individuality and liberty, where they can ‘redefine their multiple social identities’. The fourth and final section of the book focuses on cultural encounters and new trends in civil society. The constant withdrawal of the state, in Israel as elsewhere, from its responsibility to provide welfare, proper education and employment, brings important changes in patterns of collective mobilization and civil society. Addressing the significance of this transformation in Jaffa, Amalia Sa’ar’s contribution analyses the ways civil society is articulated in a deeply ethnicized and classed society. Her ethnographically based essay, which documents joint Palestinian Israeli activism at grass root level, reveals a discourse that combines aggressive factionalism, respect for ethnic diversity and strong gender undertones. Sa’ar characterizes the actionpattern of local groups as “cooperative conflict”. This concept, which originates in Sen’s work on household economy (1990), introduces subjective, identity-bound aspects into civil society, where bargaining has been long regarded as a central practice. Sa’ar describes three mixed voluntary groupings. One was established to counter new housing policies; Another focused on environmental issues; the third is preoccupied with Jewish-Arab relations in the mixed neighborhoods. Activists on all thre outfits were passionate about the community, adamant on joint work that cuts across ethno-national boundaries, and prone to an aggressive style of communication.

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Regardless of the particular topic at hand, Sa’ar observes, discussions were invariably shaped in terms of paired, opposing traits. The most common was the ‘political’ versus ‘apolitical’ dichotomy, the ‘talking’ versus ‘doing’, the ‘rational’ versus ‘sentimental’, the ‘modern’ versus the ‘traditional’, and the ‘masculine’ versus ‘feminine’. Sa’ar’s point is that this underlying structure of binary contradictions, and the effortless manner in which actors shifted between them, enabled the participants to talk around highly charged political issues without naming them explicitly. This case supports critical understandings of civil society as embedded in, rather than opposed to, culture, ethnicity, and class, and of citizenship as an ongoing project of subject-making (Ong 1996). It also highlights the unrelenting grip of hegemonic masculinity over diverse versions of rights and entitlement. Mark LeVine’s essay looks at Palestinian community organzations. Tightening relations among Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line in the 1990s, LeVine argues, combined with Islamization, Palestinization and new forms of professional mobilization, help Palestinians resist the inexorable and largely negative impact of the globalizing market. Barred from expressing their own identity through planning and developing their indigenous environment, Jaffa’s Palestinian population today articulate their identity through “spatializing social activity” (Lefebvre, 1996: 188). These activities should be seen, LeVine argues, as a form of an “architecture of resistance’. LeVine looks at the political activity of two organizations – al-Rabita, or the “Society of Jaffa’s Arabs,” and the Islamic Association of Jaffa (al-Hay’a al-Islamiyya) – which represent two of the more established and mainstream organizations advocating rights for Jaffa’s Palestinians. LeVine sees their work as cultural performance geared to convince the Palestinian community at large as well as Israelis that Jaffa represents a symbol of future redemption. The volume concludes with Anton Shammas’s acute observations on the hybrid language of ‘Haifawis’ (cf. Rabinowitz and Abu Baker 2005) whose Arabic was conceived, negotiated and bastardized under hegemonic Hebrew to become what he calls ‘Arabebrew’. Shammas’s idiom for this new linguistic formation uncovers the mixture of colloquial Hebrew and Arabic which Haifa’s Palestinian residents use in their daily life in the mixed town. The demise of ‘authentic’ Arabic compliments the conquest of (the Hebrew) language – a basic Zionist tenet denoting the reterritorialization of language. Not only did the Hebrews empty the land of its inhabitants, they also rendered the old language captive. Hebrew did not only impose itself as the language of power and dispossession. It also altered the very structure of the language of those Palestinians who remained, redrawing linguistic demarcation lines to fit their dispossessed lives. Language emerges here as a magnifying glass, sharpening our perspective and epistemology of the mixed town. From a Palestinian perspective, Shammas argues, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle, Lydda and Acre may have been “mixed”, but only as a result of an aggressive Zionist enterprise. In reality, the discursive space which Zionism created was one where Palestinians had no place. For Anton Shammas conceptualizing linguistic relations that evolve under such circumstances as “bilingualism”, as

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a Bakhtinian case of dialogism or otherwise as conversation between equals is morally and analytically untenable. Instead, it should be understood for what it is: a “monologically sealed-off language”, Hebrew, imposing itself on the language of the Palestinian “Other” under the soothing guise of bilingualism. Young Haifawis may create Pidgin Arabebrew in a contact zone, but this must not be confused with liberating space of cultural exchange. Young Palestinians in Haifa, Shammas argues, are, above all, confused. Their memory robbed, they now live in a town the body and soul of which were altered in 1948. The streets have been renamed, geography was redrawn, the original Palestinian inhabitants were mostly torn away from their old lives. Those Palestinians who now live in Haifa roam the town, their vision dimmed by what initially appears to be a deglossic, dialogical, negotiated space, before they find that it is all a sham. Palestinians in Haifa, Shammas shows us, live in houses that are uncontrollably invaded by the Hebrew language. There is Hebrew radio news, Hebrew on TV, Hebrew in the daily newspaper open on the table. Apartments are quantified and commodified and priced by utility bills printed in Hebrew, and are operated by Hebrew instructions for appliances and utensils. The telemarketing voice over the phone speaks Hebrew. Most disturbingly, a young couple the author knows resorts to speaking a bastardized form of Arabebrew with each other. Shammas follows Derrida, Bhabha, Deleuze and Guattari’s post-colonial logic in an effort to conceptualize this reconfiguration of Arabic through mimicry of Hebrew. The result is a powerful critique of ruling languages, their ideologies and means of cultural control. Not surprisingly, he soon concludes that the ambivalence of the colonial encounter in Haifa eventually implodes old borders. Whatever had been said about the (Palestinian) colonized, he argues, “could now be easily applied to the (Jewish) colonizer, and vice versa […].” The question which remains at the end of Anton’s grim prophecy can be generalized to our collection as a whole. Do processes like those encountered in Haifa leave any space for linguistic resistance? Can Haifawis emulate their Palestinian brethren in the Occupied Territories with a similarly fierce defence of Arabic from Hebrew influence? Can a cultural encounter begotten by a colonial take-over ever be transformed into an equal multicultural exchange? References Cited Al-Itihad, April 3rd 1945. Anderson, Benedict 1991 [1983] Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Arenwald, Moshe (2004) The Military Campaign in Jerusalem in the War of Independence. Pp 341–388 In: Kadish, Alon (ed.) Israel’s War of Independence 1948–1949. Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense. Atran, Scott (1989) The Surrogate Colonization of Palestine, 1917–1939. American Ethnologist Vol. 16 no. 4:719–744.

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Bardenstein, Carol (1998) Threads of Memory and Discourses of Rootedness: of Trees, Oranges and the Prickly Pear Cactus in Israel/Palestine. Edebiyat Vol 8: 1–36. Bashir, Nabih (1999) The Palestinian Residents in the mixed towns. Demography, educayion, employment and crime. Jerusalem: Canter for Alternative Information. Bauman, Zigmund (1999) In Search of Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Doumani, Beshara (1995) Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus 1700–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ghanem, As’ad, Thabet Abu Rass and Ze`ev Rosenhak (2000) Local Government, Community and Welfare. In After the Rift: New Directions for Government Policies Towards the Arabs in Israel. Emergency report submitted to PM Ehud Barak, November 2000. Prepared and published as a monograph by a multidisciplinary team of researchers in Israeli universities. Golan, Arnon (1999) Zionism, Urbanism and the 1948 wartime transformation of the Arab urban system in Palestine. Historical Geography Vol. 27: 152–166. Golan, Arnon (2004) The Reshaping of Formerly Arab Space and the Instatement of Israeli Space (1948–1950). Pp 899–966 In: Kadish, Alon (ed.) Israel’s War of Independence 1948–1949. Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense. Goren, Tamir (1996) From Dependence to Integration: Israeli Rule and the Arabs of Haifa, 1948–1950 – A Historical and Geohraphical Analysis. Haifa: University of Haifa Goren, Tamir (2004) The War for the Mixed Towns in the North. Pp 171–206 In: Kadish, Alon (ed.) Israel’s War of Independence 1948–1949. Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense. Gottreich, E. (2003) On the Origins of the Mellah of Marrakesh. International Journal of ME Studies Vol.35, No.2: 287–305. Grabar, O. (1976) Cities and Citizens. In: Lewis, B. (ed.) The World of Islam London: Thames and Hudson. Holston, James (1989) The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brazilia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holston, James and Appadurai, Arjun (1999) Cities and Citizenship. Introduction. In: Holston, James (ed.) Cities and Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Isin, Engin (2002) Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship. University of Minnestoa Press. Jabarin, Yousuf (2002) The Arab Citizens in Mixed Towns. Jerusalem: Shatil. (In Hebrew) Kark, Ruth (1984) Jaffa – Growth of a City, 1799-1917. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Tzvi. (In Hebrew). Khalidi, Rashid (1997) Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. NY: Columbia University Press.

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Khalidi Walid (1992) All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C: Institute of Palestine Studies. Kimmerling, Baruch (1983) Zionism and Territory. NY: Suny Press. Kimmerling, Baruch and Joel Migdal (1993) Palestinians: The Making of a People. NY: Free Press. King, Anthony (1991) Urbanism, Colonialism and the Workd Economy: Cultural and Spatial Foundation of the World Urban System. London: Routledge. Lefebvre, Henry (1996) Writings on Cities. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell. LeVine, Mark (2005) Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel-Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine 1880-1948. Berkeley: Univeristy of California Press. Luria, Yehoshua (2000) Acre, City of Walls: Jews amongst Arabs, Arabs amongst Jews. Tel-Aviv: Y. Golan. (in Hebrew). MacCannel, D. (1975) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken. Mbembe, Achille (2001) On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meinecke, Friedrich (1970) Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Monterescu, Daniel (2003) Stranger Masculinities: Cultural Constructions of Arab Masculinity in Jaffa. Israeli Sociology, Vol 5 no.1:121–161. Monterescu, Daniel (2005) Spatial Relationality: Ethnic Relations, Urban Space and the State in Jewish-Arab Mixed Towns, 1948-2004. PhD Dissertation submitted to the University of Chicago. Morris, Benny (1987) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nir, Ori and Lili Galili (2001a) The Refugee Camps of Israeli Towns, Haaretz, December 12, 2000. Nir, Ori and Lili Galili (2001b) One morning the Mayor of Natzerat Illit woke up to discover that he is the mayor of a Mixed Town. Haaretz, December 23 2001. Nora, Pierre (1989) Beyond Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire. Representations Vol 26:7-24. Nurieli, Benny (2004) Starngers in a National Space. M.A Thesis, submitted to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University. Owen, Roger (ed.) (1982). Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the 19th and 20th Century. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois University Press. Peters, Frncis E. 1986. Jerusalem and Mecca: The Typology of the Holy City in the Near East New York University Press. Portugali, Yuval (1993) Implicate Relations. Society and Space in the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Pratt, Mary Louis (1999) Arts of the Contact Zone. In Bartholomae, D. and A. Petroksky (eds.) Ways of Reading. NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Rabinowitz, Dan (1992) An Acre is an acre is an acre? Differentiated attitudes to social space and territory on the Jewish-Arab urban frontier in Israel. Urban Anthropology Vol. 21 no. 1:67–89.

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Rabinowitz, Dan (1993) Oriental Nostalgia: How the Palestinians Became ‘Israel’s Arabs’. Teorya Uvikoret Vol 4:141–152 (Hebrew). Rabinowitz, Dan (1997) Overlooking Nazareth: The Ethnography of Exclusion in Galilee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ram, H (1996) The Jewish Community in Jaffa: From Sephardic Community to Zionist Center. Jerusalem: Carmel Press. Raymond, Andre (1984) The Great Arab Cities in the 16-18 Centuries: an Introduction. NY: NY University Press. Redfield, R. and M. Singer. 1969 [1954]. “The Cultural Role of Cities.” Sennett Richard, ed. Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. pp. 206–233. Ruggie, J. (1993) Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations. International Organization Vol. 47 no. 1:139–174. Said, Edward (1978) Orientalism. New-York: Pantheon. Simmel, G. 1995 [1903]. “The Metropolis and Mental Life” In Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times. (Ed.) Kasinitz, P. New York: New York University Press. Yedioth Aharonot February 24 1943. Tamari, Salim (1999) Jerusalem 1948: the Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War Jerusalem: Institute of Jerusalem Studies. Tamari, Salim (2005) The Mountain Against the Sea: Studies in Palestinian Urban Culture and Social History. Ramallah: Muwatin (In Arabic). Yaacobi, Haim (2003) Urban Ethnocracy: The Building of a Town and the Construction of Identity: The Case of Lod. PhD dissertation, Ben-Gurion University. Yiftachel, Oren (1994) Spatial Planning, Land Control and Jewish-Arab Relations in Galilee. City and Region Vol 23:55–98 (in Hebrew).

PART 1 History, Representation and Collective Memory

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Chapter 1

Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City Salim Tamari1

Testimonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in the spring of 1998 kept flowing in ways that confounded narrators and listeners alike. The former were perplexed at their own silence for what seemed like eternity, before releasing their concealed stories. The listeners, for their part, were perplexed at the narrators’ inability to demonstrate whether their stories attested to divine retribution or to collective inability to face a superior enemy. Besides the testimonies, which constituted a collective biography of the war generation, commemorative activities included a “march of the million” organized by a number of Palestinian political parties, poetry recitals, documentary films, the production of posters, and endless lectures and essays analyzing the past and reinterpreting it in the light of the present. The most poignant of the Nakba oral testimonies were eyewitness disclosures of the war of 1948. In the main these were unembellished episodes of events narrators had lived through, mediated only by the particular biases of individual memory, by the interaction with a younger audience and by the presence of recording devices which became an integral part of the testimonial process. Most of the narratives differed from intellectual discourses by virtue of their spontaneity and simplicity, and by the distance the narrators kept from academia, the intelligentsia and politicians.2 Most of the narrators were “average”, “ordinary” people who had been involved in the historic events of 1948 on an experiential level. They were drivers, fighters, mukhtars (notables), sheikhs, peddlers, sometimes passers-by. Many of them were, and still are, illiterate. A dominant feature in their narratives was the emphasis on the dramatic nature of the incident, as if the war itself and the displacement that followed were not dramatic enough. Siege, confrontations with the enemy, fighting, 1 An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Robins Ron and Bo Stråth (2003) and in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. (2003) 23(1–2): 173–180. 2 These impressions are based on my attendance of the major Nakba activities that took place in March, April, and May 1998 in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. The most prominent among these activities were organized by the Khalil Sakakini Center in Ramallah, the Popular Art Center in Al-Bireh, and the local universities. The reader can obtain a list of those events from the Sakakini Center published as “Commemoration of Nakba Events: Lectures, Films and Exhibitions”, Ramallah (1999).

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massacres, martyrdom, and expulsion were at the core of the stories. The following account of fighting in Jaffa is a typical example: When the training period in Syria was over, we entered the country via the Allenby Bridge. We then headed to Jaffa via Ramle and then to (the village of) Yazour. Two hundred and forty of us fighters gathered in Al-Ajami in four detachments. We witnessed several skirmishes in Tel Al-Reesh, from where we moved to Manshiyya, where the situation started to deteriorate. I recall a Yugoslav group that included three Christians who committed suicide at Hasan Bey Mosque, each of them by allowing himself to be shot by his colleague. After that, I left Manshiyya to Ajami for the second time with Musa Al-Qattan who was an explosives expert, and from there, we went to the Salamah Duwwar [rotary]. When we tried to withdraw, car drivers refused to take us with our weapons, and we refused to withdraw without our weapons. This continued until the British secured our exit in a caravan that included 21 fighters. I then returned to Silwad where I joined the fighters. The last scene I witnessed was the departure of most Jaffa inhabitants in motor-boats and light barges to the steamers waiting at sea.3

What is absent in this story—and numerous other similar episodes of war—is the fabric of daily life, which could have provided the framework of these incidents and explained them. There is an assumption here, it seems, that what is “normal”, in the perception of the narrator, is taken for granted and needs no recalling. Often, when academics who moderated such testimonial hearings tried to provide the social and political background of dramatic moments thus described and offer a contextual interpretation for it, they had to contend with the narrator’s astonishment, denial or forgetfulness. A dominant component of most testimonies was their overriding sense of localism. An event remembered and recounted was often depicted as singular: something that happened in this town or that village, devoid of the wider context of the general onslaught on Palestine that was raging countrywide. The narrators were obviously acutely cognizant of the collective tragedy that befell the country and their people. Significantly, however, this realization was neither reflected in the protocols of narration nor evident in the patterns of the stories uttered. The overall picture and the wider networks that influenced the lives, behavior and fates of combatants and onlookers alike were largely absent. Thus the siege of Jaffa and Lydda, the massacres of Deir Yasin and Dawaiymeh, and the exodus from Safad and Haifa, which feature in these narratives are often represented as disparate incidents, disjointed from and disconnected from the general saga of the war.

3 Testimony by Hajj Hussein Abdel Rahman Al-Hilmi from Silwad, Khalil Sakakini Center, 2 May 1998. ‘Ajami is a neighborhood in western Jaffa; Manshiyya is a neighborhood north of the main part of Jaffa, bordering on Tel-Aviv. Tel Al-Reesh and Salamah are villages on the eastern outskirts of the city. Silwad is a small town north of Ramallah on Nablus Road.

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A Vision Transformed Historical perspective allows us to compare the consciousness and memory of exiled Palestinians with those of Palestinians who remained. Such a comparison can offer more general insight into elusive concepts such as “homeland” and “return” and their meanings. In the era of the first Palestinian dispersion (1948-1967), the concept of a categorical Return to Palestine developed as an abstract vision, inextricably linked to the imminent liberation of the occupied homeland. This dream/vision was embodied, for example, in the paintings of Tamam and Ismail Shammout, which consistently cultivate the image of paradise lost, in various forms of idyllic peasant landscapes. Their paintings tend to obliterate the internal conflicts inherent to Palestinian society. Instead they reflect and reify the collective memory of Palestinian refugees in Arab host countries and the tortured relationship they had with Palestinians who remained in the usurped homeland. The exiles tended to see the homeland in terms of the individual homes, village communities and urban quarters to which they longed and where they hoped to soon return. The Palestinians who remained in Palestine, on the other hand, were consistently excluded from this vision. Their steadfast persistence on the ground was reduced to a coincidence unworthy of consideration. The second conquest, this time of the West Bank and Gaza strip, which began with the 1967 war, saw a transformation of the relationship between exiled Palestinians and those newly occupied, as well as with the Palestinians living inside Israel4. The latters were no longer ignored. Rather, they were now looked upon as heroes, albeit ineffective ones. This motif was further upgraded with the Land Day incidents in Galilee in March 1976, in which six Palestinian demonstrators were killed by Israeli police fire. The label they were given was “heroes of return” (“abtal al-’awda”), a term which until then was reserved exclusively for Palestinian refugees in exile. This relationship changed yet again in the 1990s, after the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. The return to the occupied territories of tens of thousands of exiles signified a shift in Palestinian self-identity, which now focused on a territorial base within the homeland. As a result diasporic Palestinians, especially those in refugee camps, were now marginalized instead of those of “the inside”. The new situation, however, and the political and demographic transformations associated with the emergence of a semi-sovereign Palestinian turf within the homeland, imbued the concept of return to Palestine with different meanings. The signing of the interim accord between Israel and the PLO in 1993 produced a new internal tension, as abstract visions of liberation had to be reconciled with and incorporated in the realpolitik of limited, qualified, selective and controlled 4 The Palestinian citizens of Israel are often called ‘The Arabs of 1948’, signifying the time in which their occupation by the Israeli state began. Another prevalent name is ‘The Arabs of the Inside’ (‘Arab al-Dahil’), denoting absorption by and in the state of Israel. For a more detailed discussion of these terms and others see Rabinowitz (1993); Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker (2005:16-21).

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repatriation. Return to Palestine was now possible only as an individual act, mostly by extending visits into long-term and even permanent sojourn. The obvious imbalance of power between Israel and the Palestinians rendered collective return impossible.5 The prospect of return to the homeland was now mediated by two new developments. One involved the (re)discovery of the Palestinians who lingered in the homeland in living communities. Having retained their social fabric, specific cultural traditions, literature and art, these communities now posed a new problematique for diasporic Palestinians, who hitherto hardly acknowledged them. The second phenomenon involves what I call “visiting encounters” on the part of the third generation of Nakba victims. These youngsters, who hitherto experienced the Nakba through the imagery of parents and grandparents, had either lived in a Palestinian society under colonialism (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip), were subject to military invasion (Lebanon), or lived as exiles in Arab countries, often with no citizenship and devoid of a normal daily life. A Vindictive Return In the summer 1994, a number of exiled activists-intellectuals who returned to Palestine with the PLO cadres following the Oslo accords began publishing a series of essays on their experiences of return.6 Their pieces constitute a fascinating discourse of the journey towards a reformulation of self-identity. One of the common themes uniting them is the shock at rediscovering the homeland. They all seem to have landed after a prolonged flight, but it is not clear in whose homeland they have landed. Poet Ghassan Zaqtan, for example, portrays the homeland as a new exile. He returns to his village Zakariyya, now the Hebraized Kfar Zekharya, and tries to recall the stories of his ancestors:7 Zakariyya did not look at all the way it was described. The hill was not astonishing as in the story, and the Jews wandering in its streets did not seem to relate to the place; 5 At the end of 2000, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators were wrestling with a formula for the interpretation of UN resolution 194 which allows those refugees who “will live at peace with their neighbors to return to their homes” in the context of final status talks. The refugee issue, more than Jerusalem and settlements, proved to be the decisive factor in the collapse of the Camp David and Taba negotiations. 6 Al-Karmil magazine in Arabic started publishing the essays in spring 1997 (“Shahadat” [“Testimonies”]- Al-Karmil No. 51) and continued doing so until the summer of 1998 (AlKarmil No. 56/57 – “The Memory of the Place …The Place of the Memory”). See specifically Shafiq Al-Hoot’s “Jaffa The City of Stubbornness,” Hasan Khader’s “Al-Ghurba - Absence from the Homeland”, Mohammed Ali Taha’s “Time of the Lost Childhood”, and Elias Sanbar, “Return to the Homeland.” 7 All references, unless otherwise mentioned, are to the respective Karmil issues identified above.

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rather, there was a distance separating them from it…the body movement…shoulders in particular. It seemed to me that they were totally removed from what was happening…I said something I no longer remember. I did not abandon it. I have no right to do that; I have no right to abandon it. This is a knowledge that is more sublime than the vehicle of yearning that brought me here, or rather the exile that brought me to my father’s place (Zaqtan 1997: 141-145).

Zaqtan moves on from his own testimony and falls back on the Arab exodus from Andalusia as a point of reference: We have become the new Andalusians. It seems very appropriate. The text has chosen its language, comparisons and exile. All of a sudden “our return” seems like a betrayal of the idea of exile; a treachery committed against the notion of diaspora, against the text, and the idea of Andalusia, the land we inhabited for centuries. We had to suddenly pack up our suitcase and leave [the diaspora] with nothing. We had excluded Awda from our Andalusian condition but have yet to find Andalusia.

Zaqtan refers to the disintegration of the concept of holiness when imagining the sacred land as he confronts the Israeli Other: The ability of the Other to propagate his own sacredness and make it part of the contemporary scene cannot be negated. I was never convinced that the sacred... stands on our side. The Other had already established his mythology, reformulated it as a racial doctrine, and descended on our villages, towns and roads in what appeared like a giant alien presence originating from a neighboring unseen mythology. This was at a time when our own myth was collapsing and disintegrating on the ground with the elapse of time, forgetfulness and a fading conviction (Zaqtan, Ibid).

A similar preoccupation with the fetishism of the homeland is evident also in the imagery of poet Zakariyya Mohammed. Contrary to some of his peers, however, Mohammed refrains from philosophizing his experience. Instead he chooses to treat current dilemmas of returnees with literary metaphors, invoking an analogy between the aridity of the recent Palestinian return and the arid soil possibly left for Palestinians once the Israelis have appropriated the lusher coastal regions: I thought I would double my idols and mirrors in the homeland. What is this homeland? It is no more than a piece of land that is left for us. It is a piece of stone. It is a land of mountains and hills…a land of stone and rock. They took the coast and left rocky hills for us. No, in fact, they did not leave it; we try to make them leave it. What can we do with stone? We can at least bear our agony (Mohammed 1997:137).

Hasan Khader, by contrast, attacks Palestinian narcissism and its accompanying self-pity. This narcissism, he claims, transforms the concept of return into a cult, one which must be transcended if a “normalized” way of life is to be attained in practice. What Palestinians had before, Khader claims, was a transitional culture of contingencies [thaqafat tawari’], striving to transform refugees into a people. The

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challenge now is to forge a new normalcy for this people, moving away from the domain of the “miraculous children” (Khader 1997:124). By “miraculous children” Khader is referring here to the deification of Palestinians (and their ‘heroic youth’ in particular) in the Arab world. This search for “normalcy” is characteristic of a culture that has finally shifted its focus from dreaming of an “exemplary homeland” to coming to grips with a homeland made of “flesh and blood”. In other words, a shift from ideology to reality. “This is a shift that requires the writer to depart from the illusions of a ‘stolen homeland”, writes Khader. The reproduction of the homeland as a paradise lost is no longer tenable. The homeland - disfigured and distorted and waiting for salvation - is here and now, but Palestinian identity is still a work in progress. It will grow, Khader insists, with every meter Palestinians extract from the occupier, with every road they construct, with every book they print, with every woman whom they free (sic). It will expand, he claims, with […] every window we open in our life, which is so burdened with stagnant air, and every decision we take in the fields of social and political organization and human rights (Khader Ibid).

More than any other returnee, Khader is obsessed with a return to normal Palestinian daily life. This normalcy, he claims, is an all-important pre-condition for normalization with the protagonists. Mureed Al-Barghouthy, who is not a refugee and whose family never left coastal Palestine, is arguably the author with the utmost inner peace amongst the returnees. His work also provides the most outspoken self-critique of the past. In I Saw Ramallah (1998), he asks rhetorically: “How can we explain today, after we have grown and become mature, how we in the towns and villages of West Bank treated our people who were expelled by Israel from their coastal cities and villages…and came to stay in our mountainous towns and villages. We called them refugees, we called them immigrants!”

Barghouthy’s return to Palestine involved a qualified sojourn to his village of Deir Ghassaneh, once a feudal estate near Ramallah. It was Jerusalem however which became the focus of his nostalgic recollections of sensuous adolescence memories: The vague enjoyment we felt when our adolescent bodies touched the bodies of European tourist women on the Saturday of Fire [‘Sabt al-Nour, the orthodox celebrations of the day before Easter Sunday]; when we shared with them the darkness of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and carried the white candles that illuminate the darkness, just like them. This is mundane Jerusalem, the city of our younger times, so quickly forgotten. Because it is normal, just as water is water and lightening is lightening, and just as our hands were lost, it has now emerged as an abstraction (1998:156).

To a poet who grew up in the socially repressive milieu of the highland villages the Holy City evokes a keen sense of eroticism. Thus, tragedy for Barghouthy is

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not the Nakba itself, but rather the loss of the city which ensued. “The occupation has left the Palestinian villages as they were and reduced our cities to villages”, he writes (Ibid: 158). The end of the poem has the writer etching his Palestinianism in his imagination as he returns to his promised land in Cairo. The Abandoned City In the current debate concerning the significance of the Nakba and ‘Awdah (return), the demarcation line between the political and the emotive becomes blurred. As long as the line that separates exile from homeland is clear, so will the abstract Palestinian discourse of Return remain lucid. Until recently, however, the price for this lucidity was the exclusion from the discourse of liberation of those who remained rooted in the homeland. But as exiles began to return with the establishment of the new Palestinian entity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the mid 1990s, the issues have begun conflated. The imagined constructs of the homeland now had to be reformulated. A heated polemic debate about the meaning of Nakba and of Awda has been raging for a decade now. In the case of Jaffa, exiled intellectuals and native residents have been pondering the meaning of the city’s iconography. The centrality of Jaffa in Palestinian culture before dispersion imbues this debate with some significance. Generically, this dialogue is a salient summary of this new relationship between exile and the homeland.8 A collection of testimonies from Jaffa gathered as part of this debate, in which incidents that occurred in 1948 were invoked and the concept of return was discussed, exemplified the contradictory visions Palestinian have of experiences otherwise assumed to uniform. Amongst other things, the discussion touched upon the experience of estrangement on the part of Palestinians who remained in Jaffa, including those who moved into the city, now empty of its former Palestinian residents, since the war. Another element in the debate was the experience of people who returned to Jaffa on personal visits after the 1967 war, many of them still in denial of what had happened 19 years before. Finally, the debate invoked experiences of Palestinian intellectuals who have recently attempted to produce retrospective accounts of what had happened to and in the city. They tried to understand how and why Jaffa’s social elite abandoned it before its military downfall, and asked themselves whether its fate might have been different. The debate about Nakba and Awda in Jaffa soon exposed a number of discursive themes. One was the bewilderment, bordering on hostility, on the part of Jaffa’s current Palestinian residents towards returnees who, in their eyes, ignored the realities of the contemporary city, reducing it to the level of an abstract memory. Another was the attempt by returnees to come to terms with the presence of the 8 The reader can review this discussion at the electronic forum run by Haitham Sawalhy and Andre Mazawi, which appeared first in the web site www.yafa.org, and now in www. jaffacity.com.

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Israeli Other while coming to terms with their own displacement. All attempts to modify the old vision in favor of the new reality kept shifting, as the relations between Israelis and Palestinians were subject to the ups and downs of the intifada, and those in turn influenced relations between native Jaffites and their brethern in the occupied territories9. The debate exposed three types of responses on the part of Jaffans who lived through the experience of the Nakba in different places and at different times. The first group are the first generation, people who experienced the events of the 1948 war and their expulsion as adults, and who tried to memorize, and hence restore, the vision of the city as it had been prior to the war. This restorative memory tended to expunge contradictions between the present and the past, all in the interest of a mental return to the lost paradise. Members of this generation seem to be preoccupied with three main themes. One is obsessive nostalgia, exemplified in attempts to restore the city by reinventing dramatic public performances such as summer pilgrimage to Nabi Rubeen10 or the invocation of idyllic vignettes from pre-War life in Jaffa11. Second is an attempt to reconstruct the social fabric of daily life in Mandate Palestine in a pastoral and static form. Much reconstruction is done genealogically, based on documentary-type records of the “original” families of the city. This genre inevitably strives to ‘freeze’ the multi-layered social landscape into static snapshots, consistently ignoring changes in the city’s social structure since it fell. It also overlooks the obvious connections between the city’s social fabric and its ethno-national networks (Malak 1993;1996). A third theme is an attempt to better understand what actually happened in 1948. It entails memoirs and monographs which strive to interpret the factors behind the fall of Jaffa to the Israeli forces within the larger context of the fall of Palestine. Those who provide these explanations and justifications focus on the atmosphere that prevailed in the city during the Rebellion of 1936, the British suppression of Jaffa’s rebellion by 1939, and the heroism of the Jaffa’s defenders in 1947-48 in spite of the “defeatism” of the Arab leadership (Al-Masri 1994; Haikal 1995; Dajani ?). A second group consists of second generation post-Nakba Palestinians, who have experienced life in Jaffa through their parents’ memories. Having carried the burden of separation from the family’s home town in exile, some of them shoulder the extra load of attempting to comprehend their parents’ experiences of the Nakba while they experience the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. This generation differs from the Nakba generation in that its first experience of the city came after its transformation from the pre-1948 glory as “bride of Palestine” to its 9 That this reality can shift suddenly in the perception of native Jaffites, both Jews and Arabs, can be seen in a revealing survey of attitudes in the city in the aftermath of the bloody events that took place during the first week of the second Intifada, in October 2000. See Lily Galili and Ori Nir (2000). 10 Nabi Rubeen is a shrine some 25 kilometers south of Jaffa, which attracted pilgrims from all over Southern Palestine for a colorful three day festival each summer. 11 The best example of this tradition can be found in Diab, Imtiaz and Hisham Sharabi (1991). See especially “Mawsim Rubeen” by Elias Rantisi in Diab and Sharabi (1991:70-73).

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contemporary squalor as “hashish den of Israel”. The dominant narrative of this generation is critical nostalgia bordering on cynicism. Although much of the writing of this group is in a sarcastic vein, it has affectionate traits as well (Budeiri, N.D). One example is Samira’s recollections of her relationship with her own family history: I was fourteen when an uncle from my father’s side, who lived in Greece, came to visit us. For some reason which I only discovered later, my mother, who was not originally from Jaffa, had a silent quarrel with my father and said something about the many orange orchards that the family had lost in Jaffa. My uncle, unaware of the family history my father had been telling my mother, intervened and said to me “Your grandfather did not have any orchards in Jaffa, he was a merchant in the whole-sale market, not the owner of an orchard.” It turned out that for twenty five years my mother had been recalling stories of the family’s glory and its orchards in Jaffa which were false. My father never had the courage to tell her the truth.12

In another scene, which takes place at the Clock Center in Jaffa, Shaker, who was born in Jaffa in 1945, visited the shop of Shlomo the Moroccan, who sells oriental records and cassettes. When Shlomo asked Shaker where he was born, he replied, “In Ajami” (a neighborhood in Jaffa). “Strange, I came to Jaffa from Morocco and started my new life there the same year, isn’t that a coincidence!” “No”, said Shaker, adding politely, “You could say that it was an exchange operation.” Shlomo opened his mouth in astonishment and kept on repeating the word. “Exchange…exchange…” until all of a sudden he was able to comprehend the meaning of the word, and shouted in a loud voice. “Exchange!” smiling, then shaking his head sadly.13 The third group taking part in this debate consists of Jaffa residents who remained entrenched in the city after the majority were expelled or had departed, and Palestinians who subsequently moved to the city from other parts the country in search of work. The voice of this group is hardly heard outside Palestine, in spite of the various attempts at resistance to subordination made over the years by various associations of Jaffa Arabs. Once again, it is noteworthy that despite encounters with current Palestinian residents, refugees of the first generation of the Nakba who visit Jaffa tended to ignore the present reality of Jaffa’s contemporary Palestinian community. One can venture several explanations for this myopia. One is that old timers visiting today seek ways to ignore the present squalor and poverty of Jaffa. Its dilapidated state contrasts sharply with the “glorious past” which they so fondly want to maintain in memory and narrative, and challenges it. But there are other reasons for this dissociation. The majority of the present Palestinian residents of Jaffa are not descendants of the original Jaffaite families that left in 1948. Old timers visiting thus fail to identify the city that his family was compelled to flee, and the heritage he shares with his ancestors, with the current residents - except perhaps in a tenuously 12 The electronic forum www.yafa.org. “Samira Tells the Story of Her Family”. 13 The electronic forum www.yafa.org. “Exchange”.

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symbolic manner. This phenomenon is a fascinating example of the local tenor of many rural and urban Palestinians’ memories of 1948, whereby the essentialized distinction between indigenous members of a community and latecomers (“ghuraba” or “wafidun”) plays a central role.14 As indicated above, the majority of contemporary Palestinian residents of Jaffa belong to marginalized social groups. For visiting middle class families, these current residents have little share in the past glory of their hometown. This highly selective view on the part of exiled Jaffites of contemporary Jaffa provokes the present Palestinian residents, including intellectuals, professionals and activists. This sentiment has been articulated by Andre Mazawi, who was born in Jaffa in the late 1950s, who challenges “the poverty” of the nostalgic writings of the Jaffa residents in exile (Mazawi 1997).15 Criticizing members of the Nakba generations who come as visitors to Jaffa, Mazawi argues that their writings reflects a romanticized pastoral picture of the city, “which ignores social differentiation or conflict”. Moreover, in his view, their reconstructions of images of pre-1948 Jaffa are skewed towards the style of life that characterized the mercantile elites, orchard owners, and the professional strata. The daily life experienced by most city dwellers such as port workers, fishermen and other manual laborers are reflected, at best, as background colorful vignettes. To support his argument regarding class-blindness Mazawi cites Ahmad Zaki Dajani’s assessment of the social makeup of the city: The majority of Jaffa residents belonged to well-known indigenous families. These were families that occupied a prominent position in the economic life of the city, such as in commerce, ownership of agricultural land, and in the higher echelons of the civil service and the judicial apparatus. One does not find a poor class in Jaffa, except those seasonal workers who came to the city from Syria and Egypt to work in agriculture or in municipal services such as paving streets and the like (Dajani:69).

A similar streak, albeit in a more sophisticated style, is found in a well known collection of memoirs of Jaffa before the war. These writings dwell on the exotic style enjoyed by members of exclusive social clubs and private schools and in the nightlife of the city’s middle classes (Diab and Sharabi 1991:14ff). Mazawi also criticizes the writings of the Nakba generation for their unmitigated and deliberate failure to recognize the existence of the current realities in the city. A prominent example is cited in the well known compendium by Hisham Sharabi, The Perfume of a City, which includes interviews with 53 former residents of Jaffa now living in exile in Amman, Cairo and Beirut but not a single interview with any current resident of Jaffa. Contemporary conditions of the city are excluded, as though the city died when its original inhabitants left in 1948 (Mazawi 1997).

14 These terms mean “strangers” or “newcomers” respectively, and have immense significance in mapping marriage strategies and business partnerships among Palestinians. 15 Some of the quotations cited below have been re-translated from the Arabic text, and may differ slightly from the original English.

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Mazawi goes on to tackle the diaries of several members of the Nakba generation, and their justifications for leaving the city. Reviewing the memoirs of Dr. Yusif Haikal, the last Arab mayor of the city, he points out that Haikal left the city and took refuge in Amman in May 1948, when Jaffa was being held under siege by Jewish forces. Claiming that he wanted to get military support from Jordan, Haikal authorized his administrative staff in the city council to handle the affairs of the city. He himself, however, never returned to Jaffa, thus paving the way to the Zionist conquest and subordination of the city. Had he remained in the city, says Mazawi, Haikal could have negotiated with the Israeli forces as an elected leader. At the very least, he could ensure that the city remained an open city, thus preventing it from being plundered and ransacked (Mazawi 1997:21; Haikal in Diab and Sharabi 1991:55-56). Why, Mazawi wanders, did Mayor Haikal insist on leaving the city for ‘Amman, after May 3rd 1948? Why did he not remain to negotiate from a more potent stand, leaving second-rank politicians to do this in his stead? Had he stayed wouldn’t he be able to protest, ex officio, the Jewish takeover of the city and the subsequent transgressions of the Jewish-Arab agreement, especially the annexation of Jaffa to Tel-Aviv? (Mazawi 1997:18-20). It seems to me that Mazawi’s criticism of Haikal is in fact an indirect indictment of the behavior of the social class that deserted the city, leaving it to its inevitable destiny in spring 1948. The people of that social class did not foresee the consequences of the evacuation. Recalling their joyful past in Jaffa, they fail to link their frivolous life-style before the Nakba to the collapse of the city in the fateful days that April. In retrospect it might be plausibly argued that their own departure was synonymous with the demise of Jaffa from history at large. Contemporary Jaffa and its Palestinian residents thus exist today as background for the tragic nostalgia in the memoirs of it original refugees. This critical approach on the part of post-Nakba generation intellectuals, informed as it is by countervailing tendencies inherent to a new reading of the past, is thus a fruitful deconstruction of the nostalgic discourse of ante-bellum Palestinian history. A number of historians are already working in this revisionist vein (see Hilal and Pappe 2004). No satisfactory political solution is likely to resolve the aspirations of the exiles in the foreseeable future. Therefore, romantic pastoral histories of Palestine are bound to continue to be generated by exiled writers alongside more critical assessments. In fact the current debate between exiles and residents is likely to create additional “realistic” linkages to the present in predominantly Palestinian and mixed towns in Israel such as Jaffa, Haifa, Akka, and Ramleh. Focusing on the lives and struggle of Palestinian residents and their relations with their Jewish townsfolk, such accounts are bound to highlight the synthetic social formations that take place within them. While I agree with much of Mazawi’s critique targeting the Jaffan nostalgia, or “Jaffamania”, as Musa Budairi calls it, I believe that he is sometimes inclined to direct his critical vision at the wrong target. In his attempt to enhance the contemporary conditions of Jaffa and the people who are confronting/adapting

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their presence under Israeli rule, his writings seem to de-legitimize the collective memories of the exiled Jaffa elite. This depiction of nostalgic collective memory as a class memory is, however, not convincing. In the Arab World, the memoirs and diaries of political activists and other intellectuals often reflect the bourgeois (and sometimes aristocratic) social background of their authors. One can easily claim that the Nakba was much more devastating to the lives of “ordinary” Palestinians such as farmers, laborers, and craftsmen than to the lives of the bourgeoisie of Jaffa and Palestine, who were able to rebuild their lives more easily than most plebeians. But very few of the latter left us with a written record of their tribulations and yearnings. In fact the absence of the voice of average people from these private histories and biographies is an astounding void. It is the task of the new researchers to bring forth their experiences, not least through accounts of oral history. It is a mistake, however, to attempt to exclude or dilute the suffering of the bourgeois intelligentsia and historians of the middle class because the other voice is absent. In Mazawi’s work, as in other current writings about the Nakba, we note more than a sustained critique of the life-style of pre-war Palestinian urban elites. Some writers in fact hold this strata, and the political class which articulated its interests, accountable for the collapse of national will when Palestinians were confronted with the military onslaught of the Jewish forces. This underestimates the considerable imbalance of power between the Palestinians and the Jewish forces before and during the 1948 armed conflict. Even if we accept the allegation that urban elites, or parts thereof, were able to remain, defend their cities and negotiate on behalf of the local population, is there a guarantee that their destinies would have been different in the critical days that followed the military collapse? Can we assume their destinies would have been like that of towns in Palestine, such as Nazareth or Shafa-’Amer, where local elites opted to stay and few were harmed? Romantic re-imagining of pre-1948 Palestine, I argue, is not necessarily a bourgeois invention. It is, admittedly, an escapist vision, but one which can be found as much in writings by the radical intelligentsia as in the images of the citrus orchard owners or in nostalgic writings and paintings. We find it in Shammout’s canvasses and in an enormous number of autobiographies and fiction dealing with Palestinian rural life in the 1930s and 1940s. Examples include Ghorbat Al-Ra’i (The Shepherd’s Exile), by Ihsan Abbas, and The Plums of April by Ghassan Kanafani. Another clear illustration of escapist visions is in a series of monographs that aimed at systematically reconstructing the social history of destroyed villages before they were expunged from the map. In these studies, a pastoral and harmonious world, free of any conflict or contradictions is presented. It is indeed paradise lost. Almost all of these studies are far from elite fantasias or discourses by an upper class intelligentsia.16 This critique should target the discourse itself, not the social background of the people who created it. With the beginning of the 1990s, and after the entry of PLO 16 See “Destroyed Palestinian Village Series,” Documentation and Research Center, BirZeit University published over a twelve year period (1982–1994).

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forces into Palestine (but not necessarily because of it), Nakba narratives began to exhibit a more balanced, but also a more problematic account, of Palestinian history. In terms of the social history of Jaffa, this started with the serious effort of the first generation to record their bitter experience as accurately and as honestly as possible. While some of these attempts were reduced to unrealistic nostalgia,17 there were important exceptions. For example, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1994; 1995), in his autobiographical works, was able not only to transcend nostalgia in his treatment of his early years in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, but to assert an Arabist nationalist identity which went beyond the confining atmosphere of Palestine. Likewise, writing from a revolutionary humanist perspective, Ghassan Kanafani transcended a nostalgic vision by examining the enemy through the lens of psychological empathy.18 The second generation, on the other hand, had suffered from both the heavy burden of the Nakba experience and from the estrangement of exile. Tackling the memories of their fathers’ generation, they directed acute criticism at their patrimony of defeat and defeatism, a patrimony that sucked them in as well. The third generation has been liberated, it would appear, from the conditions of exile but not from self-exile. Returning to their ancestral hometown as avid investigators wishing to explore their past, they are determined to find the truth regardless of the consequences, even at the expense of undermining the cannon on which they had been raised. Palestinian political reality may sentence a large proportion of Palestinians to perpetual exile. Those whose exile came to an end, either by coming back to the homeland or by adapting to their new homes, may have come to terms with their predicament. For most exiles, however, only a comprehensive political solution for all refugees will do it – an outcome that is unlikely to be realized in the current political environment. As for the intelligentsia, whose narratives have been discussed in this essay, their self-estrangement seems to be a perennial consequence of the intellectual’s condition, compounded by physical exile. To them an end to territorial exile may be indeed the beginning of a new and profound internal exile. It is this condition that many of the visitors may have expressed in their anti-return narratives. Conclusion This discussion has attempted to bring together several experiences of exile and the reconstruction of the homeland in the imagination of Palestinian writers. The most striking feature of this reconstruction is the delayed reaction to the experience of war and uprootedness, and the accompanying repression of those memories. When the waves of disclosures did emerge, as happened during the commemorative 17 The reference here is to the mainstream among the writers of this era. No doubt, there are authors who were able to transcend the spirit of the stage they lived through (see references below about Jabra and Kanafani). 18 In Return to Haifa (1970), his most important novel.

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ceremonies of the Nakba half a century after the fact, the ravages of war appeared as localized incidents, disconnected from the larger tragedy that had engulfed the refugees. Among exiled writers several trends could be discerned. Members of the earlier generation of exiles tend to “freeze” the homeland in pastoral, idyllic, ‘paradise lost’ frames. This is especially true of artists and poets, but also of nationalist historiography of the period. Within the second and third generations of exiles a more radical current appeared, questioning the conventional experience of exile and the causes of the exodus. Of particular interest here is the manner in which these critics interrogated the composition of pre-1948 society that allowed itself to be defeated and dismantled. The bourgeois nostalgia of this stratum was seen as a blindness that joined its pre-war fragility to its impotent behavior in the war itself. The turning point in this nostalgic narrative was the return of the PLO and its intelligentsia to Palestine in the mid-nineties, and the shock of return to a virtual part of the homeland under conditions of political compromises and physical confinement that it begot. Its main impact was to de-mystify the ideological discourse on the right of return, to imbue it with a degree of political realism, and to initiate a new discourse which centered on normalcy and the normalization of daily life. Normalcy here requires reconciliation of two, often conflicting, intellectual agendas. On the one hand, building and consolidating a new social formation based on the institution of statehood; on the other hand, the conceptualization and implementation of a mundane, normal society based on the “heroic” images of Palestine, whose intellectuals have become addicted to their exiled status. The main victims of this process have been those Palestinians who were not exiled, those who stayed steadfast as an Arab minority inside Israel. Their portrayal in the literature of exile has shifted from the forgotten lot to an abstract heroic status that remained marginal to the Palestinian experience. The turning point mentioned above is thus both a conceptual and historic benchmark. It refers to the beginning of a Palestinian narrative that attempts, under conditions of a new and tenuous normalcy, to synthesize the different experiences of exile of three generations and three geographies. In doing so it will have to deal with exile as a permanent condition: for those who returned and experienced an internal exile, and for those who did not return and established their lives as part of the cultural scene in their diasporas. References Cited Al-Barghouthy, Mureed (1998) Ra’aytu Ramallah (I Saw Ramallah) Beirut: alMarkaz al-Thaqafi al-‘ Arabi (in Arabic). Al-Barghouthy, Mureed (1997) “Living in Time” (in Arabic). Al Karmel, 1997 (51), 158–146 Al-Masri, Zaki (1994) Hadith al-Dhikrayat, 1936-1994. Ramallah: Shuruq Publishers. Budeiri, Musa (N.D) “The Last Plane from Jaffa”. Unpublsihed paper . Dajani, Ahmad Zaki (1989) Yafa wa Thawrat 1936 (Jaffa and the 1936 Rebellion) Cairo: A.Z. al-Dajani (in Arabic).

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Diab, Imtiaz and Hisham Sharabi (1991) Yafa: Itr Madina (Jaffa: The Perfume of a City) Cairo: Dar al- Fata al-Arabi (in Arabic). Galili, Lily and Ori Nir (2000), ”City of Strangers,” in Haaretz, November 27. Haikal, Yusef (1995) Ayyam Al-Siba (Days of my Youth) Amman: Dar al-Jalil (in Arabic). Hilal, Jamil and Ilan Pappe (eds.) 2004 Parlare co il Nemico: Narrazioni Palestinesi e Israeliane a Confronto [Talking to the Enemy: Palestinian and Israeli Narratives], Torino: Bollati Boringghieri editore (in Italian). Jabra, Ibrahim Jabra (1994) Shāri‘ al-amīrāt (The Princesses’ Street) Beirut: al-Mu‘ assasah al-‘ Arabiyah lil-Dirasat wa-al-Nashr (in Arabic). —— (1995) The First Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood translated by Issa J. Boullata. Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press. Kanafani, Ghassan (1970) ‘A’id ila Haifa (Return to Haifa) Beirut: Dar al-‘ Awdah (in Arabic). Khader, Hasan. “Were You There?” Al-Karmil, 1997 (51):115–124 (in Arabic). Malak, Hanna (1993) Zhikrayat al-’ailat al-Yafiyyah (The Memories of the Jafaite Families) Jerusalem: H. Malak (in Arabic). —— (1996) Al-Juthur al-yafiyyah (The Jafaites’ Roots) Jerusalem: H. Malak (in Arabic). Mazawi, André (1997) “Memories and Counter-Memories: Production, Reproduction and Deconstruction of some Palestinian Memory Accounts about Jaffa” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco. Mohammed, Zakariyya. Bone and Gold. Al-Karmil, 1997 (51): 125–140 (in Arabic). Rabinowitz, Dan and Abu-Baker, Khawla (2005) Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel Berkeley: The University of California Press. Rantisi, Elias (1991) “Mawsim Rubeen” In Imtiaz, Diab and Hisham Sharabi (eds.) Yafa: Itr Madina (Jaffa: The Perfume of a City) Cairo: Dar al- Fata al-Arabi (in Arabic). Robins Ron and Bo Stråth (2003) (eds.) 2003. Homelands Brussels: Presse Universitaire Européenne and Peter Lang. Sakakini Center (1999) Commemoration of Nakba Events: Lectures, Films and Exhibitions Ramallah: The Sakakini Center. Zaqtan, Ghassan Nafi Al-Manfa (The Banishment of Exile). Al-Karmil, 1997 (51):141–145 (in Arabic).

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Chapter 2

‘The Arabs Just Left’: Othering and the Construction of Self amongst Jews in Haifa Before and After 19481 Dan Rabinowitz

Introduction Mixed towns in Palestine were sites of complimentary oppositions of cultural, social and political processes since at least the late 19th century. Under Ottoman and later British rule, Jewish and Arab inhabitants in neighboring urban clusters such as Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, West and East Jerusalem and Haifa interacted in a complex, multivaried web of relations. These cities served as socio-political foci of development for the two respective national collectives. On both sides, proximity with the Other was used to politicize realms such as real estate, planning and territorial expansion. At the same time, however, cross-communal commercial partnerships, class-based coalitions, residential mixes and municipal cooperation was carried out on a daily basis (see De-Vries 1998, Tamari 1999). In short, Jewish and Palestinian identities, sensibilities and the politics of interaction were constituted in a series of dialectic encounters, opposing and engendering each other at the same time. 1948 changed all this. The vast majority of Palestinian urbanites were driven out or fled (Khalidi 1984, Morris 1991). What they left behind was not only a vast – though temporary – void in terms of human presence, real estate and urban energy. There was also a hollow in the way those Israelis who triumphed and remained would reconstruct their memory of the era that had just eclipsed. This chapter looks into the ways in which the complex proximity that had prevailed before 1948, and subsequently the demise of urban Palestinians were incorporated into Jewish sensibilities of self, history and other. Unlike the erasure of

1 An earlier version of this article was published in Rabinowitz, Dan, 2005 ‘They Just Left’: Othering and the Construction of Self Amongst Jews in Haifa Pre and Post 1948. Soziale Welte, Special Issue 2004/2005: The Reality of Cities. Editors: Helmuth Berking and Martina Löw.

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all-Palestinian towns and villages, which took place beyond the social horizons and field of daily experience of most Jews, the departure of Palestinians in mixed towns took place as it were in full view of the Jewish audience. Prior to the war Palestinians had been socially relevant for Jews in a variety of ways: they were neighbors, business partners, vendors, customers, clients, service providers, sometimes friends. Their Jewish counterparts were at hand to witness their departure or, minimally, notice and register their absence once they had gone. And yet, they seem to have been swept off the physical and social landscape, and then from Jewish Israeli memory and consciousness almost instantly. This carries significant moral, political and theoretical consequences. It is, I argue, pertinent for a more general analyses of the ways self and other are constructed in extreme conflictual circumstances. War and the concomitant conquest of civilian population by victorious armies is characterized by the sudden appearance of dehumanizing and dehumanized aliens. The occupation of the British Isles by the Vikings, the invasion of the Phillipines by the Japanese and the recent appearance of Americans in Iraq are obvious instances. A different situation however emerges when violence involves civilians who have long lived in proximity and who have had social and personal ties that cut across the ethno-national divide. Examples such as Tamils and Sinhala in Sri-Lanka, Hutu and Tutsi in Ruwanda, Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia, whereby violence was waged in a familiar context, suggests a complex Simmelian reality in which contact that had engendered strangeness in proximity is turned on its head to become horrendous violence. The conscious and sub-conscious strategies employed by Jewish Israeli individuals and, indeed, the Jewish community in Israel at large to remember and forget the presence and the subsequent demise of their Palestinian townsfolk, and the ways this cataclysmic event fed into their notion of collective time is anything but trivial. It is an issue that assumes particular significance given the unique symbolic meaning which 1948 and the years immediately following it had for many Israelis. Engulfed in a euphoric sentiment that the establishment of Israel represented a long overdue righting of historical wrong, mainstream Israelis in the 1950s attributed their ethno-national project with an unshakeable aura of progress, enlightenment and hope. Six decades later, attempts to incorporate the demise of the Palestinians into this robust cosmology still presents a host of paradoxes and indeterminacies. The case of Israelis’ memory of Palestinians and their tragedy cannot be assumed to be singular. Traits revealed in the evidence brought below are likely to occur wherever members of a victorious collective struggle to articulate their personal memories and basic human sensibilities within a rigidly triumphalist national narrative. This tension makes the theoretical task of understanding such dynamics all the more important. My analysis looks at childhood and adolescent memories of Jewish Israelis who lived in Haifa in the 1930s and 1940s (Haifo’im)2 and at the place of Palestinian 2 The standard Hebrew for someone from Haifa is Heifa`i (plural: Heifa’im). Haifo’i (Haifo’it for a woman, plural: Haifo`im), a label used almost exclusively by veteran Jewish

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Haifawi’s in these recollections. It is a one-sided project, focusing on views articulated within one group about its ultimate Other. It must not be confused with projects that endeavor to give Palestinians a voice – a task I do elsewhere,3 and which Palestinians have been doing efficaciously themselves. The first part of this article presents a short socio-demographic overview of mixed towns in Palestine-Israel and their fate in 1948. This is followed by an ethnographic section, based exclusively on interviews with Haifo’im. The narratives of these men and women, now (2003–4) in their sixties, are analyzed according to three sub-categories: presence, displacement and absence. Each, I argue, engenders different strategies of othering and self. Employing different representational tropes (Clifford and Marcus 1986) and temporalization techniques (Fabian 1983), those who remember – and forget – actively shape the very elements of their own identity, striving endlessly towards naturalization of the extreme events of 1948 and for belated exoneration for injustice never formally admitted. These dynamics are analyzed and discussed further in the final section of the paper. Mixed Towns in Palestine-Israel The early phases of the 1948 war, between November 1947 and May 1948, saw mass flights and deportations of Palestinians from 14 towns, semi-urban centers4 and villages all over historic Palestine. The transformation was cataclysmic. Almost every town currently within Israel which prior to 1948 had a Palestinian population, became spatially, socially and temporally truncated. This staggering erasure of such a significant component of Palestinian urban life in many ways defined the military and political outcomes of the war, shaping important aspects of the conflict to date. Ten of these fourteen towns had been exclusively Palestinian prior to the war. The smaller and more peripheral amongst them (Beisan, Bi’r al-Sab`, Majdal and Halsa), which had their entire Palestinian community removed, were soon transformed to become exclusively Jewish new towns.5 Three larger Palestinian towns, located in the heart of historic Palestine (A-Ramleh, Lid and Jaffa)6 – had upwards of 90% of their residents, is a cross between the Arabic Haifawi (plural: Haifawim) and the proper Hebrew term. 3 See for example Rabinowitz 1997, 1994, 2001 4 The distinction between urban and non-urban communities is not so much according to population size or formal municipal status. Rather, it is according to functions some communities had as commerce, industry and assembly foci for agricultural communities around them. 5 Their current names, respectively, are Bet-Shean, Beer-Sheva, Migdal-Ashkelon and Kiryat-Shemona. 6 Jaffa, which had Jewish residents in earlier centuries and decades, saw interesting changes in the 1920s and 1930s which merit its inclusion here as an exclusively Palestinian town at the eve of the war. Many of its Jewish residents began leaving after the violent events of 1921 in which Jews were murdered by a Palestinian mob, and once again in the wake of the 1929 clashes throughout Palestine. This departure left the cognitive and social space identified

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Palestinian population forced out, and were transformed after the war to de-facto mixed towns, overwhelmingly dominated by newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Europe and the Arab world. The tiny residual Palestinian populations that somehow stayed behind now had diasporic offshoots in refugee camps in the Arab states across the Israeli borders, elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. In subsequent decades, however, these towns saw trickles of immigrants and internally displaced persons originating in other parts of Israel taking residence in them, gradually forming substantial communities. In Jaffa, which since the 1970s saw a significant outmigration of many of the Jewish immigrants who settled in it after 1948, Palestinians currently represent approximately a third of the population.7 The dynamics in the three Palestinian towns of Lower Galilee was somewhat different. For one thing, all three had a much smaller proportion of the population displaced. Nazareth, where the majority of residents remained intact during the war, experienced a substantial influx of internally displaced Palestinians who, having been forced out from neighboring villages settled in the town. This resulted in a remarkable population increase, by up to 60%. Since Israel did not attempt to settle Jewish immigrants or otherwise Judaize the town,8 Nazareth soon became by far the largest and most dynamic urban center of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Shafa-‘Amer emerged from the 1948 more or less intact, and remained exclusively Palestinian since. Acre had a proportion of its residents – perhaps a third – forced out, but had considerable numbers of internally displaced whom the IDF directed to it during the war (Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker 2002:137–140). By the end of the war the overall size of its population was depleted but not decimated. Unlike Nazareth and Shafa-‘Amer, however, it was soon designated by the government as a target for

by most as Jaffa exclusively Palestinian. The 1946 census conducted by the British indicates that Jaffa had a population of 101,550, of which 53,970 were Muslims, 30,820 Christians and 16,800 Jews. The latter figure, however, refers to Jewish residents of some 10 recent Jewish neighborhoods coustered around the two better known ones of Shapira and Florentin. These Jewish communities, while officially located within the municipal boundaries of Jaffa, were to most intents and purposes affiliated with adjacent all-Jewish Tel-Aviv. Thus in the report compiled by the British Mandate authorities to the Anglo-American Committee for Palestine, Jaffa was cited as “an Arab city”. Not surprisingly, when hostilities between Jews and Palestinians began in 1947, the frontline dividing their respective positions separated these Jewish neighborhoods from the distinctly Palestinian areas south and west of them. 7 Accurate figures for Jaffa’s population and its ethnic composition are not easy to obtain since the town is no longer a separate municipality. Immediately after 1948 it became subsumed as part of Tel-Aviv, now officially renamed Tel-Aviv – Jaffa. Its municipal territory was split between Tel-Aviv, Bat-Yam and Holon. 8 The main thrust in that department came with the establishment in 1957 of Natzerat Illit, a new Israeli town immediately and over Nazareth (Rabinowitz 1997). While not necessarily consuming land that belonged to the municipal territory of Nazareth, Nazteart Illit nevertheless occupies land that would have otherwise been available for the natural development of Nazareth eastward.

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incoming Jewish immigrants, evolving like Lod, Ramle and Jaffa to a new mixed town dominated by a its new Jewish component. So much for towns that had been exclusively Palestinian prior to 1948. Four others, however, had been mixed communities even before the war. These are, in descending order of the size of their prewar Palestinian communities, Haifa, West Jerusalem, Safad and Tiberias.9 West Jerusalem, Safad and Tiberias had virtually their entire Palestinian population removed. Haifa had some 6% of its original Palestinian population – approximately 4,000 people – stay behind (Morris 1991:134). Before I turn to my findings from Haifa, yielded from interviews I had in 2003–4 with veteran Haifo’im, a caveat regarding class is in order. Concentrating on Jewish residents who had lived in Haifa prior to 1948 entails a class bias which needs to be acknowledged. The Jewish community in Haifa since the 1920s comprised almost entirely of Ashkenazi families, whose education levels, socio-economic standing and veteran status in the town gave them a head start over immigrants, both Ashkenazi and Mizrakhi, who took residence in the town during and after the war of 1948. Since my theoretical preoccupation here is with how the erasure of the other is handled by a mainstream that is both victorious and hegemonic, the emphasis on middle class Israelis wholeheartedly affiliated and identified with Zionism and its political project is analytically justified. An inquiry into the ways immigrants, both Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, conceptualize the absence of a Palestinian community they had never actually seen is equally valuable but will have to be conducted independently of the present project. Presence On the eve of the 1948 war Haifa had a population of some 140,000, split almost down the middle between Jews and Palestinians. Both communities grew rapidly between the two world wars, a period in which the British were investing heavily in transportation, commerce and industrial infrastructure. Jewish immigrants were arriving in numbers from East Europe and, since the 1930s, from Germany. Palestinians immigrated from the rural hinterland in Lebanon, Galilee and the West Bank. The Jewish community benefited from the economic growth induced by British civilan development and, since 1940, from the war economy much more than did the Palestinians. But disparities in terms of class and education were not extreme. The mayor in the 1930s was a Palestinian, Hasan Shukri; his successor in the 1940s, Shabetay Levy, was a Jew who spoke fluent Arabic and had extensive business and social ties with the Palestinian community. Ilana, born in 1938 in a Jewish neighborhood on Mount Carmel in Haifa, lived there until the early 1960s. An educator involved with radical left groups for at least two decades now, her political views are critical of Zionism. Asked about her pre 9 See note 4 above for the particular situation in Jaffa, which on the eve of the war had no Jewish residents in its main areas, but had a number of Jewish neighborhoods officially administered by its municipality.

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1948 memory of Palestinians, she relates having a ‘strong sense’ of Palestinians as a part of her experience as a child in Haifa. At the same time, however, she admits being unable to relate any of it to concrete memories, events or people. Dalia, born in the early 1930s, holds views which, while sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and co-existence, are less radical than Ilana’s. Her father, who was in the transport trade, had Palestinian friends and colleagues through his transportation business. She could not, however, recall the name of any Palestinian individuals. None of her father’s acquaintances, she says, ever visited their home. A number of my informants had memories that placed the Palestinians in a rural context. Ruti, born in the early 1930’s, grew up in Hadar, a predominantly Jewish part of midtown bordering on Palestinian neighborhoods downtown. She recalls encountering Palestinian Arabs peddlers selling figs in the street she lived in, with weighs and measuring buckets. In her words: ‘We treated them as poor, not Arabs. Jews were selling stuff in the streets too, like Kerosine, or ice. But they had horse pulled carts. Arabs did not. They carried grapes and figs and sabra’s (prickly pears) in shoulder baskets’.

Yoram, born in 1930 and raised in a suburban settlement just outside Haifa, remebers seeing Bedouins when he and his friends would go out picking flowers in the fields. He recalls the name of the tribe and the name of their encampment nearer to his home, and has a visual recollection of seeing them graze their cows and sheep. He cannot, however, remember any contact with them – or for that matter any other Arabs – when he was a child. Ester, a few years younger then Yoram, lived like Ruti in Hadar. She too has memories that frame the Palestinians in an agricultural setting. She recalls how Jewish boys who lived near the eastern outskirts of Hadar, not far from Wadi Rushmiya, would sneak in Palestinian orchards, steal olives and other fruit, and have Palestinian boys chase them back towards Hadar. Haifa is admittedly spatially fragmented. Its municipal territory is larger in size than its population would suggest. Moreover, its steep topography shapes separate residential areas which are far apart and often isolated by ridges, dry river beds, copses and other obstacles. This was further compounded since the 1930s by a class hierarchy whereby the higher up the mountain people lived, the more prestigious they were. Given these divisions, and the fact that the new neighborhoods established on Mount Carmel since the 1930s were exclusively middle class and Ashkenazi, the lack of social relations and visual contact with Palestinians in the memory of someone like Ilana, who lived up on the mountain, is understandable. Less so, however, with those living in Hadar, in closer contact and proximity with Palestinians. The presence of Palestinians in Haifa as modernizing urban subjects, which recently enjoyed considerable scholarly attention,10 is absent from the memories 10 For recent accounts of the urbanization of Haifa in the interwar period, with particular reference to the Palestinian community, see Saikali 2001, De-Vries 1998, Bernstein 2000, Goren 1997.

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I heard. The encounter Haifo`im seem to have had, if any, was with a blurred orientalized image, an abstraction in which experienced reality and consequent reconstructions are inextricably meshed. All my informants, incidentally, label their Haifawi townsfolk ‘Arabs’, not Palestinians.11 Displacement Whatever experience Haifo`im may have had of Palestinian townsfolk was violently shattered by the war of 1948. The disappearance of Haifa’s Palestinian population took place in three stages. One was between December 1947 and April 1948, when some 20,000 Palestinians, mainly of the middle classes, gradually left the town, under pressure but mostly on their own accord (Morris 1991:107). The second is the fateful days of April 21st and 22nd 1948 and the night between them, in which 15,000 additional Palestinians were uprooted (ibid 1991:123). The third is the period between April 22nd and the early days of May, in which most of the remaining 30,000 Palestinians were nudged, ushered and chased away. The British, who were preparing for their final departure on May 15th, were directly and indirectly involved in the process. By mid may Haifa had only some 4,000 Palestinians left in it (ibid 1991:134) – no more than six or seven per cent of the original community. Many of those remaining were now displaced, having been removed from their original homes and concentrated by he authorities in Wadi Nisnas downtown. Ilana, then in fourth grade, recalls a departure – that of the British. She remembers her family rejoicing at the end of foreign occupation, and thinks the school year carried on in normal fashion until the summer recess came late June. Yael, who was 15 in 1948, recalls seeing boats leaving Haifa port when the Palestinians began to flee. ‘But we did not really relate to it. Is it a pity?12 Is it not? Should we help? Should we not? No one has a memory for this’, she said in a way that made me think of insufficient disk space. Elsewhere I bring the fragmented collective memory of my own family of the events of 1948 in Haifa, which I pieced together over the years.13 I quote: ‘The war never truly reached the family’s apartment in Kidron street on mount Carmel. Battles fought in Haifa during April 1948 took place in the lower sections of the town, far from the residential neighborhoods on the mountain. The curfew imposed by the British […] is inscribed in the family’s memory more vividly than gunfire exchanges, bombs or other forms of clashes between Jews and Palestinians. […] The mass departure of Palestinians, who within a few days in late April and early May 1948 became nameless refugees, is not really a part of the family members’ recollections. The facts must have trickled into their consciousness by way of rumor, newspaper reports, 11 For a comprehensive discussion of the significance of labels such as ‘Arbs’ ‘Israeli Arabs’ and ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’ see Rabinowitz 1993. 12 The word Yael used was Haval, as in the French domage. 13 My parents had been living in Haifa since 1925 (my mother) and 1935 (my father), and my three siblings were born there in 1940, 1945 and 1947.

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and radio broadcasts. Those who had gone, while not quite neighbors, were after all fellow residents, clients, and providers of services. But since the family saw no crowds of refugees actually fleeing or being expelled, the harsh reality remained conveniently omitted from their consciousness’ (Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker 2005:38).

Haifa, it is worth noting, was being filled with incoming immigrants at the same time it was being emptied of its Palestinian residents. Serving as the country’s main international port, it was the gateway for as many as 200,000 Jewish immigrants who arrived even as the war of 1948 was being fought. A proportion of them remained in the town, some taking residence in recently vacated Palestinian houses. My informants had no recollection of this transformation either. Absence Ruti, who was 16 in 1948, and like my other informants has no memory of the actual exodus of Palestinians, does remember their fresh absence, and the looting of their empty homes and businesses that followed. She remembers people entering homes and coming out unashamedly, in broad daylight, with carpets, utensils, furniture and ornamental objects. The image of a Christmas tree – the first she ever saw – remains particularly vivid. Ilana, whose home on the Carmel was situated in a remote section, a good distance from the main road and any bus routes, remembers a Palestinian woman who used to work as house help for a neighboring family in the early 1950s. Ilana’s mother sometimes gave the Palestinian woman a ride to the main road, and sometimes gave her clothes. Ilana recalls the woman’s home as being far away – perhaps in Nazareth. In her words: ‘The memory is a very emotional one. It is strongly associated with how miserable (miskena) that woman was. Mother relayed this sense to me. That this Arab lives far away, not here, not with us, and that we are obliged to help’.

In answer to my query Ruti replies that the sense of living in a town that is half empty after 1948 was not a major preoccupation for her at the time. She alludes to the spatial structure of the town, with separate and distant neighborhoods and says: ‘We simply did not go downtown, to where the Arabs had been living. There may have been less peddlers in the streets, But that was not really missed. And the Arab women who had been doing laundry were gone, and we had to do our laundry ourselves. But life went on. Our lives as youngsters all centered around the youth movement, and the excitement of having the new state. We were deeply preoccupied with friends and acquaintances who had fallen in the war, people only a few years older whom we knew from school or the movement’.

Another informant recalls an incident, shortly after the war was over, when she, a nine year old, suddenly realized that the Palestinian maid who had worked for them will no longer return. She remembers the specific moment of this realization, as she

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was walking with her mother along a footpath near their home. ‘There was this rock there, I remember. And I put my foot down on it, hard. I was angry, or, perhaps more accurately, perplexed’. The narrative of 1948 produced in my own family is likewise devoid of concrete reference or even awareness of the Palestinian tragedy. I quote again: ‘The disappearance of tens of thousands of people […] was never fully registered. It did not seem to trigger an emotional cost: no regret, responsibility or guilt. The moral paradox inherent in the building of a new triumphalist society on the ruins of another was never genuinely tackled. Rather than defining itself against the tumultuous historical events it went through, the family downplayed them, in many ways forgot them. […] the events of 1948 were largely silenced. There were no exalted tales of Jewish heroism, nor was the Palestinian calamity explicitly denied. Instead there were thick lumps of silence’ (Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker 2002:137).

Discussion Susan Slyomovics (1998) uses Ghasan Kanafani’s story Aida Ila Haifa – Return to Haifa (Kanfani 1969) to identify what she calls ‘suspect memories’. The time is just after the 1967 war. Kanafani’s hero Said and his Wife Safiya, who in 1948 became refugees and who had been living since in Lebanon, find a way to visit their old home in Haifa. The place has new residents: a childless Jewish couple, holocaust survivors. The new residents did not only inherit Said and Safiya’s property. They also have their issue: Said’s and Safiya’s baby son Khaldoun, left behind in the commotion of the war of 1948, had been adopted by the Jewish couple, who named him Dov and raised him to be a soldier in the IDF. The Jewish couple allow Said and Safiya into the apartment. The visitors discover that the original furniture are there. But did the dining table they had left behind have five chairs or more? Were there seven peacock feathers in the vase or less? Kanafani, Slyomovics observes, deliberately makes the Palestinians’ memory unreliable, suspect. Is the fragmented character of recollection a result of too much effort to memorialize? Is it a case of manufactured, forced detail? Is it a case of embellishing a fast fading reality with concrete evidence in an attempt to stop a temporal tide? Kan ya ma kan?14 The accounts I heard from my Israeli informants are, to a large extent, ‘suspect memories’ as well. The genre is not fiction – my informants were consciously attempting to contribute to a documented record they correctly judged to be counterhegemonic. But if Kanafani’s heroes in Aida ila Haifa were unreliable for being overly preoccupied with details and for producing contradictory accounts, my Israeli

14 Kan ya ma kan – an Arabic conventional beginning of a spoken tale, meaning ‘it came to pass or didn’t’, denoting the story may or may not be a true one.

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informants produced versions that were incredulously detail-free. In many ways they were empty memories. Halbwachs (1980:41–50) suggests that memory can only be collective; that even individual reminiscences are shaped and guided by communal trajectories, complete with their inevitable political and historical overtones. My informants grew up in Israel in the 1950s. They were socialized into a collective which, while built on the ruins of Palestinians, was heavily invested in blanket denial of their previous existence in the territory – a practice most Israelis are part of to this day. The tension inherent in this duality, I contend, is a decisive factor in the way their sensibilities – like those of fellow Jewish Israelis – have been constructed. The suspect nature of these memories are reminiscent of Fabian’s notion of othering as practised in early anthropology (Fabian 1983:71–102). The obvious gaps in memory displayed by Haifoi’m of all political persuasions, including those who are critical of Zionism, amount to a negation of coevalness with Palestinians and with Arabness at large. This removal of the Palestinians from the universe of the remembering subject was achieved through a variety of lexical and syntactic means. One syntactic mechanism is the oriental gaze. As I have indicated, personal memories of Palestinians were often framed in orientalist idiom. Pre-1948 urban Palestinians were often remembered as the peasant, the peddler, the Bedouin – people living in and of a rural, perhaps nomadic setting. As such they were not only removed from the speaking urban subject in terms of life experience. They are also, as it were, out of place in relation to the modernizing project of the city even before the war begins. As objects whose appropriateness to their environment are suspect all along, their erasure can be more easily misrecognized, and the responsibility and guilt that this erasure triggers can be more easily forgotten and suppressed. This is exacerbated by the triumphalist tendencies inherent in Eurocentric historiography (Wolfe (1982) so central to the first few decades of the Israeli project, and so apparent in the selective historiography which it produced. It is a view of history which restricts the social world into specifically narrow national horizons, thus confining others, however geographically and experientially near, to a radically separate cognitive and moral universe. The suspect memories of Haifo’im has also a spatial dimension. Foucault, preoccupied with the way space determines who and what we are, identified certain kinds of lived space – cemeteries, formal gardens, theaters, libraries, museums – as corridors to other sites and eras of the cultural, labeling them ‘heterotopias’ (Foucault 1986). Reflecting space in which we actually live, heterotopias are distinct from utopian spaces, which we can only imagine. At the time my informants were being socialized as adolescents, and in a way to date, Haifa has a series of paradoxically heterotopic spaces. Examples include parts of the old Arab city to the east of downtown Haifa, still there but now surrounded by commerce and light industry; The Rushmiya bridge in the eastern outskirts of the city, with the Najada (Palestinian para-military youth brigades) house located

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on its eastern end; Persistent Palestinian place names such as Wadi Nisnas (al-Wadi) and Halisa. These hybrid spaces, inhabited and lived-in pre-1948, are hardly part of life as experienced by the remembering Israeli subjects. Many of them were never properly registered by most Haifo’im even much later. Transformed by the topography of warfare in 1948 they are remembered in ways that severe their actual history. In many ways, their limbo status in the newly reconstructed lives of Israelis is akin to that of the non-existent sites and places across the Israeli borders, where refugees – the unnoticed, unrecognized shadow of Israel’s success – abide. Curiously, these sites, exalted by many Palestinians to utopian proportions, were never physically removed. Unlike old Palestinian architecture in Jaffa, Ain Karim near Jerusalem or Ain Hut (Slyomowics 1998) Palestinian parts of Haifa were not gentrified. Many of them in fact still make grotesque memorials to an era in which Jews and Palestinians sustained an urban dialogue, corridors to the very pre-existing Palestinian culture which Zionism negates and Israel is so consistent in attempting to expunge. There is a link between the empty memories of Haifo’im and the construction, in Israeli sensibilities, of self and other. Heidegger (1974) conceptualizes the other as an insurmountable, essentialized entity with whom the self may strike a relativistic relationship premised on appreciation and acceptance of difference. Othering emerges as a component of human morality, part of the effort to grapple with and negotiate the social world (Gingrich 2002). An emblematic case of this approach can be found in Said’s orientalism (1978). Assuming an essentialized existence of a real or imagined other out there, Said is preoccupied with the intellectual, political and moral implications of representation – a case of what Heideger calls ‘negotiation’ of the other. Lacan (1968) suggests an altogether different, more dynamic approach to the other. He and the theorists who since applied his notions to post colonial discourse (cf. Spivak 1988, Chatterjee 1986, Bhabha 1994) stress encounters rather than essence as the defining constitutive moments for the self. Beginning with relationships with most significant others, primarily the parent, Lacan stresses the ways they shape developmental stages which predate consciousness and the cultivation of the social. The reflection of the other becomes a major factor in identity formation. Separation, forever incomplete, becomes a key idiom in this process. While not symmetric, the process is mutual. It implicates the mentality and identity of the stronger party – the parent in Lacan’s original thought – as much as that of the weaker party. This is a main reason why this paradigm, with its origins in psychoanalytic theory, became a corner stone of post-colonial discourse. Like the parent and the child, the colonial agent and the subject are essentialized and separated on some levels, intertwined and mutually implicated on others. Most importantly, each uses the image of the other to construct her own perception of self. Commitment to distance on both side notwithstanding, the proximity inherent in their predicament often breeds mutual (albeit unbalanced) dependence, collaboration, attraction, mimicry, hybridization, and at times accommodation.

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The Lacanian view thus questions the discreteness of categories that made Said’s theory of representation so convincing. Instead the emphasis now shifts to duplication, mirroring, and the emergence of a third field of in-betweenness. Does the memory of Haifo’im include a formative encounter with Palestinians in the Lacanian sense? It does and does not. Yes Haifo’im produce an encounter. But it is not with Palestinians as real subjects who share the same universe. Rather, it is the presence of the Palestinian absence that has become the dominant component.15 Haifo’im seem to be exempt from constituting themselves against the presence – actual or remembered – of a significant other. Instead they cling to memories in which the Palestinian are absent even though in factual, historical reality they were still present. Erasing the other – and the space in which she once survived – becomes a precondition for the construction of a moral and a social world. The memories of Haifo’im is a clear case of national imperative that overrides whatever local ecumenical sensibilities that may have existed in Haifa, prior to 1948 or since. They also indicate that political persuasions acquired later in life, pertinent as they may be to how history is interpreted and understood, do not necessarily alter personal memory and the ways it is strategized. The production of a joint narrative of history is often postulated as a necessary condition for future reconciliation. One implication of all this is that producing such a narrative is not merely an exercise in accepting the legitimacy and accuracy of the version espoused by the opposition – a task already proving very difficult for most Israelis and most Palestinians. It also involves unlearning and undoing of central components of personal constitution. Finally, all this is relevant for the current debate of Palestinian return, concomitant Israeli preoccupation with demography, and how these dual issues play out on identity. Palestinians, who have been characterized as a community of suffering16 and of memory17 are also a group whose identity hinges on belief in return. They are, as it were, a returning people. Israelis, on the other hand, have been conditioned to conceptualize their own collective project as aimed primarily to prevent Palestinian return. The argument most often invoked against Palestinian return is the need to preserve the current demographic balance. Counting and registering persons, a central component of social and political construction of ethnic groups and nations, is a practice which has significant cognitive, emotional and political implications (Keyfitz 1993). Capable of ordering a fragmented collection of individuals into a unified, coherent mass in an ostensibly rational manner, it serves a need far deeper than the bureaucratic quest for accountability and managerial order (Greenhalgh 1996). Like mapping and the establishment of monuments and museums (Anderson 1991:163–4), the conquest of the frontier (Turner 1920, Appadurai 1997) and other modernizing tasks, it is a practice that helps define collective time. 15 Handelmann (1997), in his work on events staged in Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem museum in memory of holocaust victims, talks of ‘the presence of the absence’. 16 See Said 1994, Rabinowitz 1994, Sa’di 2002. 17 See Halbewachs 1980; Slyomowicz 1998

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Buttressing solidarity requires a vision of a collective future, and ethno-territorial projects are seldom satisfied with snapshots of the here and now. Calculated forecasts and projections of the size and shape of future generations, which extend the sense of unified time into the future, often become a centre piece of collective identity (cf. Caldwell et. al 1987, Howel 1986). When it comes to Palestinian return, two powerful images associated with the Israeli demographic discourse emerge. One is the danger that the nation will be penetrated. The other is the peril of becoming a vulnerable minority again. These two scenarios foster a troubling sensation amongst Israelis that should Palestinian be allowed to return, collective Israeli time may turn against itself, undoing Zionism’s construction of time as a positive and just progression. The fear of the returning Palestinian is thus couched in demographic discourse that is as much about symbols, meaning and identity as it is about real numbers or competition for political and cultural dominance. It is this slippage between this symbolism and the ostensibly practical which demonizes Palestinian return for Israelis, making it an unthinkable, unspeakable obscenity. Like other fields in which the practical and the symbolic have been successfully fused – security is one vivid example – this intransigence is never easy to dislodge. The amnesia and misrecognition of Haifo’im must thus be seen as an early, almost instinctive attempt to negate return. Palestinians, now absent physically, were not allowed a space in memory, and were successfully erased from recollection even in those who clearly saw and recognized their presence prior to the war. Negating return is thus not merely a political project. It is a trajectory which involves identity and can be reflected in socialized individual memory as well. References Cited Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Bhabha, Homi (1994) The Location of Culture. London and New-York: Routledge. Bernstein, Deborah (2000) Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine. Albany, NY: State University of New-York. Caldwell, John C., Pat Caldwell and Bruce Caldwell (1987) Anthropology and Demography: The Mutual Reinforcement of Speculation and Research. Current Anthropology, Vol. 28, No. 1. (Feb., 1987), pp. 25–43. Chatterjee, Partha (1986) Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? London: Zed Books. De-Vries, David (1998) Idealism and Bureaucracy: The Roots of Red Haifa. TelAviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad (in Hebrew). Fabian, Johannes (1983) Time and the Other. New York: Columbia University Press. Foucault, Michel (1986) Of Other Spaces. Diacritics: 22–27. Greenhalgh, Susan (1996) The Social Construction of Population Science: An Intellectual, Institutional, and Political History of Twentieth-Century Demography Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 38, No. 1. (Jan., 1996), pp. 26–66.

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Goren, Tamir (1997) From Dependence to Integration: The Israeli Regime and the Arabs of Haifa: 1948–1950, a Historical and Geographical Study. Haifa: Haifa University Press. Halbwachs, Maurice (1980) The Collective Memories. New-York: Harper and Row. Handelmann, Don (1990) Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —and Lea Shamgar-Handelman (1997) “The Presence of Absence: the memorialism of national death in Israel.” In Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience, eds. E. Ben-Ari and Y. Bilu. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 85–128. Heidegger, Martin (1974) Identity and Difference. New York: Harper and Row. Howell, Nancy (1986) Demographic Anthropology Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 15. (1986), pp. 219–246. Kanafani, Ghasan (1984) (1972) Return to Haifa. In Palestine’s Children. London: Heinemann. Khalidi, Walid (1984) Before Their Diaspora. Beirut: Centre For Palestine Studies. Keyfitz, Nathan (1993) Thirty Years of Demography and Demography Demography, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Nov., 1993), pp. 533–549. Lacan, Jacques (1968) The language of the self: the function of language in psychoanalysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Morris, Benny (1991) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved (in Hebrew). Rabinowitz, Dan (1993) Oriental Nostalgia: How the Palestinians Became ‘Israel’s Arabs’. Teorya Uvikoret No 4:141–152 (in Hebrew). Rabinowitz, Dan (1994) The Common Memory of Loss. Political Mobilization amongst Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Journal of Anthropological Research Vol. 50: 27–44. Rabinowitz, Dan (1997) Overlooking Nazareth: The Ethnography of Exclusion in Galilee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rabinowitz, Dan and Khawla Abu Baker (2002) The Stand-Tall Generation. Jerusalem: Keter. (In Hebrew) Rabinowitz, Dan and Khawla Abu-Baker (2005) Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seikaly, May. 2002. Haifa: Transformation of a Palestinian Arab society, 1918– 1939. London: Tauris. Slyomovics, Susan (1998) The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). In Other Worlds. London and New York: Routledge. Tamari, Salim, ed. (1999) Jerusalem 1948 : the Arab neighbourhoods and their fate in the war. Jerusalem : Institute of Jerusalem Studies. Bethlehem : Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Turner, Frederick Jackson (1920) The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Chapter 3

“We Were Living in a Different Country”: Palestinian Nostalgia and the Future Past1 Jasmin Habib

This century has shown that in every situation of organized oppression, the true antonyms are always the exclusive part versus the inclusive whole – not masculinity versus femininity but either of them versus androgyny, not the past and the present but either of them versus the timelessness in which the past is the present and the present is the past, not the oppressor versus the oppressed but both of them versus the nationality which turns them into co-victims. (Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy)

In recent years, scholars have paid increasing attention to refugee, migrant and diasporic identities and their dislocated relationships to homeland (Clifford 1997; Lavie and Swedenburg 1996; Levy and Weingrod 2005; Rabinowitz 2001; Said 2002). My analysis builds upon this literature, focusing direct attention to understanding how the Zionist project – the formation and establishment of Israel as a Jewish State – ruptured the culture, society, and geography of Palestine. What began in the early 20th century but built to a crescendo of violence in the 1947–48 period has also been the focus of a number of recent publications which have rewritten – some would say demythologized, deconstructed and revised – Israel’s official history. Since the 1980s, Israeli historians, legal and military scholars, political scientists, geographers, literary scholars, sociologists, anthropologists – all gave rise to a series of publications that provided a deeper appreciation for the radical 1 Acknowledgements: This paper would not have been possible without the contribution of community leaders and individuals, all of whom would prefer to remain anonymous. Support for this research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, and the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University. The Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem partially funded my travel to Jerusalem where I shared my preliminary results with the editors and contributors to this volume. Conference participants’ thoughtful comments have been incorporated here. I would also like to thank Virginia Aksan, Will Coleman, Harvey Feit, Louis Greenspan and Mark Vorobej all of whom facilitated Dan Rabinowitz’ travel to Canada and made the fateful conversation which led to this paper, possible. Warmest thanks to Jim Novak for reading the many drafts of this paper. All errors and omissions remain my sole responsibility, of course.

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upheaval that Palestinians would experience in the wake of Israel’s formation and which continues to mark their lives and the lives of their families.2 Many of these studies supplement the countless histories of exile written by and about Palestinians.3 I will not offer any detailed accounts of these studies but they do form a backdrop to my own desire to learn more about the ambivalences and contradictions that such cultural traumas expose. Palestinians are fully conscious they are engaged in a radical re-membering, a conscious reassembling of a remembered past, of an occluded history. While the physical destruction of the world each inhabited as well as the horrors of the aftermath have been recounted, no attention appears to have been paid to the kinds of stories that Palestinians recount of the relationships that existed between Jews and Palestinians before these ruptures: little is known about everyday interactions between community members, of their sociality and tolerance. Even less seems to be known about how these relationships affect Palestinian’s contemporary perceptions of what’s possible for the future. The conjunction of these two narratives – Jew or Arab vs. Jew and Arab – (see Alcalay 1993) generated for me a series of speculations concerning Palestinian remembering. The research presented in this paper is one part of a postdoctoral project that explored the relationships of Palestinians living in North America to the Israel/ Palestine conflict. While I did not set out to learn about “mixed communities” or relationships between Jews and Palestinians in what have become ‘mixed towns’, an informal discussion with Dan Rabinowitz in the winter of 2001, prompted a second look at some of my findings. This paper is based then on a re-reading of narratives that I gathered over the course of nearly two years of observing and participating in communal and political activities as well as on a range of interviews with local participants. Those with whom I had the most frequent interactions live in multicultural and suburban settings in Canada. They live fairly secularized lives though the church and mosque are sites of communal celebration and contact. All are Palestinians who had lived in the state of Israel prior to their immigration to Canada. Some were internal refugees within the state of Israel from 1948 until the day they emigrated, but many never left their homes before traveling to Canada. Almost all of those I interviewed had returned to Israel at least once and many had traveled several times to visit friends and family, as well as to attend weddings and funerals. With passports, both Israeli and Canadian, they are freer to move to and from the state of Israel – as well as around the world – than most Palestinians. In the first stage of the research, I observed and participated in community and politically-centred events, many of which led to both formal and informal interviews. 2 Benvenisti 2000; Greenberg 2005; Kimmerling 1983; Morris 1988; Pappe 2004; Rogan and Shlaim 2001; Segev 2001. 3 Arur 2001; Bisharat 1994; Bowman 1994; Fischbach 2003; Ghanem 2001; Hadawi 1988; Hammer 2005; Khanana 1992; Khalidi 1984, 1992; Khalidi 1997; Lynd and Bahour 1994; Nazzal 1978; Said 2000; Sayigh 1979; Shehad 2002; Slyomics 1998; Swedenburg 1995; Tamari 2002)

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Individuals who participated in such interviews often encouraged friends and family members to participate, leading to a fairly wide range of perspectives and experiences. The purpose of the interviews was to examine perceptions of relationships with the homeland and their role in the everyday lives of Palestinians in Canada. In the second stage, which is the focus of this paper, I reread the interviews with an eye to capturing those who had spoken about their past with Israeli Jews in sites that are now mixed towns. Reflected here is what I’m calling a partial ethnography (partial only because it wasn’t the focus of the original analysis) of those participants who, in the first stage of the research, had identified these towns as their primary and/or original homes and/or sites of return. The towns reflected upon were Beisan, Haifa, Nazareth, Tiberias, and Ramle, though the latter is a mixed town only in the post-1948 period. Most of the individuals left Israel/Palestine in middle-age, though a few were much younger, leaving in their 20s. Many have remained in the same city that they were introduced to when they first traveled to Canada. The participants fit the general profile of immigrants to Canada, with most moving directly to an urban rather than a rural community for employment and education. The urban setting within which I conducted the research is one of the most highly developed for its immigrant services and multicultural programming. Most of those I interviewed live comfortably and work regularly; some are self-employed, running very successful businesses; others work in trades, commerce and retail; and a few are professionally-trained, working in the fields of education and information technology. Interviews were semi-structured in design and attempted to gain an understanding of how relationships to Israel were perceived and experienced. There was an initial expectation that Palestinian reflections on Israel/Palestine might be very similar to those that had been cited by researchers working with Palestinians in refugee camps that dot the region or in the militarily occupied zones of the West Bank and Gaza. In hindsight, this assumption reflected my naivete, for even though there were some similarities, the differences were also stark. For example, urban Palestinians living in Canada had a lot less to tell me about military operations (see Nazzal 1978) but spent time speaking to me about their relationship to the land. These experiences raise questions about geographies of identity (Yaeger 1999) about which I elaborate in another paper that focuses on the Palestinian poetic narratives of loss (Habib, in preparation). Having traced these reflections of loss, what is most poignant is precisely the loss of relations – of missing family members and missing friends; of cultural aspects of their lives that shifted so rapidly (from farmer, businessman, or schoolchild to refugee) as not to have been fully comprehensible either at the time or even since. Absent, sometimes vanished, are the relationships that might have been possible had the war not come and changed their lives. While the results of these interviews should not be generalized, the research lead me in a surprising direction: those who had or have experience in pre and post 1948 Israel’s ‘mixed cites’ present the future of Israel/Palestine on the basis of such “mixedness” – that is, their possible future is of an Israel/Palestine that is a “mixed” or binational state; that all are now and forever conjoined (though I never heard anyone

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use the word “trapped”). The result is the presumption that the transformation of the Israel/Palestine conflict will only come about when these cultural communities recognize that they are all ‘trapped’ in a mixed state. I would suggest that further and more detailed research will need to be conducted to discover if these reflections are a direct or indirect result of past experiences of mixedness and/or if this response emerges from the kinds of multicultural exposure and experience in Canada. Even in its preliminary form, however, I feel it is worth sharing. In these post-Oslo moments of heightened tensions, it is important to explore what Dan Rabinowitz noted in “Postnational Palestine/Israel? Globalization, Diaspora, Transnationalism and the Israel/Palestine Conflict” (2001). He writes: Narrators of the nation are weary of diasporas. They have a vested interest in blocking diasporic subjectivities from entering mainstream discourse. Such entry, after all, might encourage deterritorialisation and, god forbid, denationalization of the national project. Seen in transnational perspective, land can no longer be treated as the sanctified body of collective desire. It cannot be defended any longer as a romantic heartland, an irreplaceable place worth killing and getting killed for. The discourse of transnationalism, with its concomitant recognition of the legitimate place of diaspora, devalorizes territory, under-mining its unquestionable status as the nation’s ultimate destiny, historicizing it and striving to place it back on a more relative scale of human experience. The picture thus becomes more open, containing more options. The disputed territory becomes a meeting place for at least two histories, a site where two diasporas overlap and mix. Such an imagination of the interface between the two collectivities can perhaps facilitate solutions different from the partition variety. Research on Palestine and Palestinians, and on Israel and Israelis, should thus seek to identity and explore experiences associated with diasporas that can in turn subvert narrations of the nation (771–2).

Though I don’t want to romanticize or oversimplify the power of these remembered visions or versions of history or the future, I do believe they are worth considering in light of Rabinowitz’s comments above. I will suggest here that multiple identifications of place make incisive critiques because they do indeed offer alternatives to reified nationalism (see also Habib 2004). Making this a privileged point of entry reveals my desire to find a way back to the point where – not irrespective of the suffering involved – individuals and communities operated on a scale of social life that was habitable. I am also drawing attention to those aspects of Palestinian identifications of the future of a binational Israel/Palestine because despite a flurry of attention, these areas remain insufficiently considered from an ethnographic perspective. What I think is most meaningful about these Palestinian remembrances is that there appears to be a disjuncture between the need to express the traumatic past and the desire to think about possible futures. My broader ambition in undertaking this study is to intervene in current debates concerning the intersection and direction of anthropology and historiographical analyses – oral histories, collective memory, commemorations – of displaced

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communities and cultures, not only as regards history and memory but also in their approaches to politically engaged scholarship. My aim is not to rewrite or rehistoricize those pasts through memory but rather to show how those interpretations of past experiences help to shape current debates that seem to have been elided in most reporting on the Palestinian identifications with home. In this way, I take seriously Michael Lambeck’s position in “The Past Imperfect: Remembering as Moral Practise” (1996) who writes: The past is never completely over; it continues to shape the present, even as it is distinct from it, and at the same time it is available to be addressed by the present. Conversely, remembering entails engagement with the past (243).

Further, Rather than treat memory as a discrete thing, stored and retrieved, or as the biologically innate processes of storage and retrieval waiting to be discovered by the experiments of the psychologist, I have been arguing that we understand it as a culturally mediated expression of the temporal dimension of experience, in particular of social commitments and identifications. Remembering comprises contextually situated assertions of continuity on the part of subjects and claims about the significance of past experience. Such tacit assertions and claims, based as much on cumulative wisdom and moral vision as on individual interest, form a kind of moral practice (248).

Readings that focus solely on military occupation and violent confrontations fail to attend to or contextualize the relationship of the new settlers to the victims and subjects of that occupation. While it is not my intention here to engage in a debate with historians or to romanticize these moments, I think it important to reflect on the degree to which remembering is a form and focus of resistance in the face of powerful denial and silencing.4 A number of researchers – academic and non-academic – have now published books and reports examining the displacement and dislocation of Palestinians in the 1947–48 period so the vehemence and declarative sense that is expressed by many exiled Palestinians may seem unwarranted but it is important to recall just how many years passed before such studies were considered valid, and how long such stories remained buried or silenced by dominant Zionist myths. Much of these remembrances and moments of re-telling are marked by a kind of forcefulness that is built on years of defending oneself and one’s history. The greatest limitation to presenting these narratives here is that the voices themselves seemed flattened by the written word; the intonations, the rise and fall in the many passionate expressions 4 See for example, Sider and Smith who write: We need to develop ways of seeing ‘culture,’ and in particular the splits, tensions, and antagonisms within a culture, not simply in history but as history…. We have found that the making and breaking of silences and commemorations calls our attention to those aspects of culture that are not simply shared – or unshared –‘values’; more, that a close attention to silences and commemorations broadens, in analytically useful ways, our concepts of necessary struggle (1997:13).

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of sadness, anger, and even the silences and mostly the laughter between the words is lost. As many working in the field of oral history and collective memory have recognized before me (Boyarin 1994; Connerton 1989; Hodgkin and Radstone 2003; Lambeck 1996; Margalit 2002; Nora 1989; Young 1993), it is in the very retelling and remembering that the people of Palestine have recreated Palestine. While this process points to a kind of embodiment of the memory of Palestine rather than an experience of it as a territorial space, I would also argue that it means accommodating for a history that has changed Palestine forever. Some of the people I asked to participate in my research expressed some consternation, at first, asking me why their particular histories, or how descriptions of their lives and activism in North America would be of interest or of importance to anyone. They seemed intent on reminding me that it is the experience of refugees and those living under continuous military occupation that needed to be written about. “We’ve moved on”, “We have better lives.” While I would have liked simply to take them at their word, after conducting several interviews and just spending time with them all, I felt I had to ask if they really have “moved on”? And if so, in what direction, for their actions belie their words. People in these communities can and do re-enact Palestinian nationality – at wedding parties, Christmas or Eid celebrations; religious rituals like Christenings and Baptism; or at community parties held in basement apartment community halls and community centres, where musicians play a mix of nationalist folk and modern music. They have access to their own newspapers and newsletters; community organizations and offices; language and learning centres. Expressing their concerns about their “homeland” at the local as well as governmental level is the norm, not an aberration. Identifying oneself as Palestinian has also become a matter of pride for many, including youth, although many highlight their more recent experiences of anti-Arab racism, particularly since the first Gulf War and even more so since September 11, 2001. In conversations about Palestine, words come slowly at first and then there is a cascade. Through their words, I also sense among some an ambivalence about the continued identification with home, the need, as one young woman tells it: To turn on that TV, day and night, switch it to the Arab channel, then the Israeli channel, then to CNN, then to CBC, and always looking for the same news, always comparing the news on one channel to the other and saying ‘you see that’ they didn’t play that on CNN. No one will ever understand! And when they meet, what do they talk about? The latest gossip about this guy or that guy and what he used to be like and what he’s turned into now and how different it was back then. And who has died, always who has died. Is this what we came to Canada for? They watch that program over and over, the same thing, tanks, funerals, shootings, helicopters, killings, soldiers. Why don’t they turn it off or watch the nice Arab films or the comedians from Syria? Is this the only reason we bought a satellite dish? To watch this stuff as if we never left? To live the whole thing in our living rooms every night?”

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Community members not only support one another, emotionally and financially, they are also engaged in debates and negotiations at public events that are both organised and performed for the home community. As Werbner has noted about migrant Muslim communities in England, “This is a world of political passion grounded in cultural ideas about community, honour, and morality, not as reifications but as experientially lived realities” (1998:18). She suggests, as well, that within these public arenas, moral and political subjectivities are formed such that “ethnicity and nationalism emerge dialectically from a reworking and transcendence of local politics” (1998:18). To consider these complex patterns of influence, I interweave a number of excerpts from conversations I gathered over the course of the research period. Over dinner at a political event, Waseem, a successful businessman who arrived in Canada from Haifa in 1970, argues with me about the current leadership and says: We are a fair people but we need to teach our people democracy like the democracy they have in Canada. They have lived under occupation for 50 years. This is not normal. The Israelis are not normal too. They can learn from Canada. Look, so many people live together here. We can have this. We can have this in Palestine.

On the phone with a community leader, Lori, who is an ESL and Arabic teacher, and who came to Canada from Nazareth in the 1970s says: Our people don’t want to do anything anymore. No one listens to us here. I am tired. Sometimes I can’t do anymore. I write to the newspaper, I write to my M.P. but my English is not so good. They [Canadians] will learn, maybe they are learning now. They will learn [about our history, about our oppression]. They are good people. We must communicate with them. Canada feels like my home. I work closely with Jews here like I did there. Palestine is for the future.

Khali from Nazareth tells me: I don’t remember much really. I was born in 1950. There’s not much to be honest. The talk, I remember, after 1950... There are a few things that you remember in life. And I remember in 1958, I was 8 or 9, I asked my mom…because every Saturday a lot of European Jews came to Nazareth to visit to see churches because they just came from Europe and because it’s something historical for them to see and I asked my mom “who are these people that are coming every Saturday, that flood Nazareth?” and she said “These are our occupiers” and I said “what is an occupier?” and she said “well we are occupied, these are our occupiers.” And I remember my grandmother, who lived to be 100, she was born in Nazareth in 1897 or 1895, and she said “I’ve seen it all. We were occupied by the Turks, then the Russians came” – I didn’t know that the Russians were there for about 2 years – “the Russians came for two or three years, then the British came and now the Jewish come. They’re all going to come and go.” We were lucky. I believe in fate. The army shot the tires of my father’s car and so we never left. My father was a peaceful man. After Israel took over… they asked everybody for their guns and the first guy to bring in his gun was my dad. Nazareth fell in that

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period but I remember military occupation very well. The conditions. It was humiliation more than anything else. You cannot leave Nazareth. It’s more like house arrest. Saffouria which is one mile, you cannot go there. Tiberias, if we want to go to Tiberias, you go to the police, well it isn’t a police station really, but actually it’s an army post, you deal with the army, not the local police and you stand in line and I mean you stand in line, it’s a huge line. We start, like Sunday we want to go to Tiberias, to swim and I remember I was 14 or 15 years old at the time and we want to go swimming and you stand in line and you come to the army and he said what do you want and you said you I want a one day pass I want to go to Tiberias, I want to swim, and he looks at you and a few times he said no, he will not let you and sometimes he said okay and he questions you why you want to go there and we would rent a car and want to go to swim… I have pictures! In 1968 we had a military governor in Nazareth, A., I remember him very well. He was my uncle’s friend. Because he fed him. He used to eat. I think he died because he ate too much. … [H]e would come to my uncle’s home and he was out to here (pointing at a rounded belly). It was known [all around]. He was known. He would eat and drink. And drink whiskey. Remember him? [turning to ask his spouse who has now entered the room]

Samia: Oh, I remember him. Every time he would visit the mayor of Nazareth we would run into Peres and Rabin in their house, all the time. This memory came back to me when I read Peres’ book. I used to stay with my friend and her auntie used to tell us exactly what happened. I could see in her idea the idea of peace, where it came from. When we met Peres – you saw the picture? – he mentioned that she is still one of my best friends and I still visit. I heard it from Peres. And I told him, I used to see you at my auntie’s house and he said she’s still very important to me.

Khalil I remember in 1968 we made permission for my aunt to come from Jordan. They only gave her permission to come to the West Bank, to Jenin. And they came to my dad she can only go to Jenin but not to Nazareth and that was a Friday afternoon. And my father said to me go to your uncle B. and he wrote me on a small piece of paper to the governor… he wrote him, I have a cousin she is in Jenin. I went to the army post and I said I have to give this note to A. by hand and I said it’s from B. and he said oh come in, come in and then the governor gave me a piece of paper and he said to take it to the military governor by hand and it took me hours and I was only 18 but we brought her in [from Jenin].

Samia (interrupting her spouse): The people of Nazareth saw the mayor and he was also a member of Knesset having relationships to the occupier to the government of Israel and one day I confronted my aunt and I asked her to explain. I don’t understand this. You are telling me this is our enemy and we can’t have any relationship to any other Arab community because of them and then… she said, let me tell you, yes we have a problem we have to communicate with these people. They don’t know anything when they came to here. We need to tell them of our rights…

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I’m told by Samir that in Ramle and Nazareth there was always formal and informal recognition of the various high holidays – as Christians, they would often visit Muslims and Jews to mark their holidays and receive visitors in kind. No one felt threatened by the other families. They were our neighbours. We didn’t think any of them would one day say that we were their enemies. Who would believe that could happen. But it did.” When I ask what this tells him about the future, he tells me: “We got along before the politics made us enemies. It isn’t the people. It is the politics. What difference does it make if a farmer is a Muslim or a Jew… But if he took your land, you can’t grow your food and you can’t give your children anything. This is why there was a fight. We had no problem with the people who came. They were in rags. You should have seen them. We couldn’t believe they were from Europe! They looked poor. We had nothing against them. We even protected one family in the time of the strikes. But when the army came to us, this family did nothing. No Jewish family that we know did anything to help us. But we did nothing to them – not before the army came and never after. It took many years for us to know that we could not come home. Many years. We didn’t know that the world would change so much and that we would never see these friends again. They were friends. We didn’t see family again too. But I didn’t get to your answer. I think that because we were friends then we can be friends again. There is a lot of history but now they realize that they can’t hide the history and everyone is knowing the same thing…. This history of Israel is a short one.

Nazar from Haifa tells me: When we go back now we see how the answers to the problem aren’t working and when we talk to our friends they all agree. When we talk to our friends here in Canada we all agree that Israel is much worse now because even in the ‘60s when we were still there, there was much better relations between Jews and us. This is new, this is really new. I don’t say ’48 wasn’t terrible but it was the army then and then it became the government. But we always knew good people who we would visit and talk with. We were neighbours with them. They think they know what they are doing but they are making things much worse than they were. Do you know we would go to the grill [restaurant] on the holidays and there were always Jews there. Now they are afraid. We are not afraid but they are afraid. The government made them afraid. We are the same people but the new people who come to the city [the Russians?], they do not know us and they can be told to be afraid of us. This is new.

While most of those I interviewed flushed with pride when their children appeared in the room to listen in on the interview, when I asked their parents if they wanted their children to return to Palestine, in many cases I heard very similar things: “I want them to grow up to be good Canadians; that they have and take the opportunities that Canada can give them.” Khalil shrugged his shoulders in response to my question and told me that he hoped they wouldn’t return, that they would leave it all behind: He says: That was our lives. It doesn’t have to be their life too…. They need to know what happened to us but I don’t want them to suffer like we did or like their cousins are now. I try to keep

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them away from the suffering. I watch TV every night – you see now, channel one from Israel is on here – but I don’t ask them to come to watch it with me. Samia and I watch it, we discuss it with our friends who are from home but and we don’t hide it from the children but we don’t get them involved. It’s too complicated…

Samia interrupts Khalil and suggests that he is somewhat naïve about what the children already know and what they might consider important. She notes that they have experienced racism at school and if they did not know “their people’s history” they would not be able to understand why they were being treated differently or why their experiences were so marked by difference. Khalil’s response to Samia’s comments is to say only that they will know all that they need to know with time but that he does not feel they should be “forced to learn history at the dinner table” – and with a twinkle in his eye, he adds – “they might stop eating!” Many described the difficulties of travel under the occupation, of making connections between one space and another and one community and another. How what was once whole seemed now ever-segmented and policed in ways unrelated to prior use (see J. above). Precise indications of place names and their “new” Israeli locations were also noted and several times resulted in a curious debate over not the old names or old routes but the new ones instead. These reflections also demonstrated the difference of reading and experiencing these locales at a distance as those I interviewed no longer intimately traverse these spaces and it showed the ways of selecting and highlighting what were deemed important sites in the past Badia from Nazareth: Do you remember seeing Mary’s Well? It’s almost buried now with all the development in the area but we used to turn right there and go up.

George from Haifa: To get to Jenin, we took a road that isn’t used now and I think there’s an easier way, another route now.

Tariq from Nazareth: Sahni [Al-Sahna, warm springs near Beisan] was the place to be as a teenager. We went to picnic there. To swim, you know, show off as boys. It was paradise. Ask your father, he’ll remember it too!

Lutfi from Haifa: Oh, that old route [to Nazareth] my sons don’t even know it now. I never took them on the old road. It’s too rough and maybe even dangerous now but we didn’t think like that when we were young. We just went everywhere.

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While their descriptions of sites matched their experiences of the landscape in personal ways, disagreements and confusions hinged on what type of information an outsider to the history or geography of the site would need to understand or appreciate what was lost in the transition to Israeli statehood. When other Palestinians of the same generation were in the room, they would often provide additional details when they felt the description provided was too partial. Interesting as well was the degree to which these reflections were not especially spatial or geographical – of courtyards or gardens, homes or religious institutions, but were rather relational in their scope. Space itself was not reconstructed or redefined so much as it was the site of their loss and the site of their displacement. While Palestinians generally expressed feeling welcome in Canada, they long to see a fair, democratic, egalitarian, and modernised – though not necessarily westernised – Palestine in the Middle East. After speaking with parents, grandparents, their children and grandchildren, I found that many had remarkably similar visions of a future of Palestine though they had not experienced “being Palestinian” in the same way. Palestinian discourse seemed to be about building something which is not yet there. “This is a country to be made.” “It’s all about state-building” “We need to build a new country” “It’s a different place now but we can rebuild it”. And to many, the intifada (especially the first) had widened the scope of the struggle so as to embrace the internal struggle for democracy. While generally tragic, these narratives reflect several carnivalesque moments as well. When Khalil and Samia described the governor who was fed by his evergiving hosts (and “subjects”), they did so in a way that presented him as a clownish and corpulent character who may well have been fed to death by his “subjects.” Here then things are not quite as they seem; disparate, incommensurable worlds collide – worlds that create not a webbed but a knotted or twisted relation: the power of the governor is undermined in this retelling. Yet this is the same governor whose approval is necessary – on a fairly regular basis – for permission to travel to visit relatives, to cross over and into other town-spaces under occupation. In its retelling, this narrative presents a neutral if not reciprocal relationship and not one primarily undergirded by power. Remarkably, in every case where an interview was conducted in a living room or kitchen space, I began speaking with a sole individual but soon found we were surrounded by others: often the spouse would enter the room with children, some in their late teens and with visiting friends, other relatives, friends and neighbours would be there at the end. By the end of the interview, all manner of objects and books, photos and photo albums and even maps, would have been pulled off shelves, out of drawers and located in other rooms in the house. What began as a one-onone interview would quickly become a family affair recounting a singular drama with interruptions, comments, and even questions forming both for and from our “audience”. The shift from the individual reflection to the very social or public nature of these interactions was so seamless that I did not reflect on the experience until much later

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– when I looked over my fieldnotes and again when I tried to transcribe the tapes! In part these moments seemed to reflect both the strength of the family – extended and nuclear – within the immigrant and refugee community; but I have to wonder, as well, if the children were drawn into the room to listen to their parents or relatives speak about issues that they were clearly actively engaged by but which they, as their children, didn’t (yet?) have the will to ask themselves. Perhaps, as well, they sensed the degree to which questions about the past were also painful ones for their parents to recount. Certainly, my own experience has been of reluctance to ask family and friends to recount their pasts. (It is far easier to speak about the experiences of displacement and loss with community activists than with family members.) As such, their experiences – while related – are somewhat distant. And admittedly, with tape-recorder in hand, I feel less inhibited for it is at that moment that I become a professional, able to ask questions more freely because they are “research-oriented” and meant to fulfill the much wider agenda of “educating the public”. Why then do I also focus on nostalgia and not simply remembering? After several years of fieldwork, my sense is that there is something much more than memory or a collective remembering of a particularly national past in their retellings of displacement and dislocation. There are also acts of remembrance, expressions of regret, of remorse, of decline (Margalit 2002). It would be too simple – though always and already important – to suggest that these are merely oral histories or collective memories of a catastrophic past. They are also much more than shared private remembrances of painful moments and yet also very public gestures of national – if exiled – identifications. Perhaps it is because these oral histories are also autobiographical stories of (a lost) childhood – since all those who recounted their histories were children or teens at the time of their dislocation.5 These sites of ambivalence are also expressions of belonging, of the need to negotiate a location – Canada and Palestine, Palestine and Israel, Israel and Canada. To listen as each person begins to talk about his or her personal history, one that is now wrapped in the destruction and devastation of their communities is painful both for the teller and the listener. It seems to me that during those moments when Palestinians whose families directly experienced the displacement of ’48 discuss Palestinian politics they are also confronting the times in which they now live. In every conversation, there is a tragic awareness of loss. While each longs for Palestine, he or she also accepts that this desire does not conform to an actual place in the world anymore. As one person put it: “it’s over, it’s gone, there’s really nothing left”. I think the reason for their initial hesitation has not only to do with remembering their profound sense of loss, it has also to do with reawakening the bewilderment and disorientation they experienced, for it has to be said, that many of those I 5 This is something that I noticed very early on in the research process and was again prompted to think about after I read Frietzsche who notes that there was a “myriad recollections of childhood that became commonplace in nineteenth century autobiography. It was from the perspective of the lost child that autobiographers apprized the discontinuity between past and present” (2001: paragraph 51).

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interviewed were children and adolescents in the ’48 period. Their loss is not just of a homeland but the very framework with which most people – not illegitimately – make sense of their world and to which their parents and grandparents also always made reference. Furthermore, in this retelling, there seems a conscious awareness that such a framework could never exist in quite the same form again. While their everyday priorities were family, work and health, and almost everyone made a point of telling me so, the immediate presence and absence of Palestine is everywhere, all the time, despite some proclamations that it had been left behind. “It’s not a priority, it’s not my children’s priority and I don’t want it to be; there are too many disappointments in life to want to add this one”. Nevertheless, there seems always the ambivalence: there is the comfort of being in Canada, the need to belong here, and the longing for what Susan Stewart, writing about nostalgia, calls a “future-past” (as cited in Stratton 1997). Stewart writes that, “hostile to history and its invisible origins, and yet longing for an impossibly pure context of lived experience at a place of origin, nostalgia wears a distinctly utopian face, a faced turned toward a future-past, a past which has only ideological reality” (as cited in Stratton, 1997). This longing is not just about remembering the place you have left behind, but about what emerges from the nostalgia, a place in the future. In “Specters of History: Nostalgia, Exile, and Modernity,” Peter Fritzsche writes: “nostalgia … is a seventeenth-century term, coined by Johannes Hofer, a medical student who in 1699 cobbled together the Greek words nostos (return home) and algos (pain) to describe the strange melancholy of Swiss soldiers serving abroad” (2001:paragraph 9). Fritzsche argues that while nostalgia is generally limited to describing reactions to “cultural stress due to social complexity and rapid change”, responses that are “sweet but dumb” – these functionalist readings miss … an appreciation for the way in which nostalgia is predicated on thoroughly modern structures of temporality. Historians have not accounted for the improbable form that nostalgic longing takes or the remarkable discernment of difference in the categories “past” and “present” it assumes. Moreover, they miss how nostalgia expresses a culture of victims that proposes an alternative version of history as catastrophe” (2001: paragraph 10).

Further, he writes, A more useful way to think about nostalgia is to see it in correspondence with the emergence of the historical age. Nostalgia not only cherishes the past for the distinctive qualities that are no longer present but also acknowledges the permanence of their absence… What the ghostly remains of other pasts recall is the fact of other presents and other possibilities. It makes sense, then, to reconsider nostalgia not as blindness but as sightfulness, which completes the modern experience of time with its insistent perception of disaster and its empathy to strangers stranded in the present… (2001: paragraph 11)….This presence of absence is worth paying attention to, for it has had the effect of repeatedly scribbling up the clean slates of modern development and raising unbidden questions about the origins

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Palestine must always and already be described as a reversal of what is present. For many, it is what Palestine once was, but also what it might become that is important. What is in the here and now is mired in the past and the future. For many I spoke to, Palestine can only be lived in an ‘as if’ mode while it is also imagined as it once was. As such, Palestinians experience physical displacement from Israel and Palestine as they simultaneously seek cultural emplacement in their new home, Canada. The space between, this be-longing, is an activity, an active field constituted by dynamic forces both in their homeland and in their new homes. I would have to assume that nostalgia and its ambivalence are also about obligations that are the product and process of shuttling from one position to the other. This activism has enabled Palestinians to openly debate what to some is a radically democratic model of Palestine – multicultural, secular and one that represents a new agenda in Palestinian politics, consisting of calls for democracy, accountability, transparency, and so on. It is a view towards strengthening civil society, posed in these narratives as a counter-structure to the political leaders currently in place. This trend imagines a new era of nation-building and defines the new generation’s role as one that must strengthen civil society. For example, Marwan, from Ramle tells me: The Authority has no power to improve these things; to the contrary, it will sink even further down, and time will come, this is really an historical process, it’s a revolution, time will come. …people can stand up and can initiate a new intifada, the same way that they initiated the intifada against tyranny, against lack of democracy, against violation of human rights, against totalitarianism, against arbitrary detention, against monopoly, against many things. And it will be fair to both peoples but in one state.

The difficulty of making these points is to be found in the contradictions and the gap between the dynamism of living cultures and the static terms of ethnographic readings which either cover the vastness of situations under consideration or turn their back to the enigmas of new formations. The paradoxes of location and orientation alert us to the complexity of any representation of this conflict zone. It is an unstable, evershifting location, both here and there. When I began this research, the debate that raged among Palestinians was whether the Palestine Authority should independently declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza. Today it seems a moot point. But this is Palestine in all its shifting complexities. While this creative freedom contradicts the conventional conception of exile as a place of pain, discontent, anguish, – and I do not mean to displace those emotions, particularly because they counter a restorative, nationalist nostalgia, one likely stronger in the militarily occupied and refugee zones – still I think it important to recognize the distinction.

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According to Svetlana Boym, there are two types of nostalgia, though they are not absolute types, but rather tendencies, ways of giving shape and meaning to longing. Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on nostos and proposes to rebuild a lost home and patch up the memory gaps. Reflective nostalgia dwells in algia, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. The first category of nostalgics do not think of themselves as nostalgic; they believe that their project is about truth. This kind of nostalgia characterizes national and nationalist revivals all over the world, which engage in the antimodern mythmaking of history by means of a return to national symbols and myths and, occasionally, through swapping conspiracy theories. Restorative nostalgia manifests itself in total reconstructions of monuments of the past, while reflective nostalgia lingers on ruins, the patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and another time (2001:41).

Unable to reconstruct monuments to the past, Palestinians remember in reflective ways. Just as these depictions help us to see the ways in which such times may be used to promote nostalgia or to deny conflict and conceal the decentering effects of colonialism, so too can it help to curb the tendency to overemphasise the differences and to question the controlling effects put in place with the militarisation of the conflict and the subsequent relocation of large numbers of people from mixed areas. In her conclusion to The Future of Nostalgia, Boym writes: The object of nostalgia is further away than it appears. Nostalgia is never literal, but lateral. It looks sideways.… Nostalgia, like irony, is not a property of the object itself but a result of an interaction between subjects and objects, between actual landscapes and landscapes of the mind…. In this moment of nostalgic embarrassment, one can begin to recognize the nostalgic fantasies of the other and learn not to trample on them. The border zone between longing and reflection, between native land and exile… opens up spaces of freedom. Freedom in this case is not a freedom from memory but a freedom to remember, to choose the narratives of the past and remake them.… While restorative nostalgia returns and rebuilds ones homeland with paranoic determination, reflective nostalgia fears returning with the same passion. Instead of recreation of the lost home, reflective nostalgia can foster a creative self. (2001: 354).

What has marked this generation is the painful experience of the shock, when they were witness to the annihilation of the old country, experiencing their or their parents’ and relatives’ resignation, fear, shame and disorder but also resistance, retelling, etc. I have been asked on several occasions why I would work on a project on “mixed towns”6 and I know now: because the character of the work voices, even anticipates, 6 There is an inherent tension in the very words “mixed cites” as occluded or alternative spaces in the colony, with the question of force and violence not captured by those same words. Even the word “trapped” seems to reflect a milder experience than, for example, “enslaved” or “imprisoned”.

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present preoccupations with the current social order – a two-state proposal – and presents possibilities for its subversion, for it being otherwise. By taking me with them along this path, the editors of this volume presented me with the opportunity to carefully examine nostalgic narratives in a way that reinforced what many of those I interviewed repeated over the course of many discussions: “it was a different country”. While I want to ensure that stories of displacement and exile are not at all or in any way to be read as other than painful ones, I do want to suggest there may be reason to re-read and re-think past narratives as well. The interviewees’ future-past reflections make more sense when looked at in such relational terms, reflecting and refracting new light to what seems only a dark past. As Deborah Bird-Rose noted, “Hope is the other side of risk, and is utterly fundamental to dialogue” (1996). I wonder, then, if our analyses were to turn to an examination of reciprocity in the face of – and as resistance to – power – one that hinted of the world as it might have been, another path may be taken and another world made possible. As Kimberley Smith notes in “Mere Nostalgia: Notes on a Progressive Paratheory,” …we should recognize that remembering positive aspects of the past should… be seen to express valid desires and concerns about the present – in particular, about its relationship (or lack of relationship) to the past. Those desires and concerns can serve as a valuable basis for social critique” (2000:523).

Bibliography Alcalay, Ammiel. 1993. After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Aruri, N. Ed. 2001. Palestinian Refugees: the Right of Return. Pluto Press: London. Aruri, Naseer H. 2003. Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. Cambridge: South End Press. Bamyeh, Mohammed. 2003. The South Atlantic Quarterly: Palestine America: 102:4. Fall. Benin, Joel. 2004. No More Tears: Benny Morris and the Road Back from Liberal Zionism. Middle East Report. 230 Spring. Benvenisti, Meron. 2000. Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bird-Rose, Deborah. 1996, Rupture and the Ethics of Care in Colonized Space. In Prehistory to Politics, edited by Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Bisharat, G. 1994. Land, law and legitimacy in Israel and the occupied territories. The American University Law Review. 43, 467–561. Bowman, Glenn. 1994. A Country of Words: Conceiving the Palestinian Nation from the Position of Exile. In The Making of Political Identities, edited by Ernest Laclau, 138–170. London: Verso.

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Boyarin, Jonathan. 1994. Space, time and the politics of memory. In Remapping Memory: The Politics of Timespace, edited by Jonathan Boyarin, 1–26. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Clifford, James. 1997. Routes. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress. Connerton, P. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, F. 1979. Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. New York: Macmillian. Fischbach, M. 2003. Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Fritzsche, Peter. 2001. Specters of History: On Nostalgia, Exile, and Modernity. American Historical Review, 106:5. via The History Collective, http://www. history cooperative.org. Ghanem, As’ad. 2001. The Palestinan-Arab Minority in Israel, 1948–2000: A Political Study. Albany: State University of New York Press. Greenberg, Jonathan D. 2005. Generations of Memory: Remembering Partition in India/Pakistan and Israel/Palestine. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 25 (1):89–101. Habib, Jasmin (In preparation) “Property Rites: Cultural Narrations of the Palestinian Catastrophe” for Property Rights, Contestation and Autonomy, edited by William Coleman and John Weaver, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Habib, Jasmin. 2004. Israel, Diaspora and the Routes of National Belonging. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hadawi, S. 1988. Palestinian Rights and Losses: A Comprehensive Study. London: Saqi Books. Hammer, Juliane. 2005. Palestinians Born in Exile: Diaspora and the Search for Homeland. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hodgkin K. and S. Radstone. 2003. Remembering suffering: trauma and history. In Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, edited by K. Hodgkin and S. Radstone, 79–95. London: Routledge. Kanaana, Sharif. 1992. Still on Vacation! The Eviction of the Palestinians in 1948. Jerusalem: Jerusalem International Center for Palestinian Studies. Khalidi, Rashid. 1997. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press. Khalidi, Walid. 1984. Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876–1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. Khalidi, Walid. 1992. All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. Kimmerling, B. 1983. Zionism and Territory: the Socio-territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies.

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Lambeck, Michael. 1996. The Past Imperfect: Remembering as Moral Practice. In Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory, edited by Paul Antze and Michael Lambeck. 235–254.New York: Routledge. Lavie, Smadar and Ted Swedenburg. 1996. Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Levy, Andre and Alex Weingrod. 2005. Homelands and Diasporas: Holy Lands and Other Places. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lynd, Staughton, Alice Lynd, and Sam Bahour. 1994. Homeland: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians. New York: Olive Branch Press. Margilit, Avishai. 2002. The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Morris, Benny. 1988. Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nazzal, Nafez. 1978. Palestinian Exodus from Galilee, 1948. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies. Nora, Pierre. 1989. Between memory and history: les lieux de memoire. Representations. 26:7–25. Pappe, Ilan. 2004. A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rabinowitz, Dan. 2001. Postnational Palestine/Israel? Globalization, Diaspora, Transnationalism and the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Critical Inquiry. Summer. 26: 757–772. Rogan, Eugen L. and Avi Shlaim, eds. 2001. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Said, Edward. 1992. The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage. Said, Edward W. 2002. Reflections on Exile and other essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Said, Edward. The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian SelfDetermination, 1969–1994. New York: Pantheon. Sayigh, Rosemary. 1979. Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries. London: Zed Books. Segev, Tom. 2001. Elvis in Jerusalem:Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel. New York: Metropolitan. Shapira, Anita and Derek Penslar, eds. 2003. Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right. London: Case. Shehad, Raja. 2002. Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine. New York: Penguin. Sider, Gerald and Gavin Smith, Eds. 1997. Introduction. In Between History And Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemoration, edited by Gerald Sider and Gavin Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Silberstein, Laurence J. 1999. The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture. New York: Routledge. Slymovics, Susan. 1998. The Object of Memory: Arabs and Jews Narrate the Palestinian Village. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Smith, Kimberly K. 2000. Mere Nostalgia: Notes on a Progressive Paratheory. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 3 (4):505–527. Stewart, Susan. 1984. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Stratton, Jon. 1997. (Dis)placing the Jews: Historicizing the Idea of Diaspora”. Diaspora 6 (3): 301–329. Swedenburg, Ted. 1995. Memories of the Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tamari, Salim. 2002. Narratives of Exile. Narratives of 1948: Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture. 9 (4). Werbner, Pnina. 1998. Diasporic Political Imaginaries: A Sphere of Freedom or a Sphere of Illusions? Communal/Plural 6(1):11–31. Yaeger, Patricia. 1999. The Geography of Identity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Young, James. 1993. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Chapter 4

Cross-National Collective Action in Palestine’s Mixed Towns: The 1946 Civil Servants Strike 1 David De Vries

Labor activism, a phenomenon which made its entry to world history in the fast growing metropolis that grew in Europe since the 19th century, has become an integral part of modern urbanism. So has, to a large extent, modern nationalism. Anti-colonial situations often had these two trajectories converge, as labor unions assumed central roles in emergent indigenous movements seeking national liberation and political independence. Palestine under the British Mandate was in no exception in this respect, with Jewish as well as Arab parties engaged in labor work in ways that were politicized along exclusionary nationalized lines. This chapter looks at a unique episode: a two weeks long general strike by Jewish and Arab public sector workers in Palestine that took place in April 1946. The significance of the event was that it briefly combined shared pro-workers logic with an anti-colonial sentiment, thus overcoming the separatist inclinations of the two competing nationalized labor movements. In the context of post-war Palestine, such counter intuitive convergence could only crystallize in a mixed town. An analysis of the event can provide important insights into the dynamics of mixed towns in Palestine, and offer more general traits applicable for other contexts. Strikes in general, and joint Arab-Jewish ones in particular, provide telling prisms for the history of these towns. A central component of employment relations in the urban sector, strikes were closely associated with the national conflict, with the Zionist project and with relations between Arabs and Jews. Reflecting economic processes, effecting social mobilization, disrupting and politicizing routines, they were part and parcel of larger systems of relationships between Jews and Arabs. Strikes are also interesting methodologically. As focused events representing cyclical waves they gave exposure to voices otherwise unheard – of ordinary people, of repressed 1 This chapter is a version of my article De Vries, D. 2004. British Rule and ArabJewish Coalescence of Interest: The 1946 Civil Servants Strike in Palestine, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 36 (4): 613–638. I am grateful to Abigail Jacobson, Mahmoud Yazbak and the participants of the Mixed Towns in Israel/Palestine workshop for their valuable comments.

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social anger, of the struggle to prevent social disorder, of strategic political debates, and thus of the drama of the mixed-town life and its experiences. While some strikes are occupationally focused, and hence enclosed in the workplace, many others are far from insular events. They spread to the community and the streets and often express what strikers, sympathizers and opponents think on crucial public issues. This complex and under-researched aspect of the social history of pre-1948 Palestine is yet another indication that Palestine’s mixed towns were vibrant, dynamic foci of political fermentation, and a good reason to look into the various actors that shaped their character. In 1946 Palestine was home to two mobilized societies. Increasing tension between the indigenous populations – both Arab and Jewish – and the Palestine Mandatory Government was reflected in political unrest and violence. This was accompanied with the growing role of the USA in the debate on the future of the territory, and in the convening in late 1945 of the Anglo-American Committee. The transition from a war economy to reconstruction produced immense economic and social tensions in the mixed towns. Financial crisis at government level caused difficulties in absorbing ex-servicemen and growing unemployment among both Arabs and Jews. This further destabilized employment relations in towns such as Haifa, Jerusalem and Jaffa, where employment hinged primarily on the bureaucracy, the railways and the military. New labor militancy grew as a result of the economic and social impact of the war, and the cycle of strikes that took place during the war. Significantly, this new militancy encouraged, and was fed by, unprecedented cooperation between Arab and Jewish workers who were occasionally united in improvement struggles and labor protests against the government (Shalev 1992: 166–172, Gross and Metzer 1996: 59–82, Louis 1984: Ch. 2). British labor policy in Palestine was based primarily on running the country as cheaply and with as low burden on British taxpayers as possible. Traditionally this implied preference for employing low-wage Arab workers over Jewish ones in the state sector, but during the war this economizing principle was further accentuated by the massive intervention of the government in the economy and large-scale mobilization of the population. Essential too in British labor policy was the leaning on leading and organized sectors in Palestine’s economy – either for economic investment or, following the British inter-war model of cultivating ‘sound trade-unionism’, for keeping the economy and employment relations stable and peaceful. In the early 1940s the British established a local Labor Department, and began cultivating top down restrained unionization among Arab workers. A ban on strikes in essential services, modeled on wartime anti-strike policies in Britain, was effective from January 1942, becoming a cornerstone of the government’s attempt to anticipate and contain industrial unrest (Metzer 1998: Chs. 4 and 6, Lockman 1996: Chs. 7–8, Bernstein 2000: Ch.1). Despite the ban the last years of the war and the post-war period saw however increasing workers’ militancy, but significantly also growing Arab-Jewish cooperation in strike action, particularly in the State sector. This was of course in stark contrast with the national orientation of joint action in the 1920s and 1930s, in which the Zionist Labor Movement manipulated and practically

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militated against Arab-Jewish cooperation (Bernstein Chs. 1 and 6, De Vries 2002: 93–122). The association between increased workers’ militancy and Arab-Jewish labor cooperation has been explained either in material terms – increased employment opportunities, wartime inflation, and the decline of workers’ purchasing power – or politically – as mutual political realization by Arab and Jewish labor parties and organizations of their inability to attain gains for workers without restraining their national opposition to cooperation. However, these approaches ignored the government’s formative role in labor lives in the mixed towns and its impact on their militancy and ability to transcend national divisions. To explain the association between growing workers’ militancy and Arab-Jewish labor cooperation in the mixed towns, the ‘Mandate State’ must be therefore brought back in. As demonstrated by this study of the 1946 cross-national civil servants’ strike the government created a discrepancy that reproduced contradictions in other parts of the Empire. On the one hand, its interventionist economic policy asked to deal with the effects of the war on the population by getting more involved in determining labor incomes and working conditions. On the other hand, the government was unwilling to adapt its long-standing principles of economic thrift and ‘sound unionism’ to the needs that its policy created (Smith 1993: Ch. 7, Likhovski 1998: 689–721: Gaskin 1992: 100– 113). In April 1946 Palestine experienced one of the largest strikes since the beginning of British rule. In terms of the number of the strikers, the length of the strike and the paralyzing effect it had, this was an unprecedented event. For the first time ever, the mass of low-grade, mostly Arab civil servants opted for a general strike as their primary tool of industrial action. Moreover, in contrast with earlier practice in both the Jewish and the Arab sectors, the strike entailed comprehensive crossnational Arab-Jewish cooperation and joint action by office and manual workers. That such an unusual strike occurred in the midst of the turbulent year of 1946 and the deliberations of the Anglo-American Committee on the future of Palestine in particular turned the event and the cooperation it entailed ever more dramatic. Despite growing militancy during the war and a similar post-war strike wave across the British and French Empires administrators in Britain and Palestine did not expect such focused militancy from government civil servants, or such enthusiastic, crossnational and grass-root cooperation. Arab and Jewish activists in political parties and the unions, who previously employed strikes and other symbols of resistance in the context of the ethno-national struggle, were confounded by their lack of influence over the strikers. The press – both Arabic and Hebrew – wavered between enthusiasm and confusion in the face of this counter-intuitive coalition between workers from opposite sides of the ethnic divide. More dramatic and perplexing was the way the strike ended, with an uncharacteristic submission on the part of the British authorities. Few expected such a complete volte face of an administration known for harsh treatment of its challengers (Baer 1947: 76–83, Taqqu 1977: Ch. 10, Lockman: 1996: 332–335, Bernstein 2000: 201–202).

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Arab-Jewish collective action in the government sector was not an entirely unusual. As a joint workplace, the administration lacked the features that hampered joint action in the Arab and Jewish economies such as Arab opposition to the Jewish Labor Movement and its segregationist ideology, and the restraining impact of the Histadrut (the umbrella organization of Jewish Labor) on common organization. Indeed, in contrast to Jewish and Arab in the non-government sector, the civil service facilitated lingering co-existence of employees from both ethno-national groups, a trend enhanced by the consistent expansion of the colonial administration with jobs that were attractive for both Arab and Jewish manual and white-collar workers (Wasserstein 1978: Chs. 7–9, Reuveny 1993: 82–106). The relevance of government jobs for urban development in Palestine cannot be overstated. Government positions, whether manual or white collar, promised a monthly salary and greater job permanency. Furthermore, working for the bureaucracy conferred certain social standing, as the employees were considered part and parcel of daily urban power. In the absence of joint Arab-Jewish frameworks, exemplified above all by the failure to establish a country-wide legislative council, Government employees were often perceived as mediators between the ruling power-center and society at large, operating alongside formal representatives institutions of the two national communities. This imbued government employment with particular attraction both for the growing Arab middle class elite and for urban Jewish immigrants (Taqqu 1977: Ch. 10, Reuveny 1991: 43–75, De Vries 1997: 373–400). The office work culture that evolved in the administration and the ideology of loyalty to civil service cultivated by the British was another factor that encouraged urban cross-national co-existence. This co-existence was partly due to the noncompetitive nature of Government employment, despite its attraction and the longstanding efforts of the Histadrut to increase the number of Jews employed. In contrast to Palestine’s agrarian, building and industrial labor markets, ethnic tensions among non-British personnel in the administration were thus well restrained. Growing communal opposition to colonial rule, espoused by the Jewish and Palestinian national leaders in the 1940s, hardly harmed this attractiveness and the relative privileges that Table 4.1

British Government Employees in Palestine December 1945 (Excluding Police)

Employees Total Arabs Jews Others

28928 22183 5399 1346

Permanent

Casual

18224* 12649 4468

10704 9534 931

* Among these were 493 British personnel. Source: Based on Reuveny, Mimshal Hamandat, 236.

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Government work conferred. Thus, as a joint workplace the bureaucracy provided a work culture based not only on notions of service and local prestige, but also on a sort of a non-national community of interest among the employees which evolved in parallel to national affiliation and often defied it. This was often suspected by Arab and Jewish politicians, and openly criticized by nationally oriented labor organizations on both sides (Government of Palestine 1943, A.M. November 1944, Taqqu 1977: Ch. 10).2 As in many parts of the Empire Palestine’s urban population was deeply affected by the war. Firstly, it accelerated an inflationary process, with cost of living trebling between 1938 and 1945. Secondly, dearth of essential commodities triggered the development of a vibrant black market. Finally real wages and the purchasing power of the lower and middle classes declined. Inflation and the black market affected government employees in particular, as their salaries were fixed: the government as their employer was quite effective in resisting wage demands advanced by workers and their representatives. Thus, between 1939 and 1945 the purchasing power of the salaried civil servants decreased by 60%, and relative to industrial workers their standard of living greatly diminished. While the government conceded to Histadrutbacked demands to increase cost-of-living payments, it neglected its own salaried staff, causing its real wages to fall considerably behind industrial workers. This redistribution of income worsened because of the slackness in government control of prices and the black market, by increasing taxation, and, as the anxiety of old-timers in government offices testified, by restricting the number of employees entitled to government pensions (Kroy January 1946, Taqqu 1977: Ch. 10, Gaskin 1992: 100–113).3 The consequences of these failures far exceeded the problem of decline in purchasing power. Government employees expressed a growing sense of neglect by the Government and the lack of backing by organized Jewish Labor and by Arab unions. Comparing themselves to industrial workers that enjoyed increased wages and allowances to clerks outside the Government who received greater salaries and increased cost-of-living allowances and to the ameliorated conditions of higher officials, the civil servants felt growing deprivation. Their social standing as expressed in their proximity to power and by their loyalty to service could not compensate anymore for this decline in living standards and desperation. Furthermore, they interpreted their impoverishment, their growing inability to afford accommodation in high-rent government-leased buildings, and the appalling state of health of their families, as paying the cost of the Government’s long-standing economic policy of maintaining a low-cost administration. References to loss of dignity and to authoritarian attitudes of British superiors became more prevalent, playing an increasingly central role, in a breach of atmosphere of the Civil Service workplace. 2 LA IV236-622; SDA to CS, 17 July 1943, PRO CO/733/457/15. 3 SDA to CS, 17 July 1943, PRO CO/733/457/15; SDA Bulletin 2/44, 15 June 1944, LA IV 236-622.

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These pressures and the violation of the reciprocal relations between the civil servants and the Government made joint action between Arabs and Jews a shared interest, with the Government as a common adversary. Sensing a breach of the ‘social contract’ which ostensibly characterized the Civil Service, Jews and Arabs soon found themselves not merely sharing loyalty to public service, but also as people on the receiving end of the economic effects of war and of Government neglect of its employees (Avi-Rut November 1944, Taha April 1946).4 In these circumstances anti-Government action was expected, not least since ventilation of social anger was widespread across the Empire and was known to the employees in Palestine from the daily press. In practice there were a number of avenues of legitimate protest. As indicated earlier, the Government itself had encouraged Arab workers to unionize earlier in the war. Additionally, there was Arab membership in the International Union of Railway, Post and Telegraph Workers established in 1919. The government was reluctant to give this union formal recognition, insisting on the precondition that it severs it ties with the Jewish Histadrut first. Since the late 1920s most of its Arab members were in fact associated with the Palestine Arab Workers Society (PAWS), leaving the local branch of the International Union of Railway, Post and Telegraph Workers under Histadrut control. Government restriction on formal affiliation of the civil servants with this organization in fact determined the absence of many Government employees from joint Arab-Jewish labor disputes. Another organization was the Palestine Civil Service Second Division Association (SDA), which since the late 1920s occasioned Arab-Jewish cooperation but was not affiliated to either the Histadrut or the PAWS. The question of representation associated with affiliation in these organizations, and the attempts of government to curb and to control them was an important contributing factor to the strike (Graves 1942:2–3, Lockman 1996: Chs. 4–5).5 The SDA leadership, structured equally of Moslems, Christians and Jews, and headed by the Haifa Christian customs officer Labib Fuleihan and the Jewish clerk Yosef Perkal, was seen by many as de-facto government department. A subdued association, its affiliation with organized Labor was indeed minimal. This image of the SDA was partly justified by the government’s refusal to recognize the principle of collective bargaining in the administration, leaving pay and working conditions to Government committees and to final approval by the Colonial Office and the Treasury in London. The SDA’s limited influence was undoubtedly linked to its reluctance to join forces with the other unions, particularly with those which espoused the right to strike (Weiler 1984: 367–392, Lowe 1986: 116–131, Wrigley 1996: 12–38).

4 SDA Memorandum, 27 May 1944, in SDA Bulletin, 2/44, 15 June 1944, LA IV236622; PRO CO/733/468/27; HLC to the Histadrut Unemployment Fund, 1 April 1946, LA IV208-4696. 5 H. E. Chudleigh to Abba Hushi, 23 October 1943, LA IV219-46; Histadrut Executive, 23 May 1945, LAL; Mishmar, 17 April 1946; Falastin, 16 and 17 April 1946; A.F. Kirby, Palestine Railways, Rates of Pay and Conditions of Service for Wages Staff, 1 June 1947, RH.

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All this pertained of course also to Jewish civil servants, whose affiliation with the Histadrut and freedom to join collective industrial action was effectively curtailed. Organized disputes and attempts of cooperation between Arab and Jewish political parties or politically oriented labor organizations were effectively out of bounds for civil servants. Consequently, whereas both Arab and Jewish employees in the mixed towns were conscious of the evolving national conflict, they were in many ways secluded from organized labor and nationally oriented labor politics. This was compounded, on the Jewish side, by the decreasing number of Jews among Government employees. This decline, caused by the decline in real wages and the failure of the civil service to offer salary levels equal to those offered in the private Jewish sector, meant less rank-and-file affiliation with organized labor outfits. The poor relations between the SDA and the Histadrut, and the lack of influence on government of either the Histadrut or Arab union activists, was another aspect of this problem (Reuveni 1993: 102–103).6 During the war, civil servants’ sense of a workplace community was consolidated due to increased levels of economic involvement on the part of government and the obvious centrality of the Service for the war effort. This, however did not translate to action, not least because the Histadrut and PAWS were barred from work with civil servants. Arab fears that pressure on the Government to better the conditions of the civil servants was a Zionist conspiracy further hampered cooperation between the two organizations. Until 1944 Arab dominated SDA’s ties with the Histadrut were in fact secretive, as SDA’s leadership tactically elected to keep them low key. This was so not only because the authorities restricted political activity, but also because it could harm the standing of the employees as valued mediators with the Government. Arab-Jewish co-existence in the administration was thus closely associated with this a-political approach. This largely a-political tenor was the context of SDA’s restraint, its character as a merely formal representative association of its rank-and-file and its preference to work with the Government rather than against it. The economic changes that took place during the war further accentuated the demarcating lines between the SDA’s organizational culture and the militancy of Jewish industrial workers and Arab workers in the railways and in British army camps. The cooperation between the Government and the Histadrut (exemplified by the latter’s reluctant approval of the ban on strikes and wage committees as the only scene of wage negotiations), served to keep government offices out of the orbit of collective action. The relationship between the SDA’s moderation and the

6 Pepperman to Leo Cohn at the JA, 11 November 1945, CZA, S9/7751; Haifa Jewish Telegraphists to the JA, 19 December 1945, CZA S-25/7751; Histadrut Executive, 10 April 1946, LAL; Though featuring extensively in SDA’s correspondence no biographical information was found on its leaders Labib Fuleihan and Yosef Perkal. As far as known Fuleihan led the SDA until the 1948 war.

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impenetrability of the administration by organized labor such as the Histadrut and PAWS became evermore evident (Shohami 1946).7 The moderation of the SDA became crucial when the pressure of its rank-andfile was frustrated by Government’s intransigence. Some disputes took a theatrical shape. In May 1943, for example, a ‘beard strike’ was staged by employees who showed up at work unshaven, thus challenging the culture of cleanliness espoused by British officials. There were short hunger strikes such as one in June that year, in which the employees demanded higher cost-of-living allowances by stressing the contrast between hunger and work efficiency. This demand was reiterated by the SDA in 1944, who openly criticized lack of Government control of black market profiteering and discriminatory calculation of cost-of-living index. Calculation of allowances according to workers’ incomes rather than by their purchase power was interpreted as a clear preference for the better paid industrial workers who, unlike the civil servants, enjoyed new pay agreements drawn by the Histadrut and the Jewish industrialists. Thus, when the Government supported a new allowance agreed by Tel Aviv Municipality and its employees but at the same time resisted SDA’s demands to apply the agreement in the Civil Service, a ‘silence stoppage’ was called in which clerks remained seated silent at their desks for 16 minutes, signaling controlled disobedience and limited protest (Pkidei 1944, Dan 1946).8 As the war drew to a close anti-Government industrial militancy began to grow. This was reflected in a 24-hour strike in May 1945. Formulated by the SDA, the 21 demands presented by the strikers focused on inclusion of more employees in the pension scheme, re-grading salary scales and increase of cost-of-living allowances. Though the vocabulary was still restrained, new symbols were emerging that tried to reconcile loyalty to service and to office work efficiency with outrage against distrust and humiliation. Unlike earlier episodes, joint action now spread beyond the offices and, significantly, reflected growing coordination with the Histadrut. The High Commissioner tried to prevent the May 1945 strike, promising to lean on the Colonial Office to comply with the demands. The Jewish Agency, while supporting the ‘economic’ nature of the demands likewise tried to dissuade the Jewish members of the SDA from action, claiming that the date of the strike coincided with an anti-colonial Arab strike in Syria and in Lebanon with which Arabs in Palestine identified. The failure of these pressures to prevent the strike was an indication that the SDA was gradually becoming a viable trade union, espousing Arab-Jewish 7 HSP Minutes, 21 July 1941, LA IV250-27-3-168-a; David Remez to the Labour Advisor, 10 July 1941, LA IV104-205; “Forward to SDA members”, June 1943, PRO CO/733/457/15; S. Salomon to Histadrut Arab Department, 10 October 1943, LA IV104-14327; H.E. Chudleigh to Abba Hushi, 23 October 1943, LA IV219-46; Yehezkel Abramov to the Histadrut Executive, 25 March 1946, LA IV208-1-5781; Histadrut Executive, 23 May 1945, LAL; Meeting of Dr. Joseph with Mr. Vinograd, 3 January 1946, CZA S-25/7221. 8 SDA to CS, 8 June 1943 and 17 July 1943, PRO CO/733/457/15; SDA Bulletin, 2, 15 June 1944, and SDA Instructions for the ‘Silent Strike’, 12 December 1944, LA IV236-622; Employment Committee, First Interim Report, 27 October 1944, PRO FO/921/312; Histadrut Executive, 23 May 1945, LAL; SDA to CS, 4 February 1946, LA IV250-27-1-1673.

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cooperation while successfully steering away from national politics (Shevitat April 1945, Shevitat May 1945).9 After the war, the employees’ twin problems of material hardship and restrained representation aggravated as the new political climate accentuated the discrepancy between the wish to ease the effect of the war on labor and the government’s longstanding principles. Labor’s assumption of power in Britain in the summer of 1945 had the promise of liberalization of labor policies both at home and in the colonies. In Palestine too, as soon as the burden of war eased, the administration was able to divert attention to economic reconstruction. Meanwhile, the political climate was quickly changing too, as ethno-national tensions between Jews and Arabs grew and as Britain and the international community started rethinking the long term future of Palestine. In this complex context the administration sought industrial calm and was prepared to be responsive to employees’ demands for compensation for the decline they had experienced in the war. Officials in Palestine’s Labor Department saw this new climate as an opportunity to enhance labor relations through further development of conciliation channels between workers and employers. For many of the workers, government employees no exception, this was a time of heightened expectation that their erstwhile sense of loyal service for the government would at long last be rewarded (Gilbert 1996: 136–137, Smith 1996).10 These expectations were however soon frustrated. Labor’s assumption of power in Britain did not bring about a significant change of policy towards labor in the colonies as liberalization of controls at home promised. This was borne out by Prime Minister Attlee’s anti-strike policy, the regulation of demand and the control of public expenditure. These policies were largely supported by the unions in Britain and led to restraints on wage increases and industrial action. The Palestine Government followed suit with a reluctance to annul the ban on strikes decreed four years earlier. More significantly, the Government diverted some attention from political developments pertaining to the future of Palestine, putting more effort than before into issues such as growing deficit, decreasing demand, stopping the flood of imported goods and the economic re-absorption of ex-servicemen (Jeffery and Hennessy 1983: 143–147).11 The SDA was willing to accommodate procrastination, at least up to a point. In October 1945, for example, it published a memorandum on salary scales which represented a compromise. “Nothing other than inefficiency”, it moderately explained, “should prevent an officer from proceeding uninterruptedly to a salary point which would provide him with a decent standard of living compatible with the 9 Correspondence between Leo Kohn and Moshe Shertok, 21 May 1945, CZA S25/7221; Histadrut Executive, 23 May 1945, LAL; SDA Memorandum, June 1945, PRO CO/733/457/15; Al-Ittihad, 17 June 1945. 10 Department of Labour Bulletin, 13 (10–12, 1945). 11 Department of Labour Bulletin, 11 (April–June, 1945); SDA Leaflet and Memorandum, June 1945, PRO CO/733/457/15; Departmental Conference, Department of Labour, 6, 12 and 13 July 1945, RH MSS. Medit. S. 16, Couzens; PRO 733/468/27; HC to CO, 19 February 1946, Alan Cunningham Papers, Box 1, File 1, MEC.

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social standing his status in Government services exacts from him, and ultimately provide him with a reasonable pension or gratuity on retirement.” Closely examined, however, the memorandum indicated growing disaffection with government neglect, probably reflecting a degree of rank-and-file pressure on the SDA.12 Meanwhile, the testimonies of the civil servants in the press disclosed the extent of their isolation. They could neither enjoy the wartime material achievements by industrial workers, or the promises of amelioration given to first division officers. Furthermore, they were angered by attempts on the part of the Histadrut to weaken the SDA, demonstrated by an attempt to set up a Jewish section of government employees. Isolated from organized labor, feebly represented by their association, and continuously defied by a stringent colonial government, the civil servants’ conditions worsened (Government of Palestine 1946: 731–779). The discrepancy between their heightened expectations and frustration was a main cause for the growing pressure in early 1946 to force the Government to recognize its responsibility for the costs of the war (Pakid 1946, Fitzgerlad 1946). One Histadrut functionary summarized the situation by saying that “the workers were motivated by the hunger, the sense of deprivation and insult, the feeling that they were both deprived and consistently lied to.”13 By treating the SDA as part of the administration and by weakening the influence of organized labor, the Government drew the civil servants together, further pushing them to organize regardless of the ethno-national divide. It was not merely the decline of employees’ real wages and their status anxiety that drove Arabs and Jews to cooperate but a distinct sense of the failure of organized forces to withstand the government’s intransigence and the inability of the SDA to properly represent them. This was the context for the extraordinary event that was about to unfold in April 1946. Contrary to government claims, the pressure to express outrage through a general strike did not originate with Arab or Jewish unions. Neither was it motivated by labor politicians pushed by their constituencies to impact the deliberations of the Anglo-American Committee which was convened in early April 1946 and which immediately aggravated ethno-national tensions. While these forces had a background role to play, industrial action stemmed primarily from the rank-and-file, and reflected the transformation of relations within the SDA and between the SDA and the government. By ignoring the effects of the war on employees, by differentiating between sectors of workers and by keeping the SDA at bay as a moderate, subservient organ, 12 Quoted in L. Fuleihan and J. Perkal to CS, 18 October 1945, LA IV250-72-1-1673; see also Arthur Dawe conversation with the Treasury, 25 July 1945, PRO CO/733/468/25; Deputations from I and II Divisions, Civil Service Associations, 22 August 1945, LA IV25072-1-1673. 13 Quoted in Mordechai Nemirovsky at the Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; SDA Haifa district committee, 22 January 1946, LA IV260-27-1-1666; Haifa Jewish letter-carriers to the JA, 15 March 1946, CZA S25-7751; Zvi Berenzon to CS, 14 January 1947, LA IV208-1-4450-b.

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the Government contributed to the emergence of an event that was unthinkable in terms of the relationship between Arab and Jewish civil servants. It shaped a coalescence of interests which were directed at once against the Government, against the better-off industrial workers and, as I show below, even against the SDA. This coalescence transcended national boundaries, set itself against the social costs of colonial rule, and would soon threaten the government’s principles and quest for political tranquility.14 Strike action began on the 9 of April 1946 by some 500 Arab and Jewish employees of the Post and Telegraph Department in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. The strikers (mostly unclassified postal and telephone employees) protested against the government’s rejection of their demands regarding the effects of the war on their living standards, working conditions and postwar economic future. The next day 1,500 Arab and Jewish postal and telephone employees in other towns joined them, shutting down most of Palestine’s post and telephone services. Five days later the strikers were joined by 7,000 Arab and Jewish railway workers in Haifa and other towns. On April 16 the entire low-grade civil service was on strike, lasting until the morning of April 24. During these two weeks, starting with a departmental dispute and turning into a general strike of some 23,000 Government employees, Palestine’s communication and transport systems was virtually at a standstill. Table 4.2

Employees in Various Departments, December 1945 Total

Arabs

Jews

Post, Telephone & Telegraph Permanent Casual

2874 * 2192 632

1671 1249 422

1153 943 210

Railways & Ports Permanent Casual

6205 ** 3388 2817

5185 2478 2707

550 440 110

Notes: The Post, Telephone and Telegraph Department employed 21.4% of all Jewish Government employees and 7.5% of all Arab employees. *The total includes 50 others. ** The total includes 470 others. Source: Based on Reuveny, Mimshal Hamandat, 236.

14 Yehezkel Abramov to the Tel Aviv Labour Council, 3 January 1946, LA IV250-72-11568; Jewish Telegraphists to the JA, 4 January 1946, and Haifa Jewish Postmen to the JA, 15 March 1946, CZA S-25/7751; Meeting of Richard Graves and Zvi Berenzon, 4 February 1946, LA IV208-1-4434-a; Labour Department Bulletin, 14, (January–March, 1946); HC to CO, 1 April 1946, and 2 April 1946, MEC; HC to CO, 25 April 1946, ISA, CO 733/75156/156/46.

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The decision of the postal employees to force their department and the government to alleviate their grievances emerged during the first week of April. An element that may have assisted this spontaneous action of the postal and telegraph workers was the relatively large number of Jewish employees, and by the fact that a propensity to strike has always been much stronger amongst Jews than amongst Arabs. Another reason way postal and telegraph employees became more militant more readily was that many of them were tenured employees with fixed salaries, precisely the people who had been most adversely affected by inflation and loss of purchase power during the war and after it (M.D. 10 April 1946, Baer and Stern 1946:110–124).15 At one stage the Jewish postal employees turned to two experienced labor organizations closely associated with the Histadrut – the Railway Post and Telegraph Workers’ Organization and the Tel Aviv Histadrut Labor Council. The Council, a major player in the politics of the Jewish Yishuv, became convinced that this was a politically opportune moment, agreed to sympathize but stipulated that the strike should remain a limited affair and will not become overly provocative. The outbreak of the strike thus stunned the government as it contrasted to the civil servants’ erstwhile moderation and because it violated the prevailing ban on strikes. When word of the strike reached the High Commissioner’s office, the reaction was an immediate promise made to the postal workers to have their demands conveyed to the Colonial Office and a hurried dispatch of the police to government offices in Jaffa where the strikers congregated. In defiance, and despite the lack of proper organizational structure to back the strikers and coordinate them, the strike spread to Jewish and Arab postal employees in the larger Jaffa and Tel Aviv area, thus making it clear that the Tel-Aviv Labor Council (the local Histadrut branch) lost whatever influence it may have had on events. Spontaneous action spread now to other towns, and despite SDA calls for moderation local committees of Arab and Jewish postal workers organized assemblies in front of government offices (Perlmutter 1946). All government telegraph and radio networks were gradually shut down. The dispatch of army personnel to replace the striking employees made little difference. Gestures of sympathy for the postal strikers came from workers in mixed Arab-Jewish municipalities, many of whom threatened to start a strike of their own. It was like “the outburst of a volcano… it was more than they could bear”, reported one of the journals of the Jewish Labor Movement on the beginning of the strike; and the leader of the Haifa Labor Council added, “there was an elementary uprising of forces that nobody controlled.”16 The unexpected eruption and its immediate effects on the country’s communications forced the government to start negotiations with the strikers. The government in fact sent some of its best administrators to the negotiation table. 15 CS to CO, 10 April 1946, and 25 April 1946, ISA 733/457, 75156/156/46; Histadrut Executive, 10 April 1946 and 24 April 1946, LAL. 16 Quoted in N. Ben-Shalom, “Lesiuma Shel Shevita Ovdei Hamemshala (At The End of the Government Employees’ Strike)”, Hapoel Hatsair, 8 May 1946; and Abba Khushi, Histadrut Arab Department, 15 May 1946, GH (2) 25.90.

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R.M. Graves was Head of Labor Department; H.E., Chudleigh was his deputy; G.D Kennedy was the Postmaster General, and G.T. Farley, the Acting Principal Secretary, kept close contact with John Shaw, the Chief Secretary and with Alan Cunningham, the High Commissioner himself. This unusual grouping of high officials obviously testified to the sense of emergency with which the British treated the situation. However, it also exerted enormous pressure on the strikers, all of whom were unaccustomed to such high-leveled engagement with their affairs. The strikers’ 14-member delegation demonstrated how unplanned the strike was. On the one hand it consisted of postal employees, elected democratically in mass meetings, and evidently lacking any experience in negotiations over pay and working conditions with an intransigent employer such as the British post, telephone and telegraph department. The delegation included old-time activists such as Labib Fuleihan the head of the SDA, which at that stage was yet to join the strike, Yehezkel Abramov, the head of the joint Railway, Post and Telegraph Workers’ Union, and Sami Taha, the prominent Arab trade union leader, representing the PAWS. These three hoped for a rapid settlement with the PTT. Unaccustomed in organizing strikes Fuleihan feared government reaction. Abramov, the veteran leader of the Jews in the railways resented a struggle on which the Histadrut lacked control. Sami Taha of the PAWS, though known for his willingness to cooperate with Jewish workers, suspected that Arab-Jewish cooperation might be manipulated by the Zionist Histadrut at the expense of the Arab employees (Taha 1946).17 These voices could not however withstand the pressure from below, and the ensuing negotiations were affected by the ominous prospect that the postal strike would spread to the entire civil service. Joint Arab Jewish vigils stood in front of postal offices in the mixed towns, and public support of the strikers became widespread. Some government employees tried to cross the picket lines but they were overshadowed by joint processions in which calls of “Long live Jewish Arab Unity” received public approval. The hurried negotiations, which surprised the strikers, demonstrated the government’s realization of the potential cost of the strike. It promised the strikers that their demands would be considered thoroughly; not only by departmental managers but also by the High Commissioner and the Joint Consultative Committee, and that these recommendations would be hurriedly sent to London for approval. The answer, practically accepting a third of the strikers’ demands, reflected what the administration defined as its ‘limits of concession’. Impressed by the government’s good will, and by the decision to send two high officials to London, the SDA succeeded in convincing the strikers’ delegation to stop the strike.18

17 HC to CO, 10, 11 and 12 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; Histadrut Executive, 10 April 1946, LAL; Palestine Post, Mishmar, and Davar 10–14 April 1946. 18 Palestine Post, 12 April 1946; Davar, 11–12 April 1946; Al-Ittihad, 14 April 1946; CS to the Anglo-American Committee and the CO, 11 and 12 April 1946, CS to the CO, 16 and 21 April 1946, ISA CO 733/457 75156/156/46; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive,

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The proposed agreement disappointed the rank-and-file. First, the strikers consented to return to work before their demands were met in full. Secondly, while agreement was reached about a raise in minimum daily wage of postal employees, its implementation was postponed until an inquiry into what constituted reasonable living wage in Palestine would be completed. Thirdly, the promise to raise the minimum monthly salary and to reform the grading of the employees was preconditioned on Colonial Office approval. Finally, while the government accepted the need to improve the promotion system in Post and Telegraph Department, it refrained from including more employees in the government pension scheme. To many strikers the situation was reminiscent to what they had experienced during the war, when an intransigent government and their own representatives, who largely shared the government’s views on conflict resolution, attempted to contain a radicalized sector of workers.19 Gradually the disaffection of the postal employees began to spread to other government departments. The railway workers, for example, added their particular grievances: poor work conditions, low pay compared to private companies, insufficient cost-of-living allowances and arbitrary dismissals. They stressed the government’s refusal to acknowledge its responsibility for the dire economic effects of the war, and the ineffectiveness of the railway union to persuade the government, and soon developed a fighting spirit akin to that of postal employees. Seizing the opportunity presented by the strike, including the government’s willingness to negotiate and to concede, the railways workers joined the strike on April 15 – first at their center in Haifa, later spreading to branches is all other towns. The movement of trains stopped, both inside the country and between Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, and the government’s attempts to replace trains with light locomotives ran by British soldiers failed to have an effect. The front facing the government was widening as the terms of the negotiations grew more complicated and the economic cost of the strike increased (Graves 1947). The spread of the strike as a cross-national event proved the failure of the government’s ban on strikes in essential services. The Histadrut backing of the Arab and Jewish strikers strengthened, and was baldly embodied in the financial and political support extended to the railway workers by the Haifa Labor Council. Support came also from the Arab Communist press and from the leftist Arab Workers Congress (which broke off from the PAWS) which praised the ‘anti-colonial struggle’ and the example set by civil servants for Arab-Jewish cooperation. In the eyes of government officials and SDA leaders the increasing involvement of forces outside the government workplace threatened to change the nature of the strike.20

24 April 1946, LAL; Richard Graves to the Railway, Post and Telegraph Workers Union, 13 April 1946, LA IV236-43. 19 Davar, 14–15 April 1946; Mishmar 14–15 April 1946; Al-Ittihad 14 April 1946; CS to the CO, 16 April 1946, ISA CO 733/457 75156/156/46. 20 Davar, 17 April 1946; Secretariat of Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL.

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It was largely in consequence of the rejection of the government proposals by the postal employees and the joining in of the railway workers that an assembly of 1,000 members of the Haifa SDA branch decided to join the strike without the prior approval of the SDA. The demands formulated by the assembly drew the general contours of struggle: the fulfillment of long standing demands, equalization of pay with clerks in the private sector, increased allowances, war bonus and regrading of salary scales. Joining the strike, it was argued, was in support of the postal workers and came as a logical step after the railway workers joined. The impact was immediate. An outstanding meeting of the SDA’s General Council was held at the Arab Orthodox Club in Haifa, attended by representatives of all SDA District Committees. The council formally decided that all civil servants should join the strike, and that a committee under Fuleihan’s leadership (comprised of 2 Arab Muslims 2 Arab Christians and 2 Jews) should coordinate it.21 The decision of the SDA to join the strike, which was put in action on April 16, was undoubtedly informed by a realization that staying out might split the civil servants’ ranks, thus opening the way for the nationally oriented Histadrut and PAWS to take over the crisis and steer it in their respective direction. “Realizing the present situation in its picture”, declared the SDA, “and lest confusion results which may give other elements the chance to take control of the situation… it had no alternative but to take charge and lead the strike emphatically demanded by every civil servant in the country.” The SDA decided therefore that distancing themselves from government could be avoided only by combining active representation of the rank-and-file with setting clear limits to potential action. This Janus-faced character of the SDA, one responsive to pressure from-below, the other apprehensive of militancy and adhering to its status as servants of the ‘State’, was what prompted it to join the strike.22 The impact of the SDA’s entry was momentous. It turned the dispute into a general strike of the entire lower-grade civil service, thus widening Arab-Jewish cooperation and collective action quite considerably. Practically it meant an almost a total paralysis of the country’s communication system, its export and import activity and government urban civilian operations. Instigating a serious disruption of political and economic routines, the strike was viewed by the authorities as a major threat to the ‘industrial peace’, so crucial during such a period of turmoil. If the strike had begun as a departmental affair, now the entire civil service was united around a

21 Mishmar 14 April 1946; Palestine Post, 15–17 April 1946; Al-Ittihad, 14 April 1946; Davar, 15–17 April 1946; CS to the CO, 16 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; Secretariat of Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL. 22 Quoted in SDA Declaration, Circular 1, 16 April 1946, LA IV236-3-43; see also CS to the Anglo-American Committee and the CO, 16 April 1946, ISA CO/ 733/457 75156/156/46; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; Bulletin of the Histadrut Arab Department, 19, LAL.

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Table 4.3

The Structure of the April 1946 Strike

Strikers

Total

Arabs

Jews

Dates

PTT* Railways Civil Service** Public Works Port Workers All Strikers

2000 7000 10000 2500 1500 23000

1200 6600 7500 1900 ? 18700

800 400 2500 600 ? 4300

9–23.4 15–23.4 16–23.4 16–23.4 16–23.4 16–23.4

*Post, Telephone and Telegraph Department; **Second Division, excluding the PTT department. Sources: Secretariat of Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; SDA Communiqué, 17 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671.

desire to achieve as much as the striking sectors would, to abolish lingering neglect and, not least, to question the basic principles of the government’s labor policy.23 By joining the strike and thus switching from moderation to militancy, the SDA effectively became responsible for 23,000 strikers (see Table 4.3). Moreover, it increased the relative share of Arab strikers, and therefore restored its influence on them and, indirectly, on public opinion in the Arab public sphere at large. This further weakened the leverage of Jewish and Arab national labor organizations on the strike. SDA’s strike message of April 16 is a telling manifestation of this new dynamic. First, its wording was not designed merely as a communiqué for the strikers. Rather, it was phrased as a tacit warning to labor officials in PAWS and in the Histadrut not to use the strike politically. Not least, it was a message also to the government, stressing that intransigence on the part of the administration had radicalized the SDA, pushing it towards its current stances. The strike’s objectives were now redefined. First, the SDA demanded the revision of the salary scales of the civil servants; compensation for the financial hardships occasioned by the war, and increased cost-of-living allowances. A second demand was to curb the powers of heads of government departments. Third, the SDA demanded a committee of inquiry to investigate the work conditions of the railway workers, with an SDA official as a member. The strike message also called the strikers to keep an orderly and non-violent strike, thus leaving open the option of quick agreement should the administration be forthcoming and responsive (M.D. 18 23 Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; Davar, 17–19 April 1946; Haboker, 18 April 1946; CS to CO, 18 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; SDA Strike Communiqué, 5, 20 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; Report of the Resettlement of Ex-service Personnel Committee, 30 April 1946, RH MSS. Medit. S.16, Couzens.

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April 1946). Stressing that senior officials belonging to the First Division were not part of the strike, the declaration noted the specific social bases of the strike. Finally the declaration addressed the strikers directly, making clear that from now on the SDA was in charge.24 The declaration reflected a change in the SDA’s self image, from an association to a trade union, from being co-opted by and cooperative with the government to an adversary. The government’s wartime policy of cultivating ‘sound trade unions’ came full circle, as the hitherto frail SDA became a full-fledged worker representative organ. And while some might have read the call for better cross-national cooperation as a sign of political change in terms of the ethno-territorial conflict, the strike transpired as a non-politicized event (Dan 1946). It focused on a widely shared sense of economic injustice, and kept Arab and Jewish politicians at bay. Despite attempts by political forces inside and outside Palestine to disrupt Arab-Jewish cooperation in the strike, the consistent nature of this cooperation surprised many observers. Sources on the strike display almost no evidence of national overtones, either in the strike’s management or in the short-lived strike culture that began transpiring in mass meetings organized by strikers. By rejecting involvement on the part of politicians the strikers signaled the salience they saw in joint action, thus cementing both their internal cohesion and wide popular support.25 Once the SDA assumed control and the tension between the militant employees and their moderate organization dissipated, the confrontation began to produce a ‘strike culture’. It was based first and foremost on recurrent mass assemblies in various towns where government administrative centers were located and SDA locals were active. These congregations, unprecedented for their cross-national character, served primarily for communication. Soon, however, they turned into powerful democratic pressure nodes on SDA not to give in, as well as defense mechanisms against attempts by politicians to break the unity expressed in and by the strike. These mass meetings, which maintained contact between the leaders of the strike and the urban public, facilitated lively debate, affirmed the legitimacy of the decision-making process of the strike, and created among traditionally unheard voices a deeper sense of solidarity. Apart from picketing and vigils in front of government offices, strikers also embarked on organized journeys from one town to another, held processions at the centers of the towns they visited, bonding well beyond the workplace. These symbolic steps, which conveyed the extent of the government’s neglect of the civil servants and the cost that the strike was threatening to cause, were instrumental in

24 Davar, 15 and 17 April 1946; SDA Declaration, Circular 1, 16 April 1946, LA IV2363-43; Communiqué 5, 20 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL. 25 Sami Taha to HLC, 4 May 1946, LA IV250-27-3-74; Histadrut Arab Department, 15 May 1946, GH (2) 25.90; Communiqué 2, 17 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671.

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opposing the administration’s attempts to replace striking employees with police officers and the military, to split the strikers and ferment suspicion.26 An interesting element of this strike culture was the countrywide communication system developed by the strikers. Established by the SDA purposefully to bypass existing Arab and Jewish political and unions bureaucracies, the network linked local and departmental elements into a new web. Stressing the need for up to date, accurate information and transmitting a clear sense of a democratically managed event, it reproduced a bold image of the strikers – and the strike – as a unified, coherent entity. Written mostly in English, the daily SDA communiqués expressed the transnational character of the strike and placed the government as its chief addressee. Strikers were fed with information on decision-making, on the numbers of participants, on sympathizers and, not least, on scabs, ridiculed as ‘chicken-hearts’. The networks thus served as crucial means of contact and mobilization among dispersed strikers otherwise connected only through channels provided and controlled by government, their employer.27 Solidarity and mutual support were an essential part of this expression of moral outrage. This was reflected for example in the poems by the Arab civil servant Hanna G. Daher, published in the SDA’s bulletins. In one poem the silencing of the country and the firmness of the strikers were associated with restrained militancy: “So still is the night/ No engine’s in sight/ No rending shrills/ No deafening sound Is heard;/ At dead of night/ No passengers/ From railway wagons/ Would alight;/ No friend to meet/ No friend to bid good bye/ With heaving sigh./ All Civil Service/ Men and women alike/ Proclaimed a peaceful strike./ One soul and heart/ Never to depart/ Till all demands/ On which their heart are set/ Are duly met./ Obey ye the Call/ And make a firm stand.”28

The poem contrasted the sounds of daily work and of urban bustle, with the strike’s paralyzing effects, linking the non-violent atmosphere of the strike with the just ‘noise’ of the strikers’ demands. Avoiding any mention of the national identities of the strikers the striker-poet expressed a central feature of the event: the lack of surprise among the strikers at Arab-Jewish cooperation and at the blurring of national divisions. The poetic gestures joined with other cultural expressions in the bulletins which referred to religion and national identities as congruous with strikers’ unity and the shared sense of outrage at injustice. Arab-Jewish cooperation seemed

26 Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; Mishmar, 17 April 1946; CS to CO, 18 April 1946, ISA CO 733/457 75156/156/46; Haboker, 18 April 1946; Davar, 19 April 1946. 27 See SDA’s bulletins and communiqués, LA IV236-3-43; LA/250-72-1-1671; Mishamr, 17 April 1946; Haboker, 18 April 1946; Mapam leaflets, GH (3) 21.90 and GH (2) 25.90; Communist leaflets, LA IV425-33; Mordechai Nemirovsky, “Shevitat Ovdei Hamemshala (The Civil Servants’ Strike)”, 24 April 1946, LA IV236-3-43; Communiqué 2, 17 April 1946, Communiqué 4, 19 April 1946, and Communiqué 5, 20 April 1946, all LA IV250-72-11671. 28 Appeared in Communiqué 4, 19 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671.

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unproblematic, requiring no political socialization or guidance (Cohen 1947: 106– 107). The widening support for the strikers helped them emerge from obscurity. This buttressed the non-political nature of the strike and its objectives in a period in which most other aspects of civil life in Palestine were highly politicized along national lines. This however did not stop this extraordinary event from being contextualized by some according to the logic of nationalized labor politics. The Jewish labor movement, while wholeheartedly supportive of the strikers (as expressed in coverage by the influential Histadrut daily Davar), was weary lest industrial action involving cooperation between Jews and Arab might fuel Palestinian opposition to Zionism. Factions further to the left of organized Jewish labor vehemently rejected such suspicions, praising the surprising emergence of class solidarity as bearing potentially positive political impact. This was the view of Zionist oriented Hashomer Hatsair, and even more so of the Jewish-led Ihud (Unity) Association, whose publication Baaiot (Problems) provided a sympathetic analysis of Jewish-Arab social solidarity and its importance for the creation in Palestine of a bi-national State. On the other extreme of the Zionist political spectrum newspapers associated with Jewish right wing parties expressed dislike of the widespread sympathy the strike enjoyed in the Yishuv. Their unremitting criticism of cooperation with Arab civil servants reflected an assumption that such collaboration is inevitably guided by anti-Zionist Palestinian politics. Significantly, however, this attitude did not prevent the Right wing newspaper Haboker to sympathize with the strikers’ anti-British stance.29 Not surprisingly, Jewish and Arab communists were the most vocal supporters of the strike. Their papers (Kol Haam in Hebrew and Al-Ittihad in Arabic) tirelessly praised the anti-colonial aspect of the strike and the expressions of solidarity among manual and white-collar workers. Calling for the prolongation of the struggle until all demands were met, both newspapers expressed the hope that more workers would join in and further expressions would be voiced against what they perceived as British attempts to instigate Arabs and Jews against each other. The strike even occasioned a rare joint declaration by the Palestine Communist Party and its breakaway organization the National Labor League led by Fuad Nasser, the head of the Nazareth branch of the Arab Workers Party. Within PAWS, more left wing activists, traditionally suspicious of cooperation with Jewish workers, expressed sympathy, while those inclined towards the right, including moderate trade union leader Sami Taha, were even more enthusiastic with

29 Communiqué, 2, 17 April 1946, and 4, 19 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; W.R. Williams to G.H. Hall, 16 April 1946, PRO CO/733/457/15; Mustafa Al-‘Urayyes to HC, 24 April 1946, ISA I/Lab/38/46; Leaflets of MAPAM (United Workers Party which originated from Hashomer Hatsair), GH (3) 21.90 and (2) 25.90; Communist leaflets, LA IV425-33; HSP to SDA, April 1946, LA IV236-622; Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; Haboker, 18 April 1946; Yedi’ot Akhronot, 19 April 1946; Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; Davar, 17–19 April 1946; Histadrut Executive to Tel Aviv Labor Council, n.d., LA IV219-14.

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the prospect of Arab-Jewish cooperation as well as with the potential for solidarity between manual and white-collar workers. Support arrived from the International Union of Railway employees, from British Labor Party activists and from the Near East and Middle East representatives of the International Trade Union Organization in Beirut, flaring anti-colonial enthusiasm even more. Anti-colonialism characterized also the sympathy expressed in Al-Difaa newspaper, and the close coverage of the strike in Falastin. Though the latter initially suspected that the leaders of Zionist labor manipulatively orchestrated the strike, and persistently avoided mentioning Arab-Jewish cooperation, it elevated the strikers to the status of anti-colonial heroes and portrayed the strike as a telling anti-colonial and anti-Zionist lesson. Interestingly, SDA’s bulletins kept publishing supporting commentaries that had appeared in Falastin and Al-Ittihad, thus openly ignoring calls for Arabs by the Supreme Monitoring Committee of the Arabs in Israel not to cooperate with Jews. Voices criticizing any cooperation with Zionists, including anti-strike declarations by King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan, were considerably less influential.30 The press thus played a major role in creating the atmosphere of Arab and Jewish collaboration against the colonial outlook of the government, becoming a major vehicle of mobilization. It widely publicized donations to the strike fund, and carried timetables and itineraries of processions in the various towns. Close coverage of the negotiations often linked the government’s reluctance to rethink its own policies with its attempts to split the strikers’ ranks. By giving the otherwise silent civil servants voice, the press played an important role in humanizing the conflict, in presenting the colonial government as the cause for the employees’ plight and in propagating the need for action. An additional source of sympathy for the strike came from those of who had converging economic interests. One expression was a communication issued by fifty merchants and firm owners in Ramle, who warned the High Commissioner of the cost of the prolongation of the strike. Various other groups, ranging from the Histadrut to Arab unions, from railway workers in Trans-Jordan to the Association of Arab village teachers, accompanied their vocal support of the strike with donations to the strike fund.31 Popular support for the strike pushed politicians on both sides of the ethnonational divide further away from the strikers. Not only were leaders of organized labor excluded by the strike’s organizers, the emphasis amongst the leaders on contradictions within British colonial policy further marginalized any attempts by

30 Communiqués, 4, 19 April 1946, and 5, 20 May 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; coverage of the strike in Falastin, 11–19 April 1946; Al-Ittihad, 14 and 21 April 1946; See also Jamal al-Husayni’s support of the Arab strikers and the decision of the Arab Higher Committee not to get involved in the strike, Al-Difaa, 19 April 1946. 31 Falastin, 20, 24 and 27 April 1946; Al-Ittihad, 21 and 28 April and 5 May 1946; George Kitteh to HC, 27 April 1946, ISA I/Lab/38/46; Communiqué 4, 19 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671.

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the Histadrut and the Arab labor politicians to contextualize the strike as part of their respective nationalized agendas. This decoupling of labor from national politics is what made the strike such an extraordinary event. Curiously, however, it may have also contributed to the way the strike ended. The British feared that a prolonged strike might create opportunities for more politicized involvement, as well as entice workers in other sectors to strike as well. Threats emerging in other sectors just as the findings of the Anglo-American Committee were being publicized represented a danger that the strike might turn into a politicized event, but also made it clear that there was only a minority who the government could consider as replacement workers. In a sense the threats were part and parcel of the diffusive and wave-like nature of the strike itself.32 The radicalization of the civil servants and the widespread public sympathy it got took the government by surprise. Cunningham and Shaw had assumed that the SDA was satisfied with the treatment of grievances at the Joint Consultative Committee (JCS) established in January 1946. When the SDA’s joined the strike, both men understood that their assumption that ‘sound unionism’ promised normalcy was wrong. Given the government’s willingness to consider the demands tabled by the strikers, members of the JCS perceived the strike as fundamentally unjust, and expressed their feeling that the SDA was “holding the country to ransom”. It called the employees to return to work and demanded the SDA to preserve its image of moderation by resuming negotiations. By that stage, however, the strike had spread too wide, convincing the administration to concede and to increase the pressure on the Colonial Office to concur.33 The strike dented the confidence of many British officials in the capability of Britain to rule Palestine much longer. “There is no doubt that present situation has most serious potentialities”, Cunningham telegraphed the Colonial Office and the Treasury in London. “It is clear that the worsening in economic situation of Civil Servants during the war years in relation to all other sections of the country has made them easy prey to agitators, and that a very strong bid must be made to regain their confidence. Otherwise they must inevitably fall even further under the sway of Jewish political interests who, under Labor cloak, are seeking to paralyze public services, to step up wage levels to the utmost, to bolster up a case for mass labor immigration and generally to hamper the administration of this country in a manner calculated to raise doubts as to the ability of the Mandatory Government to carry on.” (note for q) SDA’s decision to join the strike was therefore more than mere radicalization; it turned matters into an emergency, an economic liability for the government and a means of the Yishuv and Jewish Labor to make political gains. The government, 32 CS to CO, 19 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; Mishmar, 23 April 1946; Davar, 23 April 1946. 33 Government Communiqué, in Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; Davar, 17–19 April 1946; CS to CO, 18 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; SDA Communiqué 5, 20 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671.

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which hitherto perceived the dispute as an internal affair that could be handled without reversing budgetary priorities, now saw the dispute entangled with wider geo-political event. It feared a Zionist plot to radicalize the civil service, to disrupt its function and to bring the Anglo-American Committee that was debating the future of the country on side with Jewish interests.34 These fears, as much as they diverted attention from the real issues at stake, triggered the government to move in several directions. Kennedy, the Postmaster General, and G.T. Farley, Acting Principal Assistant Secretary, were quickly sent to London to gain the Colonial Office’s approval of a deal. Meanwhile, a last ditch attempt was made to split the strikers by ‘exposing’ the ‘politics’ behind the strike and by instigating Arab and Jewish strikers against each other on political grounds. Third, emergency measures were taken to replace strikers with soldiers in an attempt to maintain basic port and rail facilities afloat for essential supplies and to relieve congestion in the post.35 But the increasing confidence of the strikers and the paralysis of the country made these measures ineffective, forcing the government to offer more concessions (Cunningham 1948: 481–490). It now adopted the recommendations of the Joint Consultative Committee so as to facilitate “the ventilation of staff grievances”, and “seek as expeditiously as the circumstances permit a settlement which will be fair and just to both the Service and the public”. In practice it meant accepting 10 of the 21 demands, urgent consideration of another 6, and pressure on the Colonial Office to approve of the rest. This demonstrated the extent to which the government felt threatened.36 Affected by this change in government’s position the SDA now led the strikers’ delegation to accept the proposals and bring the strike to an end. The rank-andfile, however, regarded the promises as meaningless without London’s approval, and rejected the compromise outright. When Railway Workers Union leaders decided to follow the SDA, a mass meeting of their members repudiated the initiative by an overwhelming no confidence vote. “The country is undergoing a severe crisis of trustworthiness”, wrote one observer in Davar. “The postal workers remember well what happened to their demands last time [they protested], and what were the results of the committee that investigated their conditions and proposed whatever it proposed… The workers have no confidence anymore in promises.” (note for q) Sensing their own strength, internal cohesion and popularity, the strikers defied their leadership and chose to wait for further word from the Colonial Office. The SDA now pressed the government with yet more demands, including the reversal of the earlier intention to deduct pay for the days lost in the strike from strikers’ salaries. 34 Quoted in HC to CO, 16 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46. 35 CS to the Anglo-American Committee and the CO, 16, 17 and 19 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; Davar, 19 April 1946: Mishmar,19 April 1946. 36 Quoted in Government’s Communiqué in Palestine Post, 17 April 1946; see also Davar, 17 April 1946.

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This of course meant the prolongation of the strike, further economic deterioration and industrial unrest instead of the political tranquility the government was seeking. A decision to cancel the deduction of the ‘strike pay’ soon followed. The rejection on the part of the strikers of the earlier set of offers was hurriedly conveyed to the Colonial Office, and was conducive to the latter’s approval of the provisional proposals.37 A compromise between the government and the SDA was gradually maturing. First, the government drew a provisional agreement in which most of the strikers’ demands were met, and asked the Colonial Office for approval. This was accompanied by a promise that pay for strike days will not be deducted from the strikers’ salaries, and that the strikers will not be punished for breaching the strike ban. SDA’s leadership secretly debated the proposals, keeping their willingness to conclude an agreement from their fellow strikers and from politicians. The agreement was brought to SDA’s council in a meeting which reflected both Fuleihan’s authority and his capacity to steer away from politicizing the campaign, and which ended in agreement to accept the offer. But when the news of the decision reached militants outside – mainly Arab communists from Jerusalem – they violently tried to curb it. They challenged the secrecy of the talks, the fact that the railway workers were not consulted, and even SDA’s decision to use the conciliation machinery. This notwithstanding, SDA’s council soon reverted to its pre-strike restraint and on April 22nd decided finally to bring the strike to an end. The agreement was then approved by the Colonial Office and the Treasury, the latter’s grave misgivings about the obligations of the government notwithstanding.38 The agreement, which had work resumed on April 24, included a comprehensive re-grading scheme in which three junior grades enjoyed a raise of up to 60%. Costof-living allowances were increased, in particular for married employees with children. Employees were given a war bonus (three months salary) and allowances to help them pay off debts. Finally, in return for immediate return to work and a commitment to turn to conciliation in future crises, the employees were given the salaries they lost during the strike. The agreement cost the government 2–3 million pounds, a ‘catastrophic effect’ in the eyes of many officials. New taxation was soon considered to balance the unexpected expenses.39 The civil servants’ return to work was followed by lengthy negotiations between the government and the SDA about 37 Quoted in M.D., “Adain Lo Histayem”; see also CS to CO 18 and 19 April 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; Davar, 17 April 1946; Mishmar, 18 April 1946; Falastin, 18 April 1946; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL. 38 CS to the SDA, 22 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; HSP and HLC meeting with the Congress of Arab Trade Unions, 23 April 1946, LA IV208-1-41-1; Secretariat of the Histadrut Executive, 24 April 1946, LAL; HC to CO, 1 May 1946, MEC; CO to HC, 3 May 1946, and HC to CO, 7 May 1946 ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; CS Staff Circular 36, 13 May 1946, LA IV236-3-43; Bulletin of the Histadrut Arab Department, 25, LAL; SDA Circulars, 16 May and 20 June 1946, in LA IV250-72-1-1673. 39 CS to SDA, 22 April 1946, LA IV250-72-1-1671; Palestine Post and Davar, 23 April 1946; SDA Memorandum, 29 April 1946, and SDA Circular 7/46, 20 June 1946, LA

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how to realize the agreement, and they were held under the scrutinizing eyes of the Colonial Office and the Treasury in London. The strike, the cooperation it occasioned, and the government’s submission have since sunk to historical oblivion. Its memory was occasionally evoked by those who kept hoping that Arab-Jewish anti-colonialism might feed on the strike’s legacy and by historians who depicted it as an exception that proved the rule of all-pervasive ethno-territorial conflict in Palestine. The SDA reverted to its pre-war moderation, national divisions increasingly overshadowed the co-existence in the civil service, and the joint action practised in the strike was not put into further practice for many years. And yet, the strike reflected contradictions in British policy which turned a labor dispute into a moment of historic reckoning. Resembling the effects of strikes in British and French Africa in 1945–1947, it triggered a reluctant application in Palestine of a labor policy based on European standards, which was more attuned to needs of urban working and lower-middle classes (Cooper 1996: 134–170). A new language stressing government obligations to employees and by extension to citizens at large was introduced, akin to the ideas that characterized British administration at home, resulting in a willingness to introduce in Palestine a system of social insurance and trade union legislation. On the other hand, the strike and its resolution proved to the Colonial Office the extent of the financial burden associated with maintaining Palestine. This tremor, which coincided with further deterioration in the ethnoterritorial crisis that beset the country, was part of the atmosphere prevailing when the British decided in 1947 to withdraw from Palestine. On the Jewish side, the strike forced the Histadrut to recognize its absence from the government urban sector, its weak impact on the civil servants and its failure to orchestrate or otherwise shape trans-national cooperation in the mixed towns. This exposed the Histadrut’s under-representation of larger and weaker laboring sectors, and the limits of its hegemony. One consequence of this was that following the strike the Histadrut embarked on fresh attempts to have a separate organization of Jewish civil servants. On another note, the Histadrut had learnt a lesson and would seek cooperation with the PAWS in managing strike action that would ensue later in 1946 and in 1947. The strike provided therefore a telling prism to the repertoires of collective action in the mixed city of Mandate Palestine. Crossing the ethnic and national divides demonstrated in a compelling way the extent to which the mixed city was far from an aggregation of static and separate ethnic enclaves but a dynamic and changing field of action and negotiation. The main features of the strike, namely its trans-national tenor and the pressure from below it exerted on the government to concede and on the SDA to radicalize, exposed the social cost associated with British rule as well as with ethno-national separation in the towns.

IV250-72-1-1673; HC to CO, 21 April and 7 May 1946, ISA CO/733/457 75156/156/46; PRO Rail/1057/3120.

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Two years after the strike the British dismantled the Palestine administration, and the memory of the strike has long evaporated. In the wake of the 1948 war most of the Arabs in the Palestine civil service either became unemployed or made refugees, thus making way for Jews to be absorbed en masse into the civil service of the new state of Israel. . But the problems of social neglect and under-representation that the British were so instrumental in shaping and that were uncovered in the joint strike would continue to trouble the politicians, as the strikes in Israel’s main urban centers after 1948 would soon prove. Archives and Abbreviations CZA: Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem CS: Chief Secretary, Government of Palestine CO: Colonial Office, London HC: Palestine High Commissioner HLC: Haifa Labour Council (Histadrut) GH: Hashomer Hatsair Archive, Givat Haviva HSP: Clerks’ Union (Histadrut) ISA: Israel State Archives, Jerusalem JA: Jewish Agency LA: Labour Movement Archives, Lavon Institute, Tel Aviv LAL: Lavon Institute Library, Tel Aviv PAWS: Palestine Arab Workers Society PRO: Public Record Office, London RH: Rhodes House, Oxford SDA: Palestine Civil Service Second Division Association MEC: Middle East Center, St. Antony’s College, Oxford References Cited A.M. November 1944. Hapakid Haivri Bamanganon Hamemshalti (The Jewish Clerk in the Government Bureaucracy), Shurot, 44. Avi-Rut. November 1944. Pekidei Hamemshala Be-Tel Aviv (The Government Civil Servants in Tel Aviv), Shurot, 44. Baer. G. and G. Stern. May 1946. Shevitat Ovdei Hamemshala Velikcha (The Government Employees’ Strike and its Lesson), Baaiot, 110–124. Baer, G. 1947. Jewish and Arab Workers–Divided or United? In Towards Union in Palestine: Essays on Zionism and Jewish-Arab Cooperation, edited by M. Buber, J. L. Magnes and E. Simon, Jerusalem: Ihud Association, 76–83. Ben-Shalom, N. 8 May 1946. Lesiuma Shel Shevita Ovdei Hamemshala (At The End of the Government Employees’ Strike), Hapoel Hatsair. Bernstein, D.S. 2000. Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Cohen, A. 1947. Tenuat Hapoalim Ha’arvim (The Arab Workers’ Movement). Haifa: The Histadrut’s Arab Worker Department. Cooper, F. 1996. Decolonization and African Society: The Labour Question in French and British Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, A. 1948, Palestine – The Last Days of the Mandate, International Affairs, 24 (4): 481–490. Dan, A. 17 April 1946. Sho’n Hadoar Nadam (The Post Office Clock Fell Silent), Mishmar. De Vries, D. 1997, National Construction of Occupational Identity: Jewish Clerks in British-Ruled Palestine, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39 (2): 373–400. De Vries, D. 2002, Drawing the Repertoire of Collective Action: Labour Zionism and Strikes in 1920s Palestine, Middle Eastern Studies, 38 (3): 93–122. De Vries, D. 2004. British Rule and Arab-Jewish Coalescence of Interest: The 1946 Civil Servants Strike in Palestine, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 36 (4): 613–638. Fitzgerald. T. 1946. Report on an Enquiry into the Salary Structure of the First Division of the Palestine Civil Service. Jerusalem: Government Press. Gaskin, I. W. 1992. Palestine 1939–1945: A Study of Economic Colonial Policy, D.Phil, Oxford, 1992. Gilbert, D. 1996. Strikes in Postwar Britain. In A History of British Industrial Relations, 1939–1979, edited by C. Wrigley. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 136–147. Government of Palestine. 1943. Conditions of Employment of Commercial and Clerical Workers in Palestine. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine. Government of Palestine. 1946. A Survey of Palestine. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine, ch. 17: Labour and Wages, Vol. II, 731–779. Government of Palestine, Palestine Railways, Report of the General Manager on the Administration of the Palestine Railways and Operated Services and on the Ports of Palestine for the year 1946/7, Jerusalem: Government of Palestine. Graves, R. 1942, Editorial, Department of Labour Bulletin, 1: 2–3. Graves, R. 11 April 1947. Labour in Palestine and Egypt, Lecture at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London (RIIA), 8/1474. Gross, N.T. and J. Metzer. 1996. Palestine in World War II: Some Economic Aspects. In The Sinews of War: Essays on the Economic History of World War II, edited by G. T. Mills and H. Rockoff. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 59–82. Jeffery. K and P. Hennessy. 1983. States of Emergency: British Governments and Strikebreaking Since 1919. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kroy, Z. January 1946. Od al Metzukat Hapakid (More on the Clerk’s Plight), Shurot, 57. Likhovski, A. 1998, Bein ‘Mandat’ Le-‘Medina’: Al Chalukat Hahistoria shel Hamishpat Haisraeli Letkufut (Between ‘Mandate’ and ‘State’: Rethinking the Periodization of Israeli Legal History), Mishpatim, 29 (3): 689–721.

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Lockman, Z. 1996. Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948. Berkeley: University of California Press. Louis, Wm. R. 1984. The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–1951. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lowe, R. 1986. Adjusting to Democracy: The Role of the Ministry of Labour in British Politics, 1916–1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press. M.D. 10 April 1946. Shvitat Ovdei Hadoar Vehatelegraph (Post and Telegraph Workers’ Strike), Davar. M.D. 18 April 1946. Adain Lo Histayem Havikuach Batzibur (The Public Debate Has Not Ended Yet), Davar. Metzer, J. 1998. The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pakid Memshalti, 30 January 1946. Bein Pekidei Hamemshala (Among the Government Employees), Kol Haam. Perlmutter, M. 17 April 1946. Shevitat Ovdei Hadoar (The Postal Workers’ Strike), Kol Haam. Pkidei Hamemshala Beheavkutam. November 1944 (The Civil Servants in Their Struggle), Shurot, 44. Reuveny, J. 1991, Hamarkiv Hayehudi Bemanganon Memshelet Hamandat – Hebetim Kalkali’im U-Medini’im (The Jewish Component in Mandatory Government Bureaucracy – Economic and Political Aspects)”, Medina, Mimshal Veyachasim Beinleumi’im, 31: 43–75. Reuveny, J. 1993. Mimshal Hamandat Beretz Israel, 1920–1948 (The Administration of Palestine Under the British Mandate, 1920–1948). Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University. Shalev, M. 1992. Labour and the political economy in Israel. New York: Oxford University Press. Shevitat Pekidei Hadoar. 26 April 1945 (The Postal Employees Strike), Kol Haam. Shevitat Azhara shel Pekidei Hamemshala. 25 May 1945 (Government Employees’ Warning Strike), Kol Haam. Shohami, Y. 27 March 1946. Baaiat Hapakid Haivri Baaretz (The Problem of the Jewish Clerk in Palestine), Hapoel Hatsair. Smith, B.J. 1993. The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy 1920–1929. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Smith, J.D. 1996. The Attlee and Churchill Administrations and Industrial Unrest 1945–1955. London: Pinter Publishers. Taha, Sami. 27 April 1946. Interview, Falastin. Taqqu, R.L. 1977. Arab Labour In Mandatory Palestine, 1920–1948. Ph.D. Columbia University. Wasserstein, B. 1978. The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917–1929. London: Royal Historical Society. Weiler, P. 1984, Forming Responsible Trade Unions: The Colonial Office, Colonial Labour, and the Trade Union Congress, Radical History Review, 28–30: 367– 392.

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Wrigley, C. 1996. The Second World War and State Intervention in Industrial Relations, 1939–1945. In A History of British Industrial Relations, 1939–1979, edited by C. Wrigley. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 12–38.

Chapter 5

How is a Mixed Town to be Administered? Haifa’s Municipal Council, 1940–1947 Tamir Goren

The pervasive effect of the Jewish-Arab conflict on daily life in Palestine in the Mandate period took a particular form in mixed towns, where Jews and Arabs worked together in mixed municipal councils. 1 With residential segregation between Jews and Arabs still the main order of the day, the daily work of shared Arab-Jewish municipal council stood out as important, almost singular manifestations of joint administrative framework. During the British Mandate (1917–1948) the escalation of the Jewish-Arab conflict gave impetus to mixed municipalities not only in their administrative role as providers of municipal services, but also as institutions that began assuming wider political importance, symbolic as well as instrumental, in the wider context. This was manifest in the role filled by local councils at times of violent confrontations, such as the 1936–9 Arab revolt and of course 1947–8. The nature of the relations that took shape between the Arabs and the Jews on the municipal council directly affected the mode of municipal administration. The mayor, for example, was invested not only with personal prestige but also with a capacity to foster or suppress claims related to respective national objectives. In other words, ways in which municipal officials perceived their role had an effect not only on the local scene of municipal activity but also on wider relations, in the town and elsewhere, between Jews and Arabs. Despite the salience of this issue for Arab-Jewish relations in the British Mandate period, the history and development of local government in mixed towns were largely neglected in scholarly research. The few studies on mixed municipalities tended to

1 The term “mixed municipal council” derives from “the Mixed Town”, a term coined by the Mandatory government in Palestine. According to the British perception the common denominator of such towns was the presence of two dominant population groups (Arabs and Jews), different in culture and religion, and subject to a national struggle. The mixed towns included in this category were thus Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safad and Tiberias (see Rabinowitz and Monterescu, Introduction to this volume).

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focus mainly on ‘big politics’ with a particular emphasis on Jerusalem (see Alsberg 1981; Rubinstein 1989, Dar 1987). Unlike other mixed towns, Haifa had a form of municipal management that fostered a considerable degree of cooperation between its Arab and Jewish communities.2 Researchers who addressed the period have usually been content to merely indicate this fact, and were not inclined to explain the factors responsible for the rise of this cooperation or analyze its implications for municipal administration (Rubinstein 1989; Ben-Artzi 1989).3 This chapter, while interested in the nexus with wider political developments, emphasizes process in the municipal administration of Haifa in the 1940s. It begins by showing how municipal activity reached a peak in the 1940s, concomitantly with a dramatic growth in the town’s overall area and population (Aharonovitz 1958; Klein 1983; Yazbak 1987; Stern 1989; Seikaly 1995),4 in turn boosting the impact the local council had on daily life of residents. It then indicates how the election in 1940 of a first ever Jewish person, Shabetay Levy, triggered new tensions between Jews and Arabs, a tension which kept mounting with the escalation of the Arab-Jewish conflict later in the decade. This was expressed, in growing Arab criticism of Levy, including the claim that he abused his power to discriminate against the Arabs, neglect their concerns and privileged the interests of the his Jewish residents.5 This chapter’s main focus is on the distribution of municipal resources between Jews and Arabs and its effect on individual daily lives and communal development between 1940 and 1947. Contrary to Arab claims (above), evidence brought forward here suggests that the municipality under Levy sought to benefit the town without 2 In the municipalities of Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Safad, Arabs and Jews were hard pressed to work in cooperation because of problems that arose between them that they were unable to solve. In Jerusalem it was the struggle for the mayoralty; in Jaffa it was the annexation of the Jewish neighborhoods to Tel Aviv; and in Safad it was the approach adopted by the predominantly Arab municipality to the Jewish minority. 3 Joseph Vashitz, “Jewish-Arab relations at Haifa under the British Mandate” (Incomplete manuscript, Givat Haviva, 1973), part 1, chapters 4,3. 4 The development of Haifa as a mixed town in the Mandate period is clearly evident in the changes that occurred in the Jewish and Arab communities. In both a demographic, social, economic and political burgeoning took place, which made its mark in the special municipal coloration that was salient in Haifa. In 1947 it was found that the size of the two communities within the Haifa municipal jurisdiction amounted to 130,000 people, 65,000 in each community. Most of the Arab population lived close to the seashore, while the Jews built their neighborhoods up the slopes of Mount Carmel. A small part of the Jews and the Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods. On the development that occurred in the two communities, see Joseph Vashitz, “Social Changes in Haifa’s Arab Society under the British Mandate” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1993 [in Hebrew]). 5 For Jewish reports of this criticism see intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, 15 May 1943, “Hahagana” Archive (hereafter HA) 8/3.2; Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, 5 July 1944, HA 105/306; Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, October 1946, HA 105/184; Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, 10 November 1946, HA 105/184; For an Arab source see Al-Wakhadha, 21 November 1946.

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preference of one side or the other, setting an order of priorities that it believed met the needs of the public at large. Its approach was in fact dual. On the other hand, its work was premised on a clear distinction, shared by Jewish as well as Arab representatives, between the needs of the Arab residents and those of Jewish ones. These two channels are examined separately. The first is scrutinized through an analysis of a number of important municipal services that between them accounted for the town’s main expenditure, and which suggest that the municipality gave preference to the development of Arab quarters. The second, revealed in major construction projects initiated by the municipality at a particularly high cost, reflects the intention to take into account the good of the citizenry as a whole, without favoring either side. Background: Changes in the Mode of Municipal Administration up to 1940 Two distinct periods are discernable in respect of the mode of municipal administration. The first coincides with the mayoralty of Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj (1920–1927). The second is the incumbency as mayor of Hassan Shukri (1927–1940). Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj adopted an approach identical to that of his Arab colleagues in other mixed towns. He regarded the institution at whose head he stood, which included six Arab representatives and two Jewish on the town council, not as a body meant to contend with the needs of a mixed town but as an Arab municipality in every respect, most of whose resources were shunted to the Arab side.6 This suited al-Hajj’s political posture, as one who saw before him the Arab interest primarily, out of a general perception that the needs of the Jewish community were to lie in the margins of municipal activity. As a result, the activity of the municipal system in his time was characterized by an approach intended to perpetuate Arab predominance. This was expressed, among other things, in the repression of the use of Hebrew, in avoidance of employment of Jewish workers and clerks, and in the distribution of public works in a way favoring Arab contractors.7 A change gradually occurred in this outlook starting from 1927. Hassan Shukri began a shift that stemmed from his personality and his outlook.8 In his time of office the municipality changed from an institution bearing an Arab complexion to one of a mixed town. In this he opened a window to the introduction of a new attitude to the administration of a mixed town, whose basis was recognition of the advantages inherent in the creation of a framework for cooperation between Arabs and Jews in running the town (Goren 2003). The distinctiveness of this attitude was that it took shape in response to the needs of the

6 For biographic information on Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj, see Tamir Goren, “A Shared Municipality in A Mixed Town: The Crystallization and Functioning of the Local Government in Haifa during the Mandate Period” (Ph.D. diss., Haifa University, 2000[in Hebrew]), Introduction 3. 7 Ibid. 8 For biographic information on Hassan Shukri, see Ibid.

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mixed town, and not for the purpose of satisfying interests arising from the JewishArab struggle. The grant of municipal services and the attitude to urban development were marked by a clear distinction made by the municipality between the needs of the Arab and of the Jewish parts, in consequence of the size of the gap that formed in their levels of development.9 Accordingly, the municipality’s guideline in handling this situation was primarily to benefit the weaker sector in order to create the integration necessary for the town’s development. By this approach, the needs of the Arab population were placed at the top of the list of priorities, while those of the Jews came second. This was so except for the period of the Arab revolt of 1936– 1939, when the Jewish settlement won preference in the budget. This arose from the circumstances created by the Arab revolt. Because in this period the municipality was prevented from benefiting the Arab parts of the town, it paid greater attention to the needs of the Jews. With the aim of continuing to promote the Haifa’s development, Shukri at that time acquiesced to the initiatives placed before him by the Jewish side (Goren 2001). The Jewish Mayor’s Attitude to the Manner of Municipal Administration Hassan Shukri died in 1940 and Shabetay Levy was appointed mayor in his place. The latter was one of the leaders of Haifa’s Jewish community, and had served as Shukri’s deputy since the elections of 1934.10 The appointment was a precedent: for the first time a Jew was placed at the head of the municipality. His two deputies were Arabs, one a Christian the other a Muslim. The town council thereafter consisted of six Arab and four Jewish representatives. The intention of the authorities was that this council should serve for a transitional period, as the government planned on holding elections as soon as this became feasible.11 In fact, this town council 9 The difference in the level of development stemmed from the fact that among the Jews, unlike the Arabs, the neighborhoods were run by committees. The Jews who were not content with the services provided to them by the municipality took care to develop their neighborhoods through the neighborhood committees. Consequently, the Arab neighborhoods were wholly dependent on the services of the municipality, while in the Jewish neighborhoods the committees acted to promote their development. 10 Shabetay Levy was born in Istanbul in 1876. He studied at the Faculty of Political Science and Administration at the University of Istanbul, where students were trained for official posts throughout the Ottoman Empire. In 1894 he immigrated to Eretz Israel. At first he engaged in teaching and then served as treasurer of the Jewish Colonization Association. He dealt in the acquisition of lands on behalf of Baron Rothschild. In 1905 he settled in Haifa. In 1918 he was appointed member of the town council, and thereafter he worked uninterruptedly in the municipal sphere until the end of the Mandate period and after. 11 Until the mid-1930s two municipal elections were held in Palestine, one in 1927 and one in 1934. By the Municipalities Law of 1934 the elected councils were allotted a period of incumbency of five years, namely until 1939. Then the next elections were due to be held,

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continued in office in the composition noted above until the end of the British Mandate. From the viewpoint of British rule, Shabetay Levy was more suitable than any other candidate to continue the way of his predecessor without this creating shocks, even though the government for the first time had departed from its custom and appointed a Jew to this office. Shabetay Levy had been a close friend of Hassan Shukri and a keen supporter of the line he had adopted as mayor (Goren 2003). But Levy was not merely his deputy and one who continued in his way, but a personality in his own right, gifted with the appropriate qualities facilitating his assumption of office of mayor without sparking antagonism. As one who had accomplished much together with Arabs, and who believed that bonds of peace and friendship could be forged with them, he was Shukri’s natural replacement.12 From the moment of his appointment he saw himself not only as the follower in his predecessor’s footsteps, but as one assigned first and foremost to nurture the fabric of relations between Jews and Arabs. In this he would attempt to soften the fact of mayoralty being in the hands of a Jew for the first time. He regarded the approach formulated by his predecessor as the most effective way to allow the municipality to fulfill its purpose in a mixed town. He was well aware that his success would largely lie in his ability to demonstrate his devotion to the general good. Like Shukri, Levy strove to isolate the municipality, in its array of functions and activities, from the grave national conflict that was developing between the two peoples. He was able to steer the work of the municipality to its proper role as a municipal body, and not to turn it into an arena for political clashes. This found expression from the very first session of the town council after his appointment, in his expressing hope that the council would fulfill its duties through cooperation and brotherhood for the sake of all the town’s inhabitants.13 Levy believed that solutions could be found for the town’s problems as along as the town council and the citizenry were willing to unite around the town’s affairs altogether, “without differences in political outlook and race.”14 He did not see his task merely as deep commitment to the town’s population but also as a mission aimed, by his outlook, at presenting the municipality as an institution enjoying integrated administration.15 From the time Shabetay Levy began to fulfill his role as mayor he took every opportunity that came his way to expound the special nature of the cooperation in

for councils to serve a similar length of time. But the eruption of the Arab revolt, and then the Second World War, prevented the elections from taking place. The British government was concerned, among other things, about the friction that had arisen in the mixed towns. 12 On Shabetay Levy’s attitude to the Arabs, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, chapter 7. 13 Minutes of the Municipality Council, 21 May 1940, Haifa Municipal Archive (hereafter HMA) Book of Protocols. 14 For example, see The Twelfth Annual Report of Haifa Municipality for 1945–1946, HMA 8/859. 15 For example, see Shabetay Levy to Izhak Ben-Zvi, 14 November 1945, Labor Archive (hereafter LA) IV250/27/2/504.

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the town council. This found particular expression in his reports to the heads of the British government and in the municipality’s annual reports.16 This approach adopted by Levy exerted a great effect on the manner of municipal administration. In principle the direction adopted in Shukri’s time was maintained, but in the 1940s its expression crystallized still more. A clear distinction was made between the needs of the Jews and of the Arabs, and an initiative in development was taken intended to consider the needs of all equally. The line adopted by the mayor won the full backing of his Jewish colleagues on the town council. They, like Levy, adhered to several principles that guided them in their work. The most important of these was reflected in their recognition of the need to deal with all matters of the town, and in with development of all its parts, even if they were obliged to attend more to the problems of the Arabs.17 As for the leaders of Arab and Jewish society in Haifa, they held that the course adopted by the municipality expressed discrimination. Its method of working was perceived by each side as biased to benefit the other. Either side approached the municipality according to calculations of the profit and the advantage it could derive from its operations. If one side felt deprived it made sure to express its protest, intended to drive home its sense of being discriminated. The Jewish side did so every time it pointed a finger at the municipality accusing it of preventing them from enjoying the town budget, especially in view of the fact that the Jews’ contribution to the municipal revenues from the mid-1930s to the end of the Mandate was greater than the Arabs’.18 The Arab side behaved likewise whenever it felt discriminated compared with the Jews. From its viewpoint, the level of development that characterized the Jewish quarters constituted proof of the preferential treatment they received from the municipality. In any event, the order of priorities set by the municipality did not win trust as long as each party saw it as intended to benefit the other. In contrast to the 1920s and the 1930s, when Arabs held the office of mayor, the Jewish mayor in the 1940s was obliged to operate in a far more complicated reality. This was due to the expectations of him by the Jewish population, and their hope that from then on the Jewish neighborhoods would obtain what they deserved. The Jewish-Arab conflict worsened in the 1940s, and on that account the municipality became exposed to political influence. This was increasing in leaps and bounds against the background of political circumstances, and it intensified still more the tension between the heads of Haifa’s Jewish and Arab populations and the municipality.

16 For example, see The written speech of Shabetay Levy, 4 December 1945, St. Antony’s College, Middle East Center, A.G. Cunningham Private Papers Collection, 6/3. His words to Alan Cunningham when the latter visited Haifa at the end of 1945, prior to his appointments as High Commissioner for Palestine. 17 On the attitude of the Jewish Municipal Council members to their duty, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, chapter 7. 18 For data on the share of the Jews in the municipality’s income compared with the Arabs’ share, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, chapter 10.

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Road development At the beginning of the 1940s a change began to take shape in the municipality’s attitude to road development in the town. Essentially this was evident on two levels: (1) The allocation of resources for paving roads within the neighborhoods, where until then highways had been laid only on common ground and not within the neighborhoods. As a result a large gap was discernible between the Arab quarters, which suffered a complete lack of roads, and the Jewish quarters, whose residents paved their own roads at their own expense. (2) Preference given to development of roads within the Arab quarters. In 1940 the slicing of the budget for road building and widening among the quarters changed: £P 5818 was allocated to the mixed neighborhoods where Arabs and Jews lived, £P 3530 was allocated to the Arab neighborhoods, and £P 2786 was allocated to the Jewish neighborhood.19 In explaining this, the municipality stated that because of the security situation at the time of the Arab revolt, its public works in the Arab quarters had been drastically curtailed. Therefore, in 1940, after the revolt had ended, the town increased its expenditure on these neighborhoods compared with the sum earmarked for the Jewish quarters – the opposite of the situation in the previous years. The preference enjoyed by the Arab neighborhoods in road development continued in subsequent years. The determination of this trend is based, among other things, on an objective examination of budget proposals for road development.20 From the viewpoint of the municipality, the adoption of this line was not at all straightforward as regards road building in the Arab neighborhoods. The problem was how to ensure the share of the financing of the road works to be covered by the owners of the land along the axis marked for development; by law, these landowners, and not the municipality alone, were partly liable for the costs of laying roads and sidewalks. Experience had taught that it was not always possible to collect the required sum, either because the property owners did not always have the sum demanded, or because some of them could not be located or even refused to pay for road works. For them, a financial investment in the urban improvement of their neighborhood was not at the top of their priorities. As a result it sometimes happened that even if the Arab side took the initiative, the municipality had to forgo the work it had intended to carry out.21 But from the municipality’s standpoint it was important to support any initiative originating from Arab property owners interested in paving roads in their quarters. For example, in 1945 the town took steps towards paving and tarring works a stretch of Al-Ma’amoun Street in the Halisa neighborhood. The Reform 19 Report of the Jewish Committee, October 1939 – September 1940, HMA 8/557. 20 For example, see two budget proposals for streets paving. One regarding the 1941–1942, Israel State Archive (hereafter ISA) RG2/215/Y23/40. The other from January 1946, HMA 1/439. 21 Report of the Town Engineer for 1944–1945, HMA 15/244.

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Committee, a body created at Arab initiative in 1943 to advance the development of the Arab quarters in the east of the town,22 demanded that the municipality complete the work along the entire length of the street. When the municipality learned that the Reform Committee had obtained the assent of all the property owners on AlMa’amoun Street to pay half the costs of tarring the street, it expressed its readiness to pave the road after the required sum was deposed in the municipality’s account.23 In some cases of this kind the town customarily shouldered up to 50 percent of the costs of the work.24 As for paving sidewalks, the municipality was willing to share the costs, or even to finance the work entirely, if the sidewalks were intended for access to public buildings such as schools, cemeteries, etc. For example, at the end of 1940 the municipality began to lay sidewalks beside the Muslim cemetery in the east of the old town, near the old Jewish cemetery on Jaffa Street.25 This position was maintained until the end of the period. Relative to the budget allocated to road works in the Arab quarters, the share assigned by the municipality to the Jewish settlement decreased. In light of the preference enjoyed by the Jewish settlement in its road development at the time of the Arab revolt, the change made by the municipality at the beginning of the 1940s was described as a severe blow to the interests of the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood, the largest of the Jewish districts in area and in population size.26 Among other things, it was claimed that the reduction in the budget intended for road development in Hadar Hacarmel was not carried out equally in all the neighborhoods. The chairman of the neighborhood committee took a stand against this trend, and asserted in principle that it was not right for the municipality to cut its costs at the expense of the neighborhood burdened with the largest part of the municipal taxes.27 On the assumption that this situation would change, the committee persisted in demanding of the municipality each year, when the annual budget was being drawn up, the inclusion in its expenditures of a set of road works in the neighborhood. But dissatisfaction continued unabated. The Hadar Hacarmel committee considered the share that the district received in the allocation of municipal resources for road development too low until the end of the period under study. 22 On the establishment of the Reform Committee and its activity, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, chapter 6. The creation of this committee was an attempt to imitate the neighborhood committees of the Jews. 23 Reform Committee to Shabetay Levy, 29 June 1947, HMA 1/514; Minutes of the Municipal Council, 16 July 1947, HMA Book of Protocols; Abram Chalfon (Municipality Vice Secretary) to Reform Committee, 23 July 1947, HMA 1/514. 24 For example, see Ha’aretz, 7 March 1941; Minutes of the Municipal Council, 11 December 1946, HMA Book of Protocols; Minutes of the Municipal Council, 7 May 1947, HMA Book of Protocols. 25 Davar, 5 December 1940. 26 In 1940 the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood extended over 1730 dunams and housed a population of 35,500. 27 Minutes of the Hadar Hacarmel Committee, 11 March 1941, HMA 15/389; Chairman of the Hadar Hacarmel Committee to Shabetay Levy, 1 October 1945, HMA 15/167.

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Despite the considerable improvement in the road network in the Arab quarters some on the Arab side claimed that the municipality accorded preference to the development of the Jewish districts, road works included. For example, in an interview given by Hanna Asfour, a member of the town council, to the Haifa newspaper Al-Mahmz at the end of 1946, he made several assertions, which the Arabic press widely propagated, as to the preferential treatment enjoyed by the Jews in the municipality. As for the domain of development, Asfour proved that the improvements evident in the Jewish quarters were not achieved through the municipal budget but through financing by the Jewish quarters, and by virtue of the services that the Jewish quarters, he claimed, took care to provide themselves. He stated that most of the municipal services were granted equally to all the neighborhoods without consideration of the fact that the Jews, who had the largest incomes, also paid higher taxes (Vashitz 1987).28 The municipality’s position on this may be gauged from the following case. In 1947 the Arab residents of Tiberias Street, located on the border of the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood, complained to the municipality about the poor state of the street, arising, they claimed, from its being unpaved and never cleaned. The town engineer suggested to the street’s inhabitants that they form a committee, with which the municipality would deal. He charged the Arab municipal secretary to explain to them municipal policy on road paving, emphasizing that it was the duty of the property owners to finance these works. The municipality would be willing to proffer the residents its assistance if they could prove that they were ready to bear the costs. That this condition of neglect of the street had been allowed to occur was, in his opinion, the reason for the great difference between the Arab and the Jewish neighborhoods in the appearance and cleanliness of the streets.29 Sewerage In the Jewish neighborhoods cleanliness was maintained during the time of the Arab revolt, but in the Muslim part of the town, the eastern quarter,30 this matter was very seriously neglected, particularly on account of the absence of a sewage system. Early in 1940 representatives of the eastern quarter approached the municipality and depicted before it the appalling state of sanitation, arising, they believed, from the lack of a sewage network.31 After touring the eastern quarter, the mayor concluded that this area was in need of special treatment because of the great amount of refuse that had accumulated in it. It was decided to install a sewage system forthwith and to 28 Mishmar, 2 December 1946; Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, 2 December 1946, HA 105/184. 29 Minutes of the Municipal Technical Committee, 8 July 1947, HMA 1/1089. The residents of Tiberias Street were a mixed population, a situation characteristic of certain parts of the fringes of the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood. 30 The eastern quarter was divided into several neighborhoods. In the mid-1940s it had a population of about 20,000, mostly Muslims. 31 Falastin, 4 March 1940; Minutes of the Municipal Council, 13 March 1940, HMA Book of Protocols.

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seek the government aid for this purpose. In a talk with the district commissioner in 1940 the mayor emphasized how vital it was to obtain the sum needed for the entire plan, and not just part of it. He clarified to the governor that because of the Arab revolt the municipality had been unable to execute all the public works required in the eastern neighborhoods, so it was now acting to give them great attention.32 The government agreed to fund one half of the costs of the sewerage project in the eastern neighborhoods. By the end of 1940 the municipality had managed to complete part of this project. Because of the fear of the spread of plague epidemic, at the end of 1941 the town engineer drew the mayor’s attention to the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in several districts, especially the eastern part of the town, which he described as extremely grave. He suggested that these neighborhoods be cleaned, but he particularly noted that this work would be beneficial only if a sewage system were installed in them, connected to the main sewerage. As a provisional measure he proposed the installation of additional drains. He expected that a considerable number of property owners would be hard pressed to pay for this work because of their economic condition, so he recommended dealing with the sewage urgently by seeking for this purpose government aid through another loan.33 The mayor accepted this recommendation and vigorously set about obtaining the loan. Since the advance of the loan was delayed for two years, the municipality could progress only slightly with the sewage work in the eastern quarter. The municipal report for 1941–1942 noted that the most important work in sewerage installation had been carried out in the framework of the drainage plan of the eastern quarter.34 As part of the municipality’s preparations for implementing development plans after the Second World War, in 1943 a Committee for Sewerage and Drains was created, whose purpose was to recommend ways of promoting the issue. The town council placed the problem of sewerage at the head of its order of priorities, with special reference to the eastern quarter.35 The mayor ascribed great importance to this, and in his statements on various occasions he emphasized the works that the municipality had initiated to improve the sewage system in the eastern quarter.36 An exhaustive summary of the distribution of the municipal budget for sewerage from the start of the 1940s (1940–1944), distinguishing the sums received by the Arabs and the Jews, was drawn up by the town engineer early in 1944. The advantage of this summary lies in its degree of detail, including data on the various kinds of works, the manner of financing, and the names of the districts that had benefited 32 Minutes of the Municipal Council, 21 May 1940, HMA Book of Protocols. 33 Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 10 September 1941, HMA 1/1450. 34 Municipality of Haifa to District Commissioner, 17 September 1941, HMA 1/1450; Minutes of the Municipal Council, 5 November 1941, HMA Book of Protocols; The Municipality Annual Report for 1941–1942, October 1942, Central Zionist Archive (hereafter CZA) Library. 35 Minutes of the Municipal Council, 20 May 1943, HMA Book of Protocols. 36 For example, see the transcript of Shabetay Levy’s speech broadcast Palestine (Eretz Israel) Radio Service, September 1943, HMA 18-6/10.

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from the budgetary allocation. Below are the figures for the distribution of the budget earmarked for two kinds of works: (1) laying of new drains; (2) re-laying of existing drains. Regarding the 1940–1941 budget, the Arabs received it all (£P 4250) for laying new drains. Also in 1941–1942 the Jews received none of this budget while the Arabs received £P 555. Data for the other years are not given. As for re-laying of drains, the following figures are noted: in 1940–1941 the Arabs alone received £P 147. In 1941–1942 the Arabs were allocated a sum of £P 495 and the Jews £P 250, that is, the Arabs got 66 percent and the Jews 34 percent. In 1942–1943 the Arabs were allocated £P 418 and the Jews £P 30, namely the Arabs received 93 percent and the Jews 7 percent of the budget. In 1943–1944 the Arabs alone were allocated £P 464.37 In second half of the 1940s also the municipality continued to deal with this matter mainly in the Arab parts of Haifa.38 The municipal report for 1946–1947 notes that the installation of drains greatly improved the sanitary condition of these districts.39 Sanitation From 1940 the municipality turned its attention mostly to improvement of cleanliness in Haifa’s eastern neighborhoods. A particularly poor state of sanitation prevailed in the Arab residential area of Wadi Rushmiya and Ghazawi.40 A commission created by the town council in 1944, to examine and report on the living conditions in this part, received an extremely bad impression of the sanitation there. From 1940 to 1944 the municipality budgeted considerable sums for improvement in this district, in addition to its sewerage works.41 The Muslim deputy mayor, who was a member of the commission that toured Wadi Rushmiya, noted among other points in his summary that although the municipality’s tax revenues from the inhabitants of this area were small, it had invested large sums in it in order to better the living conditions.42 But this was not enough to solve the problem in the long term. By the committee’s estimate, this district received its appropriate share of garbage removal services, but it was stated that this was inadequate. The recommendation was to devote more attention and budget to street sweeping and trash disposal. From the contents of the commission members’ report, the residents of this district evinced little cooperation in helping the authorities to improve their surroundings. Therefore, the committee recommended the appointment of a permanent committee consisting of members of the town council so as to create a link with the inhabitants of the area 37 Statement showing the amount of money spent from the municipal budget for various extraordinary sanitary works in Haifa for the years 1940–1944, 10 March 1944, HMA 1/486. 38 For example, see the Twelfth Annual Report of Haifa Municipality for 1945–1946, HMA 8/859. 39 The Annual Report of the Haifa Municipality for 1946–1947, CZA Library. 40 Settlement of Wadi Rushmiya began in the 1920s by Arab migrants, some of whom came from Gaza. In the mid-1940s 3000 Arabs lived there. 41 Town Engineer to Reform Committee, 5 December 1944, HMA 1/529. 42 Taher Karaman to Shabetay Levy, 23 October 1944, HMA 1/362.

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and to explain to them the importance of maintaining cleanliness in cooperation with the authorities.43 Towards the end of 1944 signs of protest from the Arab side began to appear, directed at the municipality regarding its management of sanitation in the Arab neighborhoods. It was accused especially of neglecting the Arab neighborhoods, particularly the old town and the eastern quarter, which it left filthy and in a condition creating a health hazard. This charge found expression, for example, in the Arabic press.44 Sanitation in the old town was indeed in grave condition, but this did not arise from the inactivity of the municipality.45 To the contrary: the town engineer made it his business to explain that the municipality had done all in its power to benefit this area. He wished to dispel the allegation of deprivation suffered by the old town at the hands of the municipality. Answering a complaint to the municipality from an Arab resident of the old town about its dilapidated condition, the town engineer reported to the municipal secretary that in the course of 1945 the municipality had invested a large part of its budget in works intended to prevent the outbreak of epidemics; over 70 percent of it had been allocated to works in the eastern part of the town.46 From the viewpoint of the Hadar Hacarmel committee, the municipality did not provide the neighborhood with a sanitation service to meet its needs. Since the transfer of sanitation service to the Hadar Hacarmel committee at the time of the Arab revolt, the municipality had budgeted a certain sum for this purpose, based on costs it would incur if it detailed Arab workers for it.47 The committee annually submitted a memorandum in which it detailed the burdens accruing from operating the service in the neighborhood, and requested a budgetary allocation accordingly. In essence, the committee’s demand was based on the same yardstick applied by the municipality in other areas. From 1940 the committee argued before the municipality

43 Report of the Municipal Committee on Wadi Rushmiya and Ghazawi, 25 October 1944, HMA 1/362. 44 Vashitz, “Jewish”, 23. Also, see Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, 5 July 1944, HA 8/5; Intelligence Report of the “Hahagana”, December 1944, HA 105/182. 45 The worst situation prevailed in the old town, where the Turkish sewers had to be replaced by new ones. However, this work was delayed because the whole of the old town was planned for reconstruction. As part of the development projects that the municipality intended to execute after war, the old town was earmarked for demolition for the purpose of building the area anew. Despite the need for modern municipal development, this was somewhat hindered because of the location of the old town, standing as an impediment to future plans. The size of the area, in addition to the poor state of the buildings and its sanitary condition, constituted a nuisance for transport and public hygiene, and an obstacle to the overall development of downtown Haifa. On this issue, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, 411–418. 46 Town Engineer to Secretary of the Municipality, 18 September 1945, HMA 1/41. 47 In 1936 the Hadar Hacarmel committee acquired responsibility from the municipality for cleaning the neighborhood after the Arab sanitation workers declared a strike as a mark of solidarity with the Arab strike declared by the Supreme Monitoring Committee of Arabs in Israel. From then until the end of the Mandate, responsibility for cleaning the neighborhood remained in the hands of its committee.

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that it did not receive its due share of the sanitation service budget, compared with the sums allocated to the other parts of the town. This forced the committee to add large sums every year in order to maintain a level of sanitation satisfactory to the public and the local authorities.48 From the municipality’s angle, the claims of the Hadar Hacarmel committee regarding its being deprived of its share of the sanitation budget were without foundation. From figures given by the mayor, the budget allocated to the neighborhood for garbage collection and street sweeping was higher than that for the same service allocated to other parts of Haifa.49 At a press conference held at the end of 1945, the mayor pointed out that the sanitation services were provided in accordance with the division of the town into two zones: Hadar Hacarmel on the one hand and the rest of the town on the other. The municipality customarily remitted to the Hadar Hacarmel committee the sum due to the workers according to the municipality’s estimate. So because of the difference in wages paid by the municipality to its own workers and those paid by the Hadar Hacarmel committee, the committee had to add each year an additional sum of money for the neighborhood sanitation.50 Until the end of the Mandate period the Hadar Hacarmel committee continued to claim that the annual sum allocated to it was not enough to provide for the great needs of the neighborhood, especially in light of the population growth occurring in it.51 From the second half of the 1940s the criticism leveled by the Arab side against the municipality over the neglect it displayed in the sphere of sanitation increased. The climax was reached in the summer of 1947. It may be surmised that the causes included news of the spread of the plague and reports of efforts taken by the authorities against the epidemic. The complaints then reaching the municipality were particularly censorious of the manner of its approach, as a body that acted with deliberate bias in the service it provided for the Arab neighborhoods as against the Jewish. Two of the complaints found were written by figures from the Arab social elite in Haifa, and one was from the Muslim Association, the body that represented the town’s Muslim population. In essence it was claimed that the municipality neglected to dealing with the sanitation of the eastern neighborhoods or of the old town, even though the Arabic press had been at pains to direct its attention to this. These neighborhoods were not cleaned at the required frequency, and as a result a great amount of dirt piled up in them. While their sanitation had been neglected, it was stated that the municipality accorded the Jewish part of the town different treatment; There the streets were relatively clean. About this they stated that in

48 For example, see Hadar Hacarmel Committee to Shabetay Levy, 5 May 1941, HMA 15/167. 49 Shabetay Levy to Hadar Hacarmel Committee, 30 April 1944, HMA 15/145. 50 Haboker, 10 October 1945. 51 For example, see Hadar Hacarmel Committee to Shabetay Levy, 26 November 1946, HMA 15/167.

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streets with a mixed population the Arabs enjoyed clean streets thanks to the Jewish inhabitants who resided on them.52 As far as the municipality was concerned, these claims were groundless. From the data conveyed by the town engineer to the mayor, the sanitation service supplied to the old town and the Arab parts of Haifa had been enlarged at that time, after the municipality received a sum of money from the government for works to prevent the outbreak of diseases. However, according to the town engineer, the traders in the old town did not always cooperate. He emphasized particularly that the bulk of municipal expenditure in recent years on preventive activities against disease had been allocated to the Arab areas. It was made clear that the town’s sanitation workers carried out their duties as required in all parts of the town, while the Hadar Hacarmel committee took steps to improve the state of sanitation in its neighborhood from monies drawn from its own fund. In his opinion, the unsanitary state stemmed from lack of awareness in the Arab population of sanitary practices. So much so, that the municipality was obliged to compel house owners in the eastern quarter of the town to see to the provision of an adequate number of refuse bins so that the residents would stop tossing trash onto the streets. He warned that without the cooperation of the Arab public with the municipality on this issue, the chances of success of any action were slight. He was in no doubt that the money in the municipal budget earmarked for the sanitation service was not enough to meet the public sanitation demands necessary to keep the town in the required condition. But he stressed that according to municipal policy every part of the town received its due share by a calculation whereby half was according to the size of the population and half was according to the length of the streets.53 In response to these complaints the mayor saw fit to stress municipal policy on allocation of resources for sanitation. He clarified that every part of the town received the allocation intended for hygiene and sanitation without bias; sometimes the allocation to certain areas was reduced for the benefit of another area of the town that seemed in need of greater help. This, he said, was of advantage to the eastern quarter. He believed that the work of sanitation in the old town and the eastern quarter, which was the responsibility of an Arab official assisted by an Arab deputy, was attended to with devotion, with no attempt whatsoever to curtail the grant of this service within the limits of the budget at their disposal.54

52 Reports from the Arab Newspapers, July 1947, HA 105/185; The Muslim Committee to Shabetay Levy, 12 July 1947, HMA 1/924; Ibrahim al-Khatib to Shabetay Levy, 24 August 1947, HMA 1/924. See attachment to the letter: “Haifa al-Arabia and Haifa al-Yahudia”. 53 Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 7 September 1947, HMA 1/924; Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 4 December 1947, HMA 1/56; Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 5 December 1947, HMA 1/56. 54 Shabetay Levy to Ibrahim al-Khatib, 11 October 1947, HMA 1/924.

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Who will build the Town Hall? The municipality had no fixed abode from its establishment, so it was obliged to rent buildings from time to time in its service. In the mid-1930s the municipality purchased a plot of land on which it planned to erect the Town Hall. The plot was on the borderline marking, as it were, the partition between the living area of the Arab population and that of the Jewish population, namely between the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood and Haifa’s lower town. Contacts with the government over a loan to realize the enterprise continued for a lengthy time, and only at the beginning of 1940 did the High Commissioner approve the loan. The municipality hoped that the building of the Town Hall would somewhat ease the hardship of unemployment that beset the town in consequence of the outbreak of the Second World War. It was estimated that 250 workers would take part in this project for a period of about a year and a quarter.55 Early in 1940 the town council convened for a discussion on the construction of the building. In the course of the meeting the mayor raised the question of how to execute the work in the best possible way: He mentioned the point that the most important object of the work was as much as possible to alleviate unemployment in the town, and the fact that Haifa was a mixed town must therefore be taken into consideration.56

The town council decided that in the construction work Jews and Arabs would be employed in numbers relative to the wages, which would be divided 50 percent for each community. The workers would be only from Haifa. It was likewise determined that the purchase of building materials would be from Jewish and Arab suppliers equally; and building materials would be obtained as far as possible in Haifa.57 The tender issued by the municipality for construction of the Town Hall was won by a Jewish building company, which undertook to carry out the work in accordance with the contract it signed with the municipality at the end of 1940. No sooner was the contract signed than approaches began to be made to the municipality from various workers’ organizations of Jews and of Arabs, requesting that they be assured their share of the anticipated work on the Town Hall. The mayor referred their requests to the Jewish building company and asked that it take them into consideration. Still, in his reply to the organizations, the mayor pointed out that the contractor was committed to employing Jewish and Arab workers equally, but he was not obliged by the contract to restrict himself to taking on workers from particular organizations.58 From the viewpoint of the Palestinian Arab Workers’ 55 Haboker, 1 February 1940; Falastin, 2 February 1940. 56 Minutes of the Municipality Council, 2 April 1940, HMA Book of Protocols. 57 Ibid. 58 On the contacts on this issue between the laborers’ organizations and the Municipality and the Jewish building company, see HMA 1/299.

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Association, whose Haifa branch was the biggest in the country, the proportion of 50 percent of the volume of employment that had been allotted to each community reflected bias against the Arab side. It therefore demanded clarifications as to what steps had been taken by the municipality to ensure the rights of the Arabs in the building work.59 In reply the town engineer elucidated to the mayor that the matter of volume of employment was laid down in the contract, and that the municipality would conduct a daily inspection of its implementation.60 Work on the building site commenced at the beginning of 1941. At the end of that year, when construction was at its height, the daily Al-Difa, one of the two largest Arabic newspapers in circulation during the Mandate, noted that an equal number of Jewish and Arab workers were employed in it.61 In his report to the mayor early in June 1942, shortly after the building was completed, the town engineer pointed out that the working days of the workers had totaled 34,500 days, of which 20,000 were of Arabs and 14,500 were of Jews.62 So according to these figures, the sum of working days of the Arabs amounted to 58 percent and that of the Jews to 42 percent of the working days allocated to the construction. In the dedication ceremony for the building, held in June 1942, before a large throng of Jews, Arabs, and representatives of the British government, the mayor in his speech expounded, among other things, the important role filled by the Jewish and Arab workers in the creation of the structure and the way in which the work had been divided between them.63 Where should the public library be built? The government education order of 1933 recognized the municipality as the local education authority and granted it powers to impose taxes and to conduct an education system within its jurisdiction. According to this order, the municipalities were permitted to create an education committee or committees with legal powers, authorized to administer local educational matters. Prior to 1943 Haifa municipality did not engage in the field of education. The Arabs took care to establish their own educational institutions, which were grouped according to confessional membership, or they sent their children to government schools. Among the Jews education was placed in the hands of the Hebrew Community Committee, and this body attended to the guidance and upkeep of the schools under its aegis. The Arab and the mixed municipalities alike avoided including within their authority the field of education for the obvious reason of the heavy burden that would fall on them on that account. All the more in the mixed municipalities, which were expected to prefer not to 59 The Palestinian Arab Laborers’ Organization to Shabetay Levy, 14 January 1941, HMA 1299. 60 Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 3 February 1941, HMA 1/299. 61 Al-Difa, 10 November 1941. 62 Town Engineer to Shabetay Levy, 10 June 1942, HMA 1/550. 63 The written speech of Shabetay Levy, 29 June 1942, HMA 1/300.

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undertake the administration of a domain that manifestly expressed the major part of the communities’ autonomy. In 1943 Haifa municipality assumed responsibility for the field of education, and became the first mixed municipality that began to collect an education tax intended to benefit of the entire population.64 In consequence, two education committees were set up, a Jewish and an Arab, to represent the communities and to see to the education of all parts of the community with which they dealt. Their decisions were subject to approval by the municipality as the education authority and to ratification by the district commissioner. In addition to fulfilling the routine function on the matters they were responsible for, their activities also were characterized by cooperation aimed at raising the level of education and culture of the town population. The initiative to establish a town library stood at the center of the cooperation that took shape between them. The idea of creating a town library was the initiative of the Jewish education committee. Underlying it was their wish to realize cooperation between the two education committees through setting up a joint library for Jews and Arabs. This initiative was unusual, in light of the fact that until then no municipal library had been established anywhere in the country, except perhaps in Tel Aviv. The view of the municipalities of such an institution was that it was a luxury for which their budgets were not intended.65 The members of the Jewish education committee called on their counterparts on the Arab education committee to weigh up the initiative, and the latter responded affirmatively. They were willing to agree to it on two conditions: the readiness of the municipality to assist in the creation of the library beyond the budget it had undertaken to grant for this purpose from the education tax; and determining the library site by a joint decision of the two education committees. The Arab committee regarded the library as an institution intended to serve all the Haifa citizens without distinction of creed or race.66 The two committees jointly determined that income from the education levy received from international institutions and companies would be dedicated to this purpose. Now the municipality approached the matter of the appropriate siting of the proposed library. Finding a plot was put in the charge of a joint committee consisting of representatives of the two education committees. After inspecting several sites, they chose one situated next to the Town Hall. This area was owned by a well-todo Syrian who lived in Damascus. The mayor who from the start was enthusiastic about the idea of establishing the library acted to acquire the plot. In his opinion, locating the library on the land near to the Town Hall and other public institutions was a convenient place for Jewish and Arab citizens alike who daily passed through 64 For the background to the transfer of responsibility for education to the Haifa Municipality, see Goren, A Shared Municipality, 313–314. The heads of the Jewish Yishuv were willing to support this step after it was resolved that the incomes from the education tax would be distributed between the communities according to the measure of the revenue of each of them. 65 In some of the mixed towns the Jewish communities ran their own public libraries, for example, Haifa. 66 The Arab Educational resolutions, 13 April 1945, HMA 1/1412.

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that vicinity. But since the municipality did not succeed in acquiring that plot, it was decided to check other possibilities for the library site. A municipal committee that studied the subject proposed erecting the library on land lying between Hadar Hacarmel to the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood that would have to be requisitioned. The mayor felt that this area too was well suited to the entire population. The two proposed plots, therefore, according to the mayor, could satisfy the requirement of siting the library for all the town’s residents. Nevertheless, he believed that the considerations that were likely to be decisive in the siting of the library should not be influenced by communal boundaries, as expressed by his being the delegate from the town council to the district commissioner: The question of drawing a boundary line between Arab and Jewish quarters of the town for the purpose of finding a suitable place for a public library is in our opinion irrelevant to the issue.67

However, in the end this plot was not appropriated either, because of the problems that this measure entailed. Eventually a large plot of land was found, which was then up for sale, in the German Colony.68 The two education committees accepted this proposal and it was decided to build the library on that site.69 The municipality resolved to take the first steps towards buying the land. The plan that was about to materialize was nipped in the bud because of the outbreak of war in 1947. Summary and Conclusions This study constituted an attempt to show that the line adopted by the Haifa municipality in the 1940s in allocating its resources was directed to meet the needs of the mixed town, and not for the purpose of satisfying interests emanating from the Jewish-Arab conflict. As the successor to the mayor Hassan Shukri, Shabetay Levy regarded the line consolidated by his predecessor as the best way to let the municipality fulfill its mission in a mixed town. As one who believed in coexistence, and enjoyed the closeness he developed with the Arab population, Levy recognized its limitations and was aware of its needs. For him this population was an inseparable part of Haifa, and he was well aware of the complexity inherent in life in a mixed town. His work after his appointment as mayor constituted proof that despite the violation of the status quo in the mayoralty of Haifa, this fact was not exploited to cause a change of approach or an attempt to undermine it. Consideration of Haifa’s character as a mixed town was a guideline by which various operations were executed, arising from an overall view of the town’s needs. 67 Shabetay Levy to District Commissioner, 29 August 1945, HMA 1/1412. 68 At the end of the Mandate a mixed population – British, Arab, and Jewish – lived in the German Colony. 69 The Annual Report of Haifa Municipality for 1946–1947, CZA Library; Minutes of the Municipality Council, 23 April 1947, HMA Book of Protocols.

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The study showed that the main effect of the municipality in developing the area was evident in the changes made in the Arab parts. As a result, significant improvements were obvious in the Arab neighborhoods, especially the eastern quarter. Road development, sewerage installation, and improvement of cleaning and sanitary conditions were all part of the features of the progressive Arab neighborhood. They contributed particularly to the betterment of the residential areas of the Muslim population. Hence the gap between the underdeveloped and the modern narrowed somewhat. Such was the principal aim of the municipality in this domain: to bring the Arab neighborhoods closer to the level of modernization that prevailed in the Jewish neighborhoods. The attempt to close the gap served as a means for easing the tension that arose from the bitterness of the underdeveloped part over the form of administration by the mixed municipality. But the municipality could not close the gap entirely by its own devices, in the absence of enterprise and investment by the Arab residents, which were present in the case with the residents of the Jewish neighborhoods. Therefore, the gap between the two parts remained throughout the Mandate period. The committees of the Jewish neighborhoods, which undertook the development of their quarters, opened a sizable gulf between them and the Arab quarters. In general, the municipality’s order of priorities in allocating resources was determined by the importance it ascribed to the development needs of the town and its inhabitants. On that account the municipality was obliged to invest more in the Arab parts of the town in order to reduce the gap in the level of development between the different neighborhoods. From its standpoint, the criticism leveled against it by the Jewish and the Arab side for practicing discrimination was irrelevant. Each party, the municipality believed, received its due. It took a different attitude to special development enterprises, from which the entire population was intended to benefit. In such cases it took pains to ensure that both sides enjoyed them equally. The manner of dividing the work in building the Town Hall and in locating the site of the public library in the area of mixed residence attests to this very well. The case of Haifa proves that a national conflict need not necessarily constitute an obstacle or a contradiction in the ways of the goals of a mixed municipality. On the contrary, the conflict may well spur policy makers to benefit both sides as required. The Haifa municipality regarded itself committed to help the weaker party so as to produce the integration required for the development of the town, and therefore it was obliged to grant more to the needs of the Arab side in certain aspects. This policy, then, did not arise from a tendency to create discrimination, as it was expressed in other mixed towns, but out of a rationale emanating from the particular texture of the mixed town. The argument that the mayor exploited his position to discriminate against the Arabs was nothing but an untruth, meant to sully the mayor’s reputation for manifestly political reasons due to the tightening tension that prevailed between the Arabs and the Jews. The scope of municipal development evident in Haifa in the 1940s is thus an example of the use of the conflict as a catalyst for promoting action, and not as an option to suppress it. The manner of operation of the municipality demonstrated that despite the conflict it was possible to create

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understanding between Jews and Arabs as shapers of municipal government and to translate it into a solution for problems arising from the nature of the town and its population. This goes towards explaining the surge of municipal development evident in Haifa in the 1940s, which was especially notable compared with other mixed towns. References Cited Aharonovitz, H. 1958. Hadar Hacarmel. Haifa: Vaad Hadar Hacarmel (in Hebrew). Alsberg, A.P. 1981. The Conflict over Mayoralty of Jerusalem During the Mandatory Period In Jerusalem in the Modern Period, edited by E. Shaltiel, 302–354 (in Hebrew). Ben-Artzi, Y. 1989. The Speciality of Haifa and its Development in the Mandate period. Haifa’s Development, 1918–1948, edited by M. Naor and Y.Ben-Artzi, 27–37. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (in Hebrew). Dar, Lina (1987) “Relations between the Jews and Arabs in the Jerusalem Municipality in the Years 1917–1939 From a Jewish Point of View” (M.A. diss., University of Tel-Aviv, (in Hebrew). Goren, T. 2001. Co-Operation under the Shadow of Confrontation: The Formation and Function of the Municipality of Haifa as a Mixed Representative Institution during the British Mandate Working Paper 15 : 1–42. Goren, T. 2003. The Meaning of The Ideal System: Hassan Bey Shukri and the Jews during the British Mandate in Palestine ZMANIM 82: 16–29 (in Hebrew). Klein, Y. 1983. The Arabs in Haifa under the British Mandate: A Political Economic and Social Survey. Haifa: The Jewish Arab Center in the university of Haifa (in Hebrew). Rubinstein, E. 1989. Jews and Arabs in the Palestine municipalities (1926–1933), with special reference to Jerusalem Cathedra 51: 122–147 (in Hebrew). Stern, S. 1989. Hadar Hacarme-merkas hachayim hayehudiyim behaifa In Haifa behitpatchuta, 1918–1948, edited by M.Naor and Y.Ben-Artzi, 38–46. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (in Hebrew). Seikaly, M. 1995. Haifa-Transformation of a Palestinian Arab Society 1918–1939. London-New York: I.B.Tauris. Vashitz, J. 1987. Yachasei yehudim vearavim behaifa In Haaravim elmul hatnua hatzionit vehayishuv hayehudi 1946–1950, edited by J.Nevo and Y.Nimrod, 21–36.Oranim: The Middle East Department (in Hebrew). Yazbak, M. 1987. Arab Migration to Haifa, 1933–1948 Cathedra 45: 131–146 (in Hebrew).

PART 2 Spatial Dynamics: Ethnic Urban Mix and its Contradictions

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Chapter 6

Planning, Control and Spatial Protest: The Case of the Jewish-Arab Town of Lydd/Lod1 Haim Yacobi

Introduction ‘Mixed towns’ is a widely used term in Israel, describing an urban situation in which Jewish and Arab communities occupy the same urban jurisdiction. However, a critical examination questions this terminology that brings to mind integration and mutual membership of society, while reality is controversial. Similar to other cases of ethnic nationalism, a clear spatial and mental division exists between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and hence the occurrence of ‘mixed’ spaces is both exceptional and involuntary. Rather, it has resulted from a historical process during which the Israeli territory, including previously Palestinian towns, has been profoundly Judaized. Based on Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualization of the production of space (Lefebvre 1991), this paper focuses on one case – the ‘mixed town’ of Lod. Through this theoretical perspective I will present the findings of a fieldwork taken in the town from 1999 to 2003. These findings accentuate the informal mechanisms of housing and infrastructure supply, the “strategic reversibility” (Foucault in Burchell et al. 1991:5) of power relations and the struggle for identity evident in the Palestinian community’s protest in this town. In this paper I will highlight the ways in which social conflict is expressed through analyzing the conceived space, the perceived space and the lived space. By doing so, I aim to rephrase the act of urban resistance, and to stress the role of spatial protest as an alternative pattern of social opposition. Spatial protest is characterized by autonomous initiatives reflecting personal and social needs that challenge the interests of those in power. These acts are based on existing communal networks and despite their randomness they identify the limits of the state’s control over those that contradict its hegemony. However, this form of 1 I am indebted to the Palestinian-American Research Center, to the Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy for their research grants. I would also like to thank the Israel Science Foundation for its generous financial support of the project entitled: ‘Israel’s Land Regime, 1948-1998’, headed by Prof. Oren Yiftachel and Dr. Sandi Kedar. The original version of this article was published in Surveillance and Society, 2 (1), 55–77 (http://www. surveillance-and-society.org/).

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protest, I will suggest, does not necessarily reflect conscious resistance, but rather produces it and thus has a subversive potential. This paper is structured as follows: I will start with describing the socio-political and demographic processes that have shaped the perceived space in Lod. In the following section I will present the conceived space, namely the role of planners and planning in transforming the form and meaning of the Palestinian town of Lydd into the ‘mixed town’ of Lod. Finally, I will explore the lived space, i.e. the effect of such processes on the symbolic meaning of the town to its Palestinian inhabitants. Urban Panopticism In this section I aim to describe the perceived space, i.e. the tangible landscape and the way in which it is organized. This includes the functional uses of space, of infrastructure and of the built environment – elements that shape our spatial experiences (Lefebvre 1991; Yacobi, 2003a; 2003c). In order to do so, I will analyse the ways in which the Palestinian town of Lydd was transformed into the ‘mixed town’ of Lod. More specifically, I will present the spatial and demographic dynamics in the town since 1948 and will follow the changes in the political-public discourse that had accompanied them. My main argument is that the policy of demographic and spatial control that took place in the town during the Military Administration period has had a significant influence, and was used as a basis for constant surveillance of the Arab inhabitants. In the following paragraphs I will outline briefly the spatiohistorical background. Lod is located at the edge of the coastal plain of Israel, and has developed around a junction of routes leading from west to east (Jaffa-Jerusalem) and from south to north (Egypt-Syria-Lebanon). There is extensive historical evidence of commercial activities in this area, and the first railway line to Lod was constructed as early as 1892. The British occupied the town in 1917 and invested widely in development, including the construction of the train station, the renovation and enlargement of the railway tracks and the establishment of an airport. In 1920 Lod was declared the capital of its region. In 1922 the British Mandate Department of Statistics reported 8,103 inhabitants, including 7,166 Muslims, 926 Christians and 11 Jews. In 1944 the Anglo-American committee counted 16,780 inhabitants, including 2,000 Christians (Yacobi 2003a; Vacart 1977). As with other Palestinian towns and villages, 1948 was a turning point in the history of Lod. The Israeli army occupied the town, which was to be part of an Arab state according to the 1947 UN partition plan. In Operation Dani, initiated by the Israeli army, 250 Palestinians were killed, and about 20,000 inhabitants escaped or were forced by the Israeli army to leave the town. However, the need for specific labor, such as the railway workers in Lod, was the main reason for allowing 1,030 Palestinians to remain in the town (IDF Archive, Military Administration Report, October 10, 1948, 1860\50-31).

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The establishment of the Israeli state and the 1948 war created a new reality in the town. When Lod was first occupied, the Israeli Military Administration gathered the remaining Palestinians in a surrounded enclosure, marked by a wire fence. This was a first step towards a policy of urban panopticism. The notion of urban panopticism is derived from the work of Foucault,2 who understood space as a crucial element explaining power relations. Furthermore, modern urban space is perceived in Foucault’s words as a ‘laboratory of power’ (Foucault 1977: 204). In this context Foucault explored the characteristics of panoptic institutions where there was no need for bars, chains and heavy locks: “[A]ll that was needed was that the separations should be clear and the openings well arranged. The heaviness of the old ‘houses of security’ with their fortress-like architecture, could be replaced by the simple, economic geometry of a house of certainty” (Foucault 1977: 362).

Yet, Foucault himself developed this theme far beyond an analysis of the architectural form. Following this line of thought he described panopticism reflecting and symbolizing the location of bodies in space and the hierarchical organization of power whenever a particular form of behavior is imposed (Foucault 1977: 364). Adopting this point of view focuses on panopticism as a “political technology”;3 after 1948, urban panopticism in Lod was used as a means for constant surveillance, through direct and indirect mechanisms of control over the Palestinians that were perceived as enemies (Bashir 1999; Rouhana and Ghanem 1999; Bishara 1993). This policy included transferring hundreds of Palestinian labourers from the Galilee to work in the abandoned vineyards in and around Lod. Those workers lived in the Arab enclave and were not allowed to remain in the town at the end of the agricultural season (Ben-Gurion Archive, 9837-27\8\48; IDF Archive, Military Administration Report, Oct. 10–Nov. 15, 1948, 1860\50-31). The security forces were the main body that coordinated the relations between the Palestinians and the Israeli governors. Archival documents show that these forces had total control over the Palestinians’ conduct, including their movements and their right to work (IDF Archive, 1860\50-31, 1860\50-32). It is important to note that 2 Originally, the panopticon had been developed in 1787 by Jeremy Bentham, and was used as an architectural model for buildings whose essence was social control such as hospitals, prisons, factories and the like. From an architectural point of view the panopticon is composed of two concentric cylinders: the outer is six floors high and faces a central space, in which the smaller cylinder is located; an individual in the central cylinder supervises and visually commands the outer cylinder. The spatial relations between both cylinders and the light settings expose the faces of the supervised and hide the presence of the supervisor. By so doing, one cannot know whether there is a supervisor in the central tower, but it creates the illusion that he is always there. 3 Very often the panopticon in post-modern societies is explained in relation to surveillance technology such as CCTV (Koskela, 2003). Yet, in this paper I refer to it as “political technology” (Foucault in Danahar et al., 2000: Chap.5), i.e., sets of regulations and institutions that shape urban space.

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in order to gain these rights, proper political behavior of the Palestinian individual towards the Israeli governing body was necessary (Bishara 1993). This approach was supported by Israeli public discourse that constructed a negative image of the remaining Arabs. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion blamed the Palestinians in Israel for supporting the surrounding Arab countries, and President Ben-Zvi claimed that the Palestinians aimed to complete Hitler’s project (Benziman and Mansour 1992). Nonetheless, the remaining Palestinians in Lod became powerless; their urban culture as well as their collective identity and leadership had been undermined and as reported at the time, they were a fragmented society that could not endanger Jewish hegemony (IDF Archive, Military Administration Report, October 10, 1948, 1860\50-31). In April 1949, the Military Administration regime in Lod ended (IDF Archive, Terminating the Military Administration in Ramle, Lod and Yaffo, June, 23, 1949, 1860\50-31), but there was still wide agreement concerning the necessity of controlling the Palestinian population in the town. Every aspect of their life was under surveillance. In the first period after the war, Palestinian refugees tried to penetrate and resettle in their vacant houses in Lod. The authority’s reaction included military acts against them as well as a massive settlement of Jewish immigrants, mainly Mizrahim (oriental Jews) (IDF Archive, Military Administration Reports, December 23, 1948, Decemeber 28, 1948 and January 11, 1949, 1860\50-31).4 In 1949 126,000 (66 percent) of the 190,000 Jewish newcomers who arrived in Israel were settled in abandoned Palestinian houses in the ‘mixed’ towns, including Lod (Morris 2000: 263). However, depite the intensive Judaization process which aimed to control the balance in numbers between the Jews and Palestinians, an ongoing process of internal migration and natural growth affected the ethnic balance. Data drawn from census figures shows that in the last decades the Palestinian population has increased from 9 to over 20 percent, while the Jewish population decreased from 91 to less than 80 percent.5 In order to understand these changes, let me trace the historical events that have undermined the seemingly hermetic process of Judaization. In addition to the Palestinians who remained in Lod after 1948, waves of Palestinian internal refugees have settled in the town since the 1950s, recomposing the town’s social profile and presenting more complex demographic strata. One of the dominant groups included families from villages in the Sharon region. This group was resettled in Lod as part of an agreement with the Israeli authorities. Their original land had been confiscated and each family was compensated by a new plot, 10 percent in size of its original property. Yet the case of these families is unique, since unlike other Palestinian groups in the town, they owned their land.6 4 In 1969, for instance, it is reported that Lod’s inhabitants were 50 percent Jewish immigrants from North Africa, 18 percent Jews from other Middle Eastern countries, 24 percent Jews from Europe and 8 percent Arabs. See: Hashimshoni 1969. 5 This data is based on the 1995 Census and on Lod’s Master Plan information (1997) 6 For more details on this case see: Yacobi 2002.

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During the 1960s, as part of the official Israeli policy, Bedouin families were settled in the northern part of Lod, in the railway district, and integrated into the Jewish economy as cheap labor. The location of Lod, close to the Tel Aviv metropolis, has also attracted other groups of Palestinian internal migrants. Some of them have illegally occupied vacant and often partly demolished houses in the town. Another group of Palestinians that were resettled by the authorities are the ‘collaborators’ – Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, territories occupied by Israel in 1967. These Palestinians have cooperated with the Israeli security authorities, and are therefore viewed by other Palestinians as traitors. The authorities had to move these families from their original villages and towns, where their lives were endangered, and compensated them with housing in the Wardah quarter that includes 50 housing units built on state land. This demographic flow embodies political, cultural and economic tensions that are spatially expressed. As shown in figure 6.1, the town presents a segregated pattern7 in which Palestinians dominate two areas in Lod: the western as well as the northern parts. These segregated areas which are the locus of the Palestinian citizens’ daily lives constitute the perceived space. In addition, these zones lack basic infrastructure and a survey of 500 Palestinian households in the town shows that over 30 percent of them are not connected to the sewer system, 49 percent have complained about humidity problems, 43 percent have rainwater leakage, 29 percent have structural problems, 28 percent of the houses are marked for demolition, and 26 percent are used for dwelling although unfinished (Brukdeil’s Report 1997). Furthermore, these districts are characterized by what has been defined by the authorities as massive illegal construction. According to my findings, around 50 percent of the Palestinian population in the town live in ‘illegal’ structures, forming the largest informal construction activity within non-Arab towns in Israel. The perceived space of the Palestinian districts became signifiers that shape the image of the Arab population in Lod. The Palestinians in Lod are presented in the media not just as the ‘Arab enemy’ but as a ‘social hazard’ and the main source of illegal activities, crime and drug dealing,8 as we learn from the municipality report: “Minorities in Lod form 20 percent of the population, while their involvement in criminal activities in the town reaches 60 percent” (Lod Municipality Report 2000).

Yet, some clarifications must be made in relation to this statement. First, the report counts illegal construction as the leading criminal act. However, it does not mention that this is a result of the demographic engineering policy, which does not respond to the housing needs of the Palestinian citizens of the town, as noted for example by Maxime Levi, who was the mayor of the town in the past:

7 8

On the nature and dynamics of segregation of mixed cities in Israel see: Falah 1996. On the social construction of the other as a result of segregation see: Sibley, 1995.

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Figure 6.1

Jewish and Arab population in Lod

In relation to the special demographic characteristics of the town[...] it is appropriate to consider unconventional solutions, to work towards the dispersal of populations out of the town, and to prevent completely the illegal invasion of inhabitants in the future... The Arab population problem, as aforesaid, is severe and urgent. It demands a comprehensive and immediate solution (Municipality of Lod and the Ministry of Housing and Construction 1987 – emphasis added).

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However, the reaction of the Arab population to this attitude does not comply with the policy makers’ goals. Rather, they struggle in order to achieve their housing rights as described by a Palestinian interviewee: “I am trapped within two circles of discrimination. The first is the national circle that relates to me as a “problem.” The second is the municipal circle, and here the situation is worse since it affects my daily life—discrimination on this level is total and deep. My basic rights are abused, my right for housing, my right to have proper schooling for the children. These services are supplied on the municipal level, and we are struggling to achieve them. My point is that there are no planning initiatives for Arabs in Lod. Maybe it is our luck, since if there was some degree of planning, we would not be able to rise against it, and the authorities could claim that they plan for us…This total withdrawal, this total ignorance of our needs motivates us” (an interview with A.M. November 4, 2000).

Indeed, the policy towards the Palestinian citizens of Lod has not changed over the years. They are still the ‘enemies’ – subject to social and spatial exclusion. In the last two decades many Jewish immigrants have arrived in Lod, mainly from the former Soviet Union. Accounting for some 25 percent of the town’s current population, they form the second generation of agents of Judaization. In Lod Municipality’s Report (2000) the demographic characteristics of the town are presented as a fundamental issue, claiming that the relative growth of the Jewish population is based on immigration, while the Arab population increases by natural growth, as noted in an interview with the Lod municipality spokesman: “Thank God! What really saved us demographically was the mass immigration of 15,000– 16,000 newcomers who arrived in Lod” (Interview with J. Shetrit, Lod municipality spokesman, October 1, 2000).

Nonetheless, at this point it is important to note that not all new Russian migrants in the town are Jewish. Around 30 percent of the newcomers to Israel in the last wave of immigration have been non-Jewish that were able to settle in Israel by virtue of the Law of Return.9 In this context it is argued that despite the contradiction between the Jewish nature of Israel and the non-Jewish immigrant-agents, this migration serves the goal of demographic engineering and hence the shaping of Israel as a “non-Arab State” (Lustick 1999). The spatial organization of the town is not an organic or natural process reflecting solely economic differences. Rather it is integrated into unequal urban niches that spatially express power relations (cf. Boal 1987; Peach 1996). These segregated battlefields are the locations in which struggles for the “right to the town” (Lefebvre 1996) take place. Hence, understanding the patterns of segregation in housing, social activities and everyday life is tightly linked with the analysis of minority-majority power relations. Indeed, in this section I have attempted to go beyond the debate of whether segregation is enforced by others or a result of community motivations 9 The Law of Return (1950, 1954, and 1970) defines the right of the Jewish people to return to Israel.

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and interests. Such an analytical dichotomy reduces the complexity of reality, since beyond the fact that segregation is a territorial phenomenon it frames social norms and constructs the image of the ‘other’. In this context the perceived space in Lod cannot be seen as neutral; it systematically disables the social and economic mobilization of the Palestinian citizens of Lod. Because of ethnic segregation, significant numbers of them are experiencing a social environment where poverty, crime and unemployment are the norm, where social and physical deterioration and educational failure predominate. The effect of segregation on the Palestinians is structural and not individual. It lies beyond the ability of any individual to create a change in his/her life according to personal motivations or private achievements. Urban Iconoclasm “…[Lod] has changed from a neglected and undeveloped Arab town into a town of 16,000 [Jewish] inhabitants… Lod, with its clean streets and plantings and its organized management... is a living example of the dynamic power of the Jewish people” (Lod Municipal Report 1952).

As noted in the previous section, the very tangible urban landscape of Lod reflects the socio-political processes in the town. Yet, it is important to note that one of the efficient tools for transforming the Palestinian town into a “Hebraic town”10 is the planning apparatus. Here, Lefebvre’s notion of the perceived space is important since it relates to the way in which professionals such as planners and architects represent space. This conceptualized space is the result of epistemological processes that cannot be seen as autonomous from the socio-political context (Lefebvre 1991).11 Following this, I will argue that the built environment in Lod cannot be seen as merely a technical device of organizing space. Rather, similar to other cultural representations, it expresses, produces and reproduces power relations. This argument will be followed by a critical discourse analysis12 concerning the urban texture since the 1948 war through the masterplans from the 1950s and the 1990s, focussing on the actual changes that have taken place in the built environment as well as on the contents and meanings embodied within the planning discourse.13 Exposing the discursive dimension of the professional sphere, I will propose, is a 10 Lod Municipality Archive. 11 For an interpretation and methodological notes see: Yacobi 2003a. 12 From a methodological perspective the interpretations and analyses of the texts and documents in this article are based on vast literature that deals with discourse analysis in general and in relation to the built environment and planning in particular. See: Markus and Cameron 2002; Fairclough 1995; Hastings 1999. 13 The limited scope of this paper will not enable me to discuss the relevance of colonial British town planning in Mandatory Palestine to the Zionist planning post-1948. For details see: Yacobi 2003b

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key to understanding the spatial dynamics of a town as well as its ideological agenda, which are often neglected in the literature of ethnic urban relations. Transforming the Palestinian town into a ‘Hebraic town’ began when the Israeli State was established, employing a dual mechanism that expressed both a tangible project of colonization and a symbolic construction of a collective national consciousness based on ethnic belonging. I would propose to define the physical act of this process as urban iconoclasm, which was rhetorically presented under a scientific planning approach, rationally and objectively concerned with the ‘public interest’. Very often this approach demanded massive destruction of the existing Palestinian built environment, an act that was justified as being part of the functional progress towards modernity. However, as I will demonstrate, a total replacement of the Arab urban landscape was impossible. This was a result of both political and demographic circumstances discussed in the previous section, as well as from the development of a controversial approach towards the indigenous built environment. This approach will be presented using the orientalist discourse, which opened a new perspective for understanding culture as a product of social dominance (Said 1978). It shows how the Jewish settler society had constructed its imagined sense of place while deforming the content and meaning of the local vernacular and transferring it into a subject of ‘local’ and ‘authentic’ but ‘non-Arab’ belonging. Historically, the 1948 war had prevented the realization of the new plan of Mandatory Lydda, designed by the architect Otto Polcheck in the spirit of the garden town.14 Polcheck’s plan, similar to the preceding plan made by the well-known architect Clifford Holliday,15 had emphasized the preservation of the ancient core of the town and the construction of its new parts alongside the historical part. While the expulsion of most of the Arab population and the concentration of the remaining Arabs in separated areas took place, massive acts of demolition of the built area were carried out by the Israeli army. This often occurred under direct governmental commands, and sometimes as a result of an army initiative. However, total demolition of the Palestinian town was not realistic. The flow of Jewish immigrants demanded a housing stock, and the intentions of some Palestinian refugees to penetrate back to their homes required an active reaction in the form of settling the Jewish newcommers in those houses as defenders of the frontiers. Similar to other frontier settings, the Judaization of Lod was a high priority national project. In 1950 only 9 percent of the town’s 12,100 inhabitants were Palestinians, while the rest were Jewish.

14 Otto Polcheck is a Jewish architect who migrated to Palestine from Czechoslovakia after studying in the Bauhaus. For more details see: Yacobi 2003b. 15 Clifford Holliday was well-known British architect and town planner, who had lived and work in Palestine during the Mandate period. For more details see: Yacobi 2003b.

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Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities The composition [of the Jewish inhabitants of Lod] is diverse and characterizes the kibbutz galuiot16: the origin of 50 percent is from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria and the origin of the other 50 percent is Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Iraq. However, seven years after it has been established as an independent Hebraic town, it is still far from being an integrated urban entity that has taken off its diasporic dress. The different [Jewish] communities preserve their customs and manners, a fact that prevents healthy and desirable development. (Galili, “Al Hamishmar” newspaper, May 17, 1954).

This critic cited here explores an essential stratum within Zionist discourse, which aims to create a modern and aggregated society in an old-new space – the ‘Hebraic town’. Furthermore, it uses the remaining indigenous architecture as a symbol not only of the intimidating enemy landscape, but also of the diasporic Mizrahi origins of the Jewish migrants: “While one walks in the Sakna ghetto and watches the degenerated life style of its inhabitants, who live in dark houses and cellars without basic sanitation… one has the feeling that nothing had changed in the life of these people that were transferred from the dark known ghettoes of Morocco” (Galili, “Al Hamishmar” newspaper, May 17, 1954).

Paradoxically, the ‘agents’ – mainly the oriental Jews that were implementing the project of Judaization – were being marked as the cause for the backwardness of the town. The migration policy of the Israeli authorities had brought together into the town many welfare and social problems, as defined by Zvi Itzkovitch, the mayor of Lod twenty years later: Everyone [of the Jewish migrants] occupies a house from the abandoned property… Instead of searching for solutions to rehabilitate the Arab town that was neglected, such as erecting new factories, the Sochnut [the Jewish Agency] and the government compress in the town welfare cases from the entire country (Lod Municipality Archive 1972).

What urban landscape should be created in the town of Lod in order to replace the Arab, diasporic and backward built environment? The response for this question was clear at the time, and it had to do with the project of modernization that represented the ideological denial of the oriental past and present. In a deterministic way the Israeli public discourse tied the characteristics of the “dark ghetto” to social maladies that could be healed if the physical conditions would improve: […] (T)hose who live in the new housing blocks will not live peacefully with the ghetto inhabitants… Let’s realize the experts’ and engineers’ decision concerning the necessity to demolish all this area in order to clean the social dirt (Galili, “Al Hamishmar” newspaper, May 17, 1954).

16 Kibbutz Galuiot (‘the gathering of exiles’) is an essential concept in Zionist discourse. Its meaning is the melting pot of diasporic Jewish immigrants from different countries of origin.

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The “housing blocks” mentioned above were an outcome of the first Israeli master plan initiated in 1954 and approved in 1958. The architect, Michael Barr, had advocated modernistic planning principles. The new urban scheme is based on a modernistic planning approach and its zoning, public open spaces and efficient transportation system demonstrate total estrangement to the existing Arab landscape: “It is necessary to prepare a detailed urban scheme without any relation to the existing buildings” (Lod Municipality 1952).

Barr’s modernistic paradigm was compatible with the ideology of the Jewish settler society. While Polchek’s and Holliday’s orientalist views advocated the reconstruction of the old town of Lydda, Barr’s ambition was to transform Lod’s Arab urban fabric in the name of modernization: “We should gradually transfer the inhabitants of the ruins [the old town] to new housing zones. The vacant area we should use partly for new planned housing districts and mostly for the construction of public buildings and public open spaces for the needs of the population that lives around it” (Lod Municipality Archive 1972). In this context I will mention Sandercock’s claim that modernist planners were the “thieves of memory”. They have been “embracing the ideology of development as progress” and by doing so they “have killed whole communities, by evicting them, demolishing their houses” (Sandercock 1998: 208). In the case of Lod this argument is valid, though a focus on the project of modernization would be partial, since modernization is not an independent concept; most certainly, it is strongly tied with other ideologies. As illustrated above, similar to other colonial practices, the act of planning was justified as being more civilized than the indigenous population’s use of space (King 1990). Urban iconoclasm was not presented as an act of aggression, but as an act towards modernization. Hence, the modernist interpretation of the town and its inhabitants was used as a moral and ethical foundation to make them subject to surveillance and control. For without constructing the ‘other’ as a less civilized enemy, there would have been no justification to control them. This approach had characterized the first decade of the establishment of Israeli Lod, and was again repeated 20 years later: “We have received the town abandoned, underdeveloped and dirty, with no electricity, sewerage system and running water, roads and sidewalks. The streets, especially the main street, were miserable alleys. In order to build a town, excellent town-builders are necessary. In order to rehabilitate an underdeveloped town there is a need for good will, energy, initiative and above all – money… Roads and sidewalks were paved all over the town, neglected places became well-groomed, deteriorated squares are flowering” (Zvi Itzkovitch, Lod’s mayor. Lod Municipality Archive 1972).

This citation presents the overlapping mechanisms that have produced Lod’s urban landscape; a modernist approach to hygiene and planning, and a concept of Jewish ethnicity that had replaced filth and backwardness.

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Barr’s urban scheme took into account that some of the religious buildings in the ancient part of the town will remain. However, their original function, that used to be part of the communal Palestinian town life, was no longer valid in the planner’s eyes. Here, urban design had a special role in confining space and memory into the limitations of the hegemonic Jewish, western and modern frameworks: “The religious institutions and the special buildings will remain within the [new planned] parks, and if they will be vacant we will use them for museums and exhibitions as well as an artists’ hostel where artists will find the special atmosphere inspiring for their creations. We might consider as a memory of the past the preservation of some alleys that are characterized by special buildings” (Lod Municipality 1952).

Until the beginning of the 1970s most of the Arab town had been demolished, leaving a void named “Park Ha-Shalom”, the Hebrew name for Peace Park. The planners – these are the “physicians of space” (Lefebvre 1996: 99) – followed their ideological commitment of healing the oriental space. Indeed, urban iconoclasm was used both as a means and as an end in itself. In the name of modernization and newness, it had enabled the physical colonization of Lod, while symbolically transforming Lod’s sense of place. While Lod underwent massive urban transformations, new voices began to be heard; voices that called for preserving Lod’s architectural heritage. The local municipality organized a conference about this issue in 1992 where this apparent shift towards the historical importance of remnants was expressed. Preserving Lod’s indigenous built environment was seen, first and foremost, as a source for tourist attractions. This approach was mentioned before by planner Michael Barr and was repeated in this conference forty years later: […] (W)e could restore this area, and it can easily compete with old Jaffa: with museums, galleries, tourist shops and art centers (“Alternativa” – local newspaper, October 9, 1992).

This attitude in other towns in the world has been criticized (Boyer 1996), claiming that it represents a point of view of white, middle-class professionals who focus on depoliticizing the act of planning. This attitude also evaluates towns according to their location in the global restructuring of capital, and it dominates present-day urban design. However, in relation to the apparent shift towards the Arab landscape of Lod, I would propose that its commercialization must be viewed within the context of the architectural discourse in Israel during the 1960s, that was dominated by a yearning to define ‘deep-rootednness’ and a local national regionalism. This was a dialectical process that had adopted the indigenous landscape as an object of inspiration on one hand, and had excluded the ‘intimidating other’ on the other. This apparent shift towards preserving the Arab urban texture is but another form of dominance. Behind it lie the domestication of landscape, time and space as means for constructing the collective sense of ‘primordial’ belonging, referring back to an ‘authentic being’, as I will present in the following paragraphs.

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In 1990 Sa’adia Mandel, one of the leading architects in urban conservation in Israel, was hired by the Israeli Committee of Site Preservation to prepare a Conservation Master Plan for Lod. The main focus of his plan was the potential for tourism: “The municipality of Lod aims to return the town to the route of tourism, and to present to visitors from Israel and abroad the historical sites of the town. These sites demand rehabilitation that will rediscover and transform them into attractive touristic sites” (Preservation Master Plan 1991).

However, this task required a re-reading of the town’s history and a reshaping of memory as noted by the architect himself: “…[A]t the end of the process I had reached some conclusions… I told Maxim Levi, the mayor, that this was a conservation and tourism as well as an educational project. There are people in Lod aged 50, and they have the right to know whether Lod was occupied or liberated… I am not using such words “occupation” and “liberation” fortuitously. In this story I have a clear position. I know that Emek Izrael was occupied. The Zionists bought the land there from the Arab landowners and settled there – this is an elegant occupation if you want, I am not saying that it was fair, but elegant is the most innocent term I can use. Then, the war of liberation broke out and Lod was occupied – this was less elegant…. My thesis is that in Lod there is space for both them and us”( Interview with Sa’adia Mandel, September 20, 2000 ).

Mandel’s work was published in a detailed report presenting the history of the town chronologically, and showing each period and its central monuments that should be preserved. It is a voyage in time that goes back to the Neolithic and Iron ages, the Roman, Byzantine and Early Arab periods, the Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman and British Mandate times, and finally the period from 1948 up to the present. This document describes the characteristics and monuments of each period, though its subtext deals with a reconstruction of the historical narrative of the town. Two significant examples illustrate this. While describing the transition from the Byzantine period to the Early Arab period, the text mentions the process of urban iconoclasm that had characterized the Muslim occupation stating that the town “was demolished by Muslims, and the stones were taken for the construction of the town of Ramle”. However, while relating to the period from 1948 onwards, the almost total destruction of Lydda is ignored, and “rational” circumstances explain its Judaization after the “liberation” of the town was completed: “On July 11th 1948 Lod was occupied by the Israeli Defense Army as part of “Operation Dani”. Its Hebraic name – Lod – was restored. New home-comers populated the abandoned dwellings, thus using efficiently the existing stock of housing”.

Obviously, the efforts to ‘domesticate’ the town’s memory and monuments serve the construction of an Israeli collective identity framed by the Zionist narrative, claiming that the Jewish people have returned to ‘a land without people’ waiting for

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‘a people without land’. However, since Lod is a ‘mixed town’ composed of both Jewish and Arab citizens, relying on the concept of terra nullius is problematic; despite its iconoclastic past the town still contains both Arab architectural characteristics and an Arab population. Mandel is conscious of this and though he declares his commitment to Zionism, he tries to give a wider meaning to the Master Plan: When I mentioned the oil-press building of the Hassona family17 I was asked to hush this matter up. I said that I want the Hassona family to operate their ancient oil-press. There is no reason why they shouldn’t… Every Arab building we found had been destroyed, the Jews have deceived themselves – we thought that we could erase… but everything is still alive and I have tried to express this in the Master Plan (Interview with Sa’adia Mandel, September 20, 2000).

Yet, as noted by Rabinowitz (1993) any reference to the non-Jewish legacy and cultural heritage are conceived as problematic for the Jewish majority, for recognizing the ‘other past’ may expose the competitive identity to the Zionist one. Indeed, Mandel’s plan has never been realized, and the Arab remains in the town were left to disappear ‘naturally’. One of the only projects that were realized in preserving Lod’s urban fabric is the conservation of an Arab building in the town center. This building was renovated in order to serve as the offices of the mayor of Lod. Until then a modernist building housed the offices as well as the representative functions of the municipality. Nevertheless, the apparent shift towards the Arab landscape was translated into a symbolic transfer of the town leaders into an ancient house, situated at the end of a visual axis. The house, which was once part of an urban texture, had become a displaced ‘monument’. Its typical symmetry, the hierarchical movement in space from private to public as well as its ceremonial entrance have been deformed. A decorated sign quoting a verse from Jeremiah greets those who approach the building: “And children shall return to their border” (Jeremiah 31:17). Who are the children to come again to border? It seems that the offices of Lod’s mayor come within an approach discussed by the orientalist discourse in relation to the international exhibitions (Mitchell 1998; Crinson 1999). In these displays the artificial objects were supposed to create an impression of order, authenticity and scientific chronology; this in turn suggested a certain organization of knowledge. In the Conservation Master Plan Lod’s ‘historical collection’ suggested by the architect was a succession of anecdotes, organized so as to present contemporary reality as a linear and natural continuation of the past. This point, in the context of Lod that was formerly a Palestinian town, is very central for understanding the reconstruction of the historical narrative that presents a linear historical continuity of Jewish settlement in the town, as stated by the Mayor at the time of preparing the plan:

17 The Hassona Palestinian family remained in Lod after the 1948 war, and they still own the ancient oil-press building.

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“During hundreds of years, in different epoques since the Canaanite period… Lod was the only place in the world in which a Hebraic settlement existed” (Preservation Master Plan 1991).

To sum up this section which dealt with the perceived space and its contribution to the production of urban landscape, I will point out that the very act of planning, discursively and practically, has a significant role in ‘rationalizing’ power relations. Indeed, the production of urban space is an ongoing process that involves hegemonic ideology and socio-political relations, while in the case of Lod these are based on two interrelated processes; Judaization on one hand and de-Arabization on the other. This requires ‘scientific’ disciplines to contribute to what has been defined by Said as a “struggle over geography”. This struggle, as noted by Said, is complex as “it is not only about soldiers and cannons, but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings” (Said 1993: 6). In this context the contribution of the spatial practices such as architecture, urban design and planning is significant; on one hand they codify within their professional discourse the ideologies they serve, while on the other they transform the built environment, urban form and space. Their power, indeed, is in their ‘unquestionable’ effect of framing daily experience and accumulating meaning, which can then be decoded through analyzing the discourses in which they are produced. Finally, the planning processes in Lod are indeed visible, though not exactly in the ways the planners had intended. Realizing the vision of a modernistic space that welcomes the newcommers was impossible in the first years, mainly since the Palestinian housing stock was used to house the Jewish migrants. Yet, in spite of the destruction of the indigineous landscape, the massive informal construction of the Palestinian neighbourhoods in Lod contradicts the utopian urban landscape, and signifies vast areas in the town as Arab, as noted in a popular Russian migrants newspaper: […](S)ometime ago the Arabs have constructed a big house on a plot that the municipality had devoted for establishing a national park in which archeologists had found the remains of an ancient Jewish wine-press… But instead of a national park an Arab house is constructed and beside it a horse and sheep pen. Instead of tourists and inhabitants, only sheep and horses are visiting here, and the neighbourhood [Jewish] inhabitants hear the animal’s noise during the night and smell the “pleasant” odor (“Vesti” Newspaper May 9, 2002 – originally in Russian).

Urban (Counter) Narrative As discussed in the previous sections, the urban landscape in Lod has been shaped through the years by the ethno-national conflict. This is expressed in the authorities’ ‘top-down’ planning policy on one hand and in the ‘bottom-up’ initiatives of the Palestinian inhabitants in the form of informal construction on the other. As I will outline in this section, this spatio-political tension is in the core of the construction of meaning as well as of a sense of belonging and identity within the Palestinian

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population. This claim will be articulated within the analysis of the lived space that embodies images, symbols and associative ideas of the ‘users’ that give meaning to space. In this section I have selected one in-depth interview conducted with Hannan, an Arab inhabitant in her mid 40s, who lives in a well serviced middle-class “Jewish Neighbourhood”. The main question to be looked through this narrative is in what ways do the processes explored in this paper effect the construction of identities of those inhabitants that are not included within the hegemonic group, and how do these identities – in turn – shape symbolically urban space. Yet, I would like to stress that my intention is not to claim that my interpretations are undoubtful representations of reality. Rather, I would suggest that the lived space as reflected in Hannan’s narrative is an added dimension that challenges and critically examines the ‘objective’ facts. Despite my request from Hannan to describe her everyday life in Lod, she preferred to open the interview with one of the central themes around which her narrative was constructed; the house. The first section of the interview is devoted to this theme and she started by saying: “[I]n Lod this is our third house”. Indeed, many researchers have pointed on the importance of the domestic space as the extension of the self (Carsten and Hugh Jones 1995), as well as a fundamental source of shaping identity (Cohen 1982). Yet, I would suggest that in Hannan’s narrative the private house also embodies a symbolic meaning that functions as the ‘container’ of the Palestinian collective narrative, as the following example demonstrates: […]From the first house that belonged to my grandfather, we had five houses according to the number of brothers in the family… The second house we lived in, used to be the property of a Palestinian family that was expelled to Jordan in 1948 and that came to visit their house while we lived there.

Indeed, Hannan is counting the houses to which her family had moved, while mentioning the fact that the “second house” had belonged to Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, counting the different houses is a pattern that also serves the collective politization of her narrative, stressing the fact that it is a continuous process, forced by the existing power relations in the town. It was the deterioration of the Arab neighbourhoods in Lod which had obliges her family to move into another district: “So we said, its about time to depart, we were looking where to depart, yes we were looking where to depart.” Repeating the verb “to depart”18 relates to Hannan’s mind-set of living in closure that is shown again when she refers to her present house and neighbourhood: Here everyone is locked in his own house… there are isolated houses, organized in straight lines[… ] I hate to get out, whenever I leave the house I have a war, I have a war

This negative image was unexpected, since Hannan’s family lives in one of the best quarters of Lod, though they are the only Arab family there. The very spatial 18 “Latzet” in Hebrew

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metaphors of “straight lines” and “isolated houses” were presented during the interview as the opposite of her childhood housing environment that was dominated by Palestinian inhabitants: A lot of houses, a lot of trees and a lot of kids playing. The houses are ordered in circles and all the people are going out, gathering, laughing, a lot of joy… old women watching through the windows.

Here the image of “circles” has nothing to do with the physical reality of her past neighborhood. Rather, it is a way of symbolizing the communal collective feelings which also mentioned by using plural nouns (a lot of houses, trees etc.) and positive connotations (“joy”, “gathering”” etc.). This narrative presents a nostalgic perspective towards Hannan’s past. But here again, this involves not solely the personal memories but the collective Palestinian sentiments to the town as noted by her: 50 years ago [Palestinian] towns in this area were really something important, respected and known; intellectuals’ towns. But they destroyed the town, they simply destroyed it. Lod has a name of a town but from a cultural point of view it is not a town anymore, it is just a dump.

The loss of the glorious past and the negative present image of urban space which is “just a dump”, is highly politicized by accentuating that “they” – i.e. the Israelis – have “destroyed” the town. Additionally, during the interview she criticizes the authorities’ planning policy, mentioning the “dark side of planning” (Yiftachel 1994), which aims to control and ghettoize the Arab population: The new housing project was designed as a trap, no one wanted to move there. Do you know these drawings of rat traps? That’s how it is.

Indeed, in Hannan’s narrative the spatial and demographic dynamics presented in this paper come up when she uses another metaphor that signifies the ‘dirt’: Gradually the Jews left the area, their old houses were demolished by the authorities and the developers. Only the Arabs were left to live there and the neighbourhoods became like a garbage pile.

Beyond this description lies one of the most significant themes in this narrative, which is the symbolic reversibility of power relations. While Israeli public discourse focuses on the Arabs as the main reason for the deterioration of the town, Hannan repeats more than once that the Jewish inhabitants are its cause, expressing a sense of belonging and reconstructing facts through ‘othering’: […] Who are the real Lodians? The Jews had come to the entire country, ok [laughing] but why did they send all the weak Jewish migrants to Lod? They did not contribute anything, they are the reason for the town’s deterioration.

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This claim is further epitomized when Hannan symbolically reverses ‘common knowledge’ concerning who’s town is Lod: The Jews leave the town, they leave the town, they leave the town. …There is no sense of belonging in the Jewish side. From the Arab side there is, I suppose, a sense of belonging. I, for instance, have enough money to buy a house somewhere else, but this is my town, ok?

Hannan uses her sense of belonging as a counter narrative to the ‘top-down’policies, though the following anecdote proves that her ability “to buy a house somewhere else” is not an easy task in a town which is based on ethnic segregation: I have an anecdote. When we came to buy this house we were standing outside and talking to the previous owner of this house. Suddenly she said: ‘lower your voice! so the people here will not recognize you, although you are Christian. So I said: you can tell them all loudly that I am doing them a favour by agreeing to live here.

To sum up this section, here is what Hannan had to say about her identity of resistance19, a counter product of the ongoing ethno-national conflict. In addition to her urban sense of belonging and in reference to the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict she indicates an imagined space linked to her national identity: The establishment refuses to accept our right to be Palestinians just because of the fact that we [the Palestinians citizens of Israel] are here and they [Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority] are there, just because of the circumstances by which we are stuck here and they are stuck in a different region, and the establishment does not accept our identification with our Palestinian brothers and sisters. What does it means to identify with them? It is not an issue of identifying. They are us. We are they.

Discussion The multiple processes that have taken place in Lod’s urban space were not evolutional or natural. Rather they are products of the ethno-national Israeli project and its purposeful actions which express the role of ideology in the production of residential segregation and informal urban spaces in Israel. This approach is common to settler societies where conflict with the indigenous population plays a central role in the formation of national collective consciousness. The ‘mixed’ urban context in Israel presents a ‘double trap’ for the Palestinian citizens; in a state that defines itself as a Jewish state and thus allocates resources according to ethnic hierarchy. They are further discriminated in a town that declares itself to be ‘mixed’ but excludes its Arab inhabitants, their planning needs and their identity. This logic determines the town’s planning policy, the flow of capital as well 19 On the construction of ethnic identity as a result of the processes of resistance and the ways in which it is reproduced in the face of oppression and social exclusion see: Castells 1997.

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as the cultural production and the use of modes of surveillance for demographic and spatial control. However, hegemonic oppression calls for a reaction, which comes in the form of initiatives by the Palestinian inhabitants of Lod in order to achieve their right to the town. As noted by Koskela: control is never completely hegemonic. There is always an element of resistance. Surveillence can be turned to ‘counter surveillence’, to a weapon for those who are oppressed (2003: 306).

What is important here is the conceptualization and role of spatial protest as an alternative pattern of social opposition. Spatial protest is characterized by the formation of autonomous acts reflecting personal and social needs that often contradict the interests of those in power. These acts are based on existing social networks and despite their informality they identify the limits of the state’s control which requires to compliance with a dictated social order. Moreover, this pattern of objection, despite its arbitrariness, produces social and political consciousness and thus has a subversive potential.20 The perceived space clearly reflects the Arab inhabitants’ spatial protest. Unauthorized housing construction results from the very basic need of supplying shelter, yet its visibility and scope as well as the inability of the authorities to put an end to it point on its strength. Simultaneously, the image of the “Arab enemy” as constructed with the establishment of Israeli Lod in 1948, was transformed into a ‘social problem’ attached to the discourse of ‘legality’ that ‘endangers’ the image of the town. This leads us to the symbolic dimension of the perceived space that threatens the cultural existence of the town as well as the planners’ and policy-makers’ achievements. In the face of the efforts and resources that have been invested in order to reshape the built landscape of Lod, it is gradually transforming again into an ‘Arab townscape’ in its architectonic image as a result of the extensive uncontrolled informal construction. I assume that this form of spatial protest is not necessarily a conscious act, but the signification of wide districts in the town as ‘Arab’ results from theses visible acts of construction. Referring to this, I will also note that the spatial protest in relation to the conceived space is significant. Spatial protest clearly appears in the analysis of Hannan’s lived space. The personal as well as the collective meaning of urban space appear to be a direct result of ‘one-way’ power relations. Yet, a careful analysis of the interview with Hannan shows that there are counter narratives of resistance, that exposes a sense of communal place and belonging to the town, represented symbolically in a strategic reversal of power relations.

20 On similar patterns of ‘bottom-up’ resistance see: Holston 1989; Kemp 2002.

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References Cited Bashir, N. 1999. The Palestinian Inhabitants in the Mixed Towns – Demography, Education Employment and Crime. Jerusalem: The Center of Alternative Information. (Hebrew) Benziman, U. and Mansour, A. 1992. Subtenants. Jerusalem: Keter. (Hebrew) Bishara, A. 1993. On the Question of the Palestinian Minority in Israel, Theory and Criticisms, 3: 7–35 (Hebrew). Boal, F. W. 1987. Segregation. In: Social Geography: Progress and Prospect, edited by M. Pacione, 90–128. London: Croom Helm. Boyer, M. C. 1996. The Town of Collective Memory. Cambridge Massachusetts, London England: The MIT Press. Brukdeil’s Census of the Arab Families in Lod. 1997. (Hebrew, not Published). Carsten, J., and Hugh-Jones S. 1995. Introduction. In: About the House – LeviStrauss and Beyond, edited by J. Carsten and S. Hugh-Jones, 1–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castells, M. 1997. The Power of Identity: Economy, Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Central Bureau of Statistics. 1995. The Geographical-Statistical Vision of Urban Localities in Israel, 6, C. (Hebrew) Central Bureau of Statistics. 1999. Statistical Abstract of Israel, 50. (Hebrew) Cohen, A. P. 1982. Belonging: the experience of culture. In: Belonging – Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures, edited by A. P. Cohen 1–18. Manchester University Press. Crinson, M. 1996. Empire Building – Orientalism and Victorian Architecture, London and New York: Routledge. Danahar, G., Schirato, T. and Webb, J. 2000. Understanding Foucault. London: Sage. Fairclough, N. 1995. Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. Falah, G. 1996. Living Together Apart: Residential Segregation in Mixed ArabJewish Towns in Israel. Urban Studies, 33 (6): 823–857. Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish. London: Penguin, trans. Alan Sheridan. Gordon, C. 1991. Governmental Rationality: An Introduction. In: The Foucault Effect, edited by Burchell, G., Gordon, C., and Miller, P. 1–52. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Hashimshoni, Z. 1969. Lod – The Old Town Census. The Evacuation and Construction Authority (Hebrew). Hastings, A. 1999. Discourse and Urban Change: Introduction to the Special Issue, Urban Studies, 36 (1): 7–12. Holston, J. 1989. The Modernist Town – An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Kemp, A. 2002. ‘Sojourning People’ or the ‘Big Fire’: State Power and Everyday Resistance in the Israeli Frontier. In Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s Ethnitown, edited by H. Hever, Shenhav, Y. and Motzafi-Haller, P. 36–67. (Hebrew).

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King, D. A. 1990. Urbanism, Colonialism and the World Economy – Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System. London and New York: Routledge. Koskela, H. 2003. ‘Cam Era’ – the Contemporary Urban Panopticon. Surveillance and Society (3): 291–213. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell. Lefebvre, H. 1996. Writings on Towns, London: Blackwell. Lod Municipality, 1991. Preservation Master Plan (Hebrew). Lod Municipality Report, 1952. Lod – Three Years of Municipal Regime. (Hebrew). Lod Municipality Report, 2000. (Hebrew) Lustick, I. 1999. Israel As A Non-Arab State: The Political Implications of Mass Immigration of Non-Jews. Middle East Journal, 53 (3): 416–433. Markus, T. and Cameron, D. 2002. The Words between the Spaces – Buildings and Language. London and New York: Routledge. Mitchell, T. 1998. Colonising Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peach, C. 1996. The Meaning of Segregation. Planning Practice and research, 11 (2):137–150. Rabinowitz, D. 1993. Oriental Nostalgia: How the Palestinians Became IsraeliArabs. Theory and Criticism 4:141–151(Hebrew). Rouhana, N. and Ghanem, A. 1999. The Democratization of a Traditional Minority in an Ethnic Democracy. In: The Israel\Palestine Question, edited by I. Pappe, London and New York: Routledge. Said, E. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. U.K: Vintage. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism – Western Conceptions of the Orient, Penguin Books. Sandercock, L. 1998. Towards Cosmopolis. New York: Wiley. Sibley D. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion – Society and Difference in the West, London and New York: Routledge. Vacart, O. 1977. Lod – A Geographical History, Chericover, Lod. (Hebrew). Wood, D. 2003. Foucault and Panopticism Revisted. Surveillance and Society (3): 234–239. Yacobi, H. 2003a. Everyday Life in Lod: On Power, Identity, and Spatial Protest in a Mixed Town. Jamaa (10): 69–110 (Hebrew). Yacobi, H. 2003b. The Architecture of ethnic Logic: Exploring the Meaning of the Built Environment in the “Mixed” Town of Lod – Israel. Geografiska Annaler, 84 (B): 171–187. Yacobi, H. (2003c). From Urban Panopticism to Spatial Protest. Surveillance and Society, 2 (1), 55–77. Yiftachel, O. 1994. The Dark Side of Modernism: Planning as Control of an Ethnic Minority. In Postmodern Towns and Spaces, edited by S. Watson and K. Gibson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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Chapter 7

Heteronomy: The Cultural Logic of Urban Space and Sociality in Jaffa Daniel Monterescu

The October 2000 Events as Seen from Jaffa The large scale protest demonstrations staged by the Palestinian citizens of Israel throughout the country in the first two weeks of October 2000, now widely known as “the October Events,” did not bypass Jaffa. For a few days in early October Palestinian youngsters marched the streets, destroying public symbols and state institutions including banks, post offices and Jewish-owned stores. Shortly after these events I met with Dina, a Jewish Jaffa-born relative of mine who lives at the heart of Jaffa’s predominantly Arab ‘Ajami quarter, and with Samih, a Palestinian high-school class-mate from my own Jaffa days twenty years ago. Inescapably, the conversation turned to the recent upheaval and its implications on Jewish-Arab relations in Jaffa. I asked Dina how she had coped with the “riots”, referring her to an incident I knew of, whereby Palestinian youths burned down a lottery booth a block away from where she lives. Her answer surprised me. It stood in sharp contrast to the biased and hysterical anti-Arab media reports and to the anxious responses of most Israeli residents of neighboring Tel-Aviv. Dismissing the notion that these events were in anyway dangerous, she said dryly that all she had to do was detour whatever demonstrations were going on and go from work back home another way. At the end of the day, she concluded, Tel-Aviv is more dangerous than Jaffa, if only for fact that Jaffa, where many of the residents are Arabs, is immune to suicide attacks by Palestinian terrorists. She said: The whole thing was really stupid, not a big deal. Nothing happened to me. They [the demonstrators, DM] never reached my house. From the outside it looked much worse than it actually was. Some Jerusalemite Palestinians arrived to agitate and nationalize the atmosphere, and some youngsters from Jaffa went along. I know that for Tel-Avivans it looked awful, but I wasn’t afraid. Friends suggested that I stay with them in Tel-Aviv, and some of them did not visit me for months […]. I live in the ideal distance, you see. They didn’t enter the houses and there were no pogroms. They were not brutes like Sharon’s people. They focused on expressing their protest – with no looting or rape. They didn’t hurt civilians because so many of them are Arabs like them. They looked for external Jewish elements – people from Bat-Yam [a coastal town just south of Jaffa, DM], for example, who never try to integrate with

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Proceeding with this surprisingly sympathetic view of the events, Dina described them in a-political terms. Her description was of what might be called “collective effervescence” – a ritual of semi-spontaneous gathering involving in-group (“Jaffans”) and out-group agents (“Jerusalemites”) alike. Rather than a threatening and frightening occurrence, Dina’s account of the October Events took a Durkheimian tenor, whereby Jaffans recognized their political national unity by means of a primarily social and quasi-ludic practice of opposition. In her words: The atmosphere was like a festival, people enjoyed the action. Evening comes and everyone goes out to the streets. The gutsy ones throw some stones, but the driving force were those Jerusalemites. I told my friends that it all took place at certain hours in the evening, around six or seven, as youngsters come home from school or work. Jaffans are usually calm and quiescent, but when the Jerusalemites arrived it made the locals finally feel they were part of the whole thing, of the Palestinian people. Also you have to remember in October the air outside is pleasant in the evening.

Disagreeing with what Dina described as the pivotal role of the demonstrators from outside of Jaffa (the “Jerusalemites”), Samih, who took part in the demonstrations, insisted on the political dimension of the violent events. Dina’s association of the events with undisciplined working-class and youth-based leisure practice was wrong, he thought.1 He said: Even though the demonstrations were pretty lame, the Israeli newspapers depicted Jaffa as a “ticking bomb.” Most gatherings took place when we thought that people from Bat-Yam are about to attack Jabaliyya [a neighborhood in Jaffa, DM]. At least 200 people came out to defend the neighborhood’s mosque. Luckily, the police stood between us and the Jews and after a few days the tension dissolved. What made most people happy – me too – is that they closed Yeffet St. It was a festive atmosphere, like that on Yom Kippur [where in Jaffa both Jews and Arabs fill the streets, DM]. An atmosphere of disorder and festival. We were happy that they Jews are afraid to enter Jaffa.

Referring to the de-facto Israeli boycott of Jaffa in the weeks that followed, Samih continued: Abu Hassan’s Foul-Hummus restaurant was already empty at 10:00–11:00 in the morning, and people started going more to Abu Hassan to prove to ourselves that the Jewish boycott was not getting us. There was a day when Abu-Hassan was really moved as Jaffan Arabs filled the place. We proved that he is not here only because of the Jewish market.

1 For a comparison with the ways working-class youth in Ireland engage in communal violence as a means of rejecting their spatial and social marginalization, see Carter (2004).

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These were strange months, with Jaffa completely empty on Saturdays. Then the situation gradually went back to normal. The following year the Rabita [Jaffa’s nationalsecular local association, DM] spread flyers calling for a general strike, with absolutely no effect. October succeeded because it wasn’t planned. Jaffans don’t go to the streets when they are organized.

Samih then gave two examples of what he called “the dynamic of destruction”: one was “Hasukkah Halevana” (The White Tabernacle), a restaurant owned by a Jew and run by Sabagh, a Christian-Arab. The second was Ochayon, a Jewish Moroccan tailor who owns a clothes shop. The demonstrations were not completely ideological. There was a dynamic of destruction and there was a separate nationalist dynamic that led people to break stores owned by Jews. Had they demolished Andre’s ice-cream place [a Christian well-to-do business, DM], I wouldn’t be surprised – they are a weak family. Messing with the Kheils’ restaurant is a completely different matter – no one wants to have to deal with that family. The dynamic was to break everything. They stoned Jews with no strong back up. The “White Sukkah” restaurant is managed by Sabbagh – a Christian Arab. Everybody knows that. His place was totally destroyed, but Ra’uf’s restaurant just across the street – was left intact. Both Sabbagh and Ra’uf are Christians but Ra’uf is cool, he has many Muslim friends. The idea was to break everything, but some things are more easily broken than others. In Ochayon’s case, although the demonstrators stoned his store, he showed up the next day and reopened soon after, taking this opportunity to renovate the place – and now he’s actually doing better in a much nicer store. Ochayon sells expensive Jeans and his store is often broken into. There are Jews in Jaffa, but no one thought of breaking into houses of Jews. It didn’t occur to anyone. From demonstration to demonstration in Jaffa – Ochayon has been upgraded and got more and more successful. Ochayon is no gentrifiyer – he’s been here for 50 years. It’s the preferred Jeans store in Jaffa. 100% of his clientele are Arabs – everyone buys at his store.

In spite of their disagreement, resulting in part from their different ethno-national affiliations and their respective access to social networks in Jaffa, Dina and Samih’s reactions both stand in sharp contrast to the flat and hysterical coverage of these events in the Israeli media.2 Their accounts differ substantially from the stereotypical perceptions of most Jewish-Israelis and the violent reaction of the police.3 Illustrating the overwhelming power of nationalist forces but also their limits, the October events bring to the fore three levels of the constitutive tensions which characterize Jaffa. First, they reveal the complicated relations between the political and the social realms, namely between Palestinian nationalist mobilization and nonnational social dynamics stemming from the urban mix with Jewish residents and 2 For instance, at the front page of Yediot Aharonot in early October 2000, the headline read “Jaffa is on Fire.” 3 The brutal reaction of the police to the Palestinian demonstrations of October 2000 in the Galilee and the Triangle left 13 Palestinian demonstrators dead. In Jaffa and other mixed towns, however, there were few casualties and no fatalities. For an account of these events see Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker (2005:102–4) and Orr et al. (2003).

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from internal dynamics within the Palestinian community. Perceived by a Jewish resident who could have been a victim of this mobilization, the demonstrations were seen as both legitimate and harmless. Seen by a Palestinian resident, these demonstrations reveal the intervention of “social,” communal and non-national forces that determined the nature of violence in Jaffa, such as mass behavior and internal clan-based power relations and religious divisions. Power is weaved into the social fabric and is thus both structural and situational. In this relational approach, “the concept of power is transformed from a concept of substance to a concept of relationship” (Elias, 1978:131; see, Emirbayer 1997).4 Second, this case demonstrates the productive and dialectic aspect of conflict qua social form which Simmel theorized a century ago ([1922] 1955). Ochayon’s increasing success with Jaffa’s Arab clientele and his determination to remain in town despite recurrent attacks on his store show that the Palestinian demonstrations were not perceived by veteran Jewish Jaffans to be personally targeting individual Jews.5 Third, it is striking that during the October Events and in their immediate aftermath, the farther one got away from the actual scene in terms of social and physical distance the more stereotypical the image and representation of the conflict became, and the more it was narrated in dichotomous collective terms of “them” and. “us.” When one got to the neighboring city of Bat-yam one already had a collective melee of two armed crowds, set apart only by the police. The October Events in Jaffa thus expose the relevance of “social distance” (Simmel 1971) and spatial proximity for political action as well as its representations in ethnically mixed urban contexts. I wish to decipher these moments of conflict and collective mobilization through Ulrich Beck’s theory of cosmopolitanism and his critique of “methodological nationalism”, namely the analytic bias which conflates social boundaries with state boundaries, and allows national categories to seep into sociological analysis (2003).6 4 In this vein, Foucault famously asserts, “relations of power are not in a position of exteriority with respect to other types of relationships, but are immanent in the later; they are the immediate effects of the divisions, inequalities, and disequilibriums which occur in the latter, and conversely they are the internal conditions of these differentiations (Foucault 1990:94). 5 To further test this hypothesis I asked my barber in Ajami, himself a Moroccan second-generation Jaffa-born Jew, “why did they break Ochayon’s store?” His immediate answer was “they didn’t do it on purpose” and he went on describing how on the first day of the demonstrations, two people from the Islamic movement have politely asked him to close the store for the day. 6 Beck writes: “Methodological nationalism assumes that humanity is naturally divided into a limited number of nations, which internally organized themselves as nation-states and externally set boundaries to distinguish themselves from other nation-states… Much social science assumes the coincidence of social boundaries with state boundaries, believing that social action occurs primarily within and only secondarily across, these divisions… A sharp distinction should be made between methodological nationalism on the one hand and normative nationalism on the other. In a normative sense, nationalism means that every

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In an attempt to interpret such ambivalent behaviors, the argument I put forth is not a liberal argument of multicultural peaceful co-existence7 nor is it a Foucauldian argument of urban ethnocracy (Yacobi and Yiftachel 2003). Following Jameson’s analyses of late capitalism (Jameson 1991) and Mbémbé’s take on the postcolonial condition (Mbémbé 2001), my argument describes the systemic complexity embedding the “political” and the “social”, implicating nation and class in dialectic and contradictory ways. The complexity of what Simmel calls the intersecting “webs of affiliations” (1955), I argue, is one of the reasons for the relative lack of intercommunal violence in Jaffa, where networks and social relations between Jews and Arabs are intricately implicated by the mixed urban scene. Within this theoretical context I suggest a third approach that perceives Jaffa as a relational field of power and sociality in which nationalism and urbanism, identity and place are simultaneously contested and confirmed (Emirbayer 1994). This approach enables a re-reading of Georg Simmel’s notion of relationality, and a fusion of his sociology with the urban project of the Chicago school. Through the concepts of spatial heteronomy and stranger relations developed in this chapter, I will now locate the foundations of Jaffa’s spatiality and sociality in three sites of political conflict and cultural encounter: the image of the city, its spatial history and the social relations it produces. Following a discussion of these three axes (the cultural, the social and the spatial), I will conclude with the implications of this approach for the analysis of mixed towns in general.8 The Image of the City: A Minority Twice over in a Trapped City For the Palestinian residents of Jaffa, the 1948 nakba remains the key structuring event of the bleak recent history of their town. That war, which truncated the course of normal urbanization of most Palestinian towns, sealed Jaffa’s fate as well. With over 90% of the 70,000 Palestinian inhabitants who had lived in Jaffa prior to 1948 in exile, the early years of Israeli statehood saw the final transformation of Jaffa from an Arab to a predominantly Jewish town. In 1950, following a brief period of marshal law, Jaffa – the former Arab metropolis, the “Bride of Palestine” – lost nation has the right to self-determination within the frame of its cultural distinctiveness. Methodological nationalism assumes this normative claim as a socio-ontological given…. To some extent, much of social-science is a prisoner of the nation-state” (Beck 2003: 453–454). 7 The history of post-48 Jewish-Arab relations in Jaffa has rarely been violent, but still Jaffa is a very violent city, however violence is mainly intra-communal and criminal in nature. 8 As we shall see Jaffa’s proximity to Tel-Aviv and to the Mediterranean sea, and the sociological characteristics of the Palestinian population in the city, combined with the history of Jewish-Arab relations, presents an especially complicated case that binds in one space extreme and paradoxical situations of closeness and remoteness, inclusion and exclusion, segregation and mix.

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its autonomous municipal status and was annexed to Tel-Aviv. It also underwent profound demographic changes,9 as Jewish mass immigration from Europe and the Middle East poured into Israel and settled, amongst other locations, in the emptied town. Jaffa, which had been an important sea port and international trade center during the Ottoman and British rule became a dilapidated “Arab neighborhood” of Tel-Aviv. These processes constituted the Palestinian community into a “minority twice over,” excluded and marginalized on both the national and the municipal level. Bereft of the community’s traditional elite and lacking a coherent leadership or institutions, Jaffa Arabs habitually struggle with an acute shortage of housing for young couples, a poor educational system, a high crime rate and a severe drug problem. The picture which emerges from media reports as well as from the inhabitants’ narratives is that of a fragmented community, lamenting a bygone glorious past and struggling for mere survival in the present. The change in the image of Jaffa as seen by Palestinians is strikingly apparent in their self perceptions and mythical language. The Palestinian discourse of pre48 Arab Jaffa gives the city three nicknames that position it within a cultural and geographical field of meaning. The first nickname “The Bride of Palestine” (‘Arus Falastin) locates Jaffa in the national Arab space. The second name, the “Bride of the Sea” (‘Arus El-Bahr) locates Jaffa in the Mediterranean space as a major port town and as an important trade center. The third and less familiar name, “the Mother of the Stranger” (Umm El-Gharib) was assigned to Jaffa due to the liberal cosmopolitanism that had characterized it as a flourishing city hosting labor migrants and other foreigners from the region. This triad of names symbolized Jaffa’s status in the first part of the twentieth century as a cultural and commercial national center. After 1948 this image lost its anchor in reality and was transferred onto the mythical plane. Today, the Palestinian tropes of Jaffa exist within a different triad of meaning – one which traps the fragmented community between nostalgia, utopia and estrangement from Israel and Jewish Tel-Aviv. While terms like the Bride of Palestine and the Bride of the Sea position Jaffa in a nostalgic, utopian space of national longing awaiting a return to glory, current realities spell marginality, frustration and dismay. Jaffa, the Mother of the Stranger, which once symbolized cosmopolitan openness and attracted Palestinians from surrounding villages and beyond, is now experienced as a refuge for a new type of “strangers” – poor foreign workers and, more recently, Palestinian collaborators (‘umala) with the Israeli security forces, transplanted from their homes in Gaza and the West Bank and settled by the Israeli government in Jaffa to protect their lives from the wrath of Palestinians in their home environments. 9 The majority of Jaffa’s Palestinians, including most of the local elite, were forced to leave in April 1948, with only 3,500 (5%) remaining in the town. Jaffa today (2005) has a population of ca. 65,000, of which 16,000 (24%) are Palestinians. The internal composition of the Palestinian community in Jaffa is 70% Muslims and 30% Christians (Tel-Aviv-Jaffa municipality statistics 2003).

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Estrangement from old Jaffa is not restricted to the severance of the abstract glorious past. It is represented also in living signifiers of this past elsewhere, namely diasporic Jaffans. This leaves the Palestinians currently living in Jaffa trapped between two narratives: that of the national struggle and resistance of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the discourse of authenticity of Palestinians in the Diaspora (Tamari, this volume). Understandably, the latter is sometimes adopted by residual members of the local old bourgeoisie, who reproduce their own symbolic capital as the sole guardian of collective memory. This became apparent in a recent conversation with Dr. Fakhri Jday, a 80-year old pharmacist and the only local living member of the educated Jaffan elite. Jday insisted on distancing himself from the current Palestinian populace, emphasizing that he has very few social relations. Bemoaning his lost city, he said: “keeping Arabs in Jaffa after 1948 is the cruelest thing the Jews did to us”. The incongruence between the Diasporic Palestinian imagination of Jaffa and the local lived experience of everyday life in it was brought into sharp relief during the funeral of Dr. Ibrahim Abu Lughud, the Jaffa-born Palestinian scholar and famous nationalist. This event, which could have potentially marked a turning point in the mobilization of Jaffa into the national Palestinian project, was marked by a surreal incongruence between the spatial practice and symbolic value of the funeral procession. Winding its way through the streets from the office of the Rabita on Yeffet St. to the Khazahane graveyard overlooking the sea, the event was heralded in the local Arabic newspaper “Akhbar Yaffa,” as the “first realization of the Right of Return”. This notwithstanding, many of the residents living on 60th St. in Ajami and Jabaliyya were ignorant of Abu-Lughod’s place in Palestinian intellectual and political history or indifferent to the event, which they regarded as a mere spectacle. Local observers’ comments on the funeral ranged from curious interest in Abu Lughod’s biography to reprimand directed at Palestinian public figures present in the funeral (some local, others from outside the country), for their habitual absence from the daily existential struggle of the local community. “They come and go” I was told by a Palestinian friend whose house overlooks the graveyard. At first, he said, he had refused to join the funeral procession, eventually consenting to tag along out of a mixture of curiosity and cynicism. The failure to mobilize Jaffa’s masses to this national event marks Jaffans’ alienation from the Palestinian intelligentsia. “It’s a class that flatters itself,” my friend concluded at the end of the funeral. “There is no political movement here. These are people from the outside who came for a day to implant in Jaffa the idea of Abu Lughud’s Return. They have nothing in common with those living here. Most Jaffans do not know who Abu Lughod is or what he represents – and they don’t care”. Abu Lughod’s funeral thus emerges as an example of two conflicting cognitive maps of Jaffa: one in which Jaffa is a “lieu de mémoire” – a site of memory to use Pierre Nora’s apt term (1997); the other has Jaffa as a living, lived-in place, tragically overlooked and thus excluded by the beautifying diasporic mythical image.

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This estrangement and marginality from the Palestinian fold is augmented by the exclusion and marginality of Jaffan Palestinians from the mainstay of Israeli life which takes place all around them. Like Palestinian counterparts in the mixed towns of Ramle, Lydda, Acre and Haifa, the Palestinian citizens in Jaffa are excluded from real influence in local Jewish dominated municipal institutions while at the same time lacking any representation at the Supreme Monitoring Committee of the Arabs in Israel, where local representatives of most Palestinian communities in Israel regularly convene as a semi-official countrywide entity. For Palestinians in Israel, contemporary Jaffa is notoriously associated with drugs, crime, loose morals and promiscuous women. This double exclusion from the Jewish side as well as from the Palestinian side was illustrated to Jamil, a successful 30-year old Jaffa accountant and to his sweetheart, who spent a year attempting to persuade their families to give their blessings to their engagement. The girl’s family is from a small town in the Palestinian Triangle north-east of Tel-Aviv. Her father’s firm refusal to consider the union is anchored in diverse arguments, all of which Jamil dismisses as “racist”, “patronizing” and even “fascist” excuses. The father uses an economic argument, saying Jamil does not own a house. And while in the village his daughter would be able to get a spacious and well equipped one, in Jaffa she would have to work hard for many years to pay the mortgage. Then there is the problematic reputation of Jaffa. Jamil, says the father, was born “there” and thus has no choice but to go on living there. His daughter, on the other hand, has plenty other options. Successful and well educated as he may be, Jamil’s position is further exacerbated by the context that had brought his family to Jaffa in the first place. His father had been born in the village of Hittin in Galilee, which in 1948 was conquered and demolished by the Israelis. The family became “internal refugees” in the Galilee village of Aylabun, where their absorption was accompanied with considerable hardship. “To this day,” he says, “my family members are still known in the village as the ‘refugees’ – they are resented by the villagers who begrudge them of their fortune and gloat whenever something in their life goes slightly wrong.” This resentment was part of the reasons for Jamil’s father decision to move to Jaffa in the 1960s. Having arrived in Jaffa as a young labor-migrant after getting into trouble in the village, he did well, securing a future and a fortune in Jaffa and adjacent Tel-Aviv. The last circle of strangeness is the product of Tel-Aviv’s image of Jaffa. As Mark LeVine points out (2005), for Tel-Aviv, Jaffa is at the same time a locus of negation and of identification, thus producing a split Tel-Avivian image of the town. On the one hand is Jaffa’s representation in the Israeli media as a nationalist hub,10 Then there is Jaffa the religious,11 or Jaffa the criminal, likened to Al-Capone’s Chicago – a metaphor sometimes adopted by Palestinian Jaffans too; and finally 10 In 1989 for example, the Hebrew newspaper Ha’ir published a paranoid article entitled – “the PLO closes in on Jaffa”. 11 One of Ha’ir’s correspondents dubbed Jaffa in his weekly column “little Tehran” due to the growing numbers of veiled women.

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there is Miserable Jaffa.12 On the other hand, Jaffa is marketed as culturally and gastronomically appealing. Thus, a famous cooking show on Israeli T.V. called Shum Pilpel VeShemen Zait (“Garlic, Pepper and Olive Oil,”) which celebrates the rich and multi-ethnic Israeli cuisine, is shot in a gentrified Jewish owned house overlooking the sea. There is also an interesting but relatively weak image of Jaffa as a site of co-existence. Eyal Erlich, an Israeli peace-activist and businessman, claimed that his idea of the Hudna, or cease-fire, with the Palestinians came to him while he was smoking a water-pipe (Narguila) in a coffee house on Jaffa’s 60th St. he calls the “Peace Hut”. This image attracts to Jaffa various communes and Palestinian-Israeli leftist peace groups (e.g. Ta’ayush, Re’ut-Sadaqa). A telling example of the exoticized urban renaissance of Jaffa was published in the local magazine Zman Tel-Aviv entitled “How did Jaffa Become Little Paris” (August 31, 2001): Among the alleys and the walls, with an ambiance of port and pirates and a sweet and salty odor, Jaffa entertains a very lively theatre scene: How did it happen that Jaffa became little Paris? What is not provided by ideology is complemented by real-estate prices. But the result is impressive at any rate: in the past two years, Jaffa became a remarkable center for theaters. In the past few years different theatre groups have invaded there: the Gesher theaters, Notzar company, the Klippa theater, the theater club, Mayumana House, the Arab-Jewish theater and the old Hassimta theater is still alive is well. Thus behind the curtain of T.A. there are things happening on stage, which makes Jaffa a much more vibrant scene than the tiny apple.

An obvious analysis à la Edward Said of such split representation would interpret this exotic/threatening split as a discourse of control and colonial reification. While valid, this is only a partial explanation. It represents, I argue, a deeper sense of cultural indeterminacy within Tel-Aviv’s own self image as modern, a-historical “white city” faced with the moral dilemma of taking over the historicity of Arab Jaffa while at the same time appropriating Jaffa’s biblical connotation and Jewish presence since the 18th century. This indeterminacy surfaced for instance in 1950 when the City of TelAviv annexed Jaffa and debated over local newspapers whether the “unified” city should be named “Jaffa,” “Greater Jaffa,” “Jaffa-Tel-Aviv” or “Tel-Aviv-Jaffa”.13 This ambivalence still resonates in recurrent calls by local Jaffans, both Jewish and Arab, to separate the town from Tel-Aviv and create an independent municipal unit. As we have seen, a parallel sense of indeterminacy can also be seen in the Palestinian diasporic image and local self-image of the city. Thus a local intellectual has recently summarized his view of the city: “Jaffa,” he said, “is an identity with no community. People in Jaffa are stuck (m’alaqin). It’s a fragmented and broken society that failed to unite.” 12 “Our Lame Sister” was the patronizing title of a recent special issue on Jaffa in TelAviv, a local weekly Hebrew magazine – describing Jaffa as Tel-Aviv’s poor back yard. 13 See Yediot Tel-Aviv 1950 vol. 1–2, or Monterescu (2005) for a more detailed discussion.

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Caught in limbo within these discursive frames – portraying Jaffa from without in a Manichean manner – Jaffans also have to cope with the forces that threaten to tear the community apart from within. A visual representation of this predicament and narrative of entrapment could be seen on the “Fraternity Wall” project led recently by “the Young Leadership” group, whose teenage members designed and painted a graffiti on Jaffa’s main Yeffet Street. Posted on the wall, a text composed by the “Young Leadership” group voices the general state of mind in Jaffa vacillating between hope and despair: Saber is a patient boy – he has dreams but has difficulty fulfilling them. He is a part of a whole that wants to move on – stuck on a wooden horse. All his life he has been trying to move on and break the barrier. Now Saber is old and holds a hammer. But he is old and does not have the force any more. He breaks the barrier and dies. And in the graveyard he finds equality – everybody is dead, everybody is together… the woman and her baby steps towards the light and the warmth, she does not forget her past but continues to march on. We too will continue to march, but we have not reached the end yet – we are still stuck.

Jaffa emerges from these representations as a locus which produces multiple and stratified modes of strangeness. As we shall see in the following discussion, strangeness, as a structure of feeling, has a dimension that is not reducible to alienation of well-defined national subjects. Rather, the urban context can productively blur unidimensional subject positions, creating discourses of entrapment and ambivalent identities.

Figure 7.1

A graffiti scene portraying the murder of a drug addict amidst the city going up in flames (Photographed by the author, 2003).

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Implicate Neighborly Relations14 The fragmented composition of the Palestinian community in Jaffa, the embedded existence of mixed neighborhoods, and the fact that neighbors, employer or employee can just as well be Jewish, problematizes the politicized dichotomous distinctions between “us” and “them,” “here” and “there”, familiarity and otherness. In his Modernity and Ambivalence (1991:60) Zygmunt Bauman frames this blurring of distinctions within Simmel’s theory strangeness: There are friends and enemies. And there are strangers. The stranger disturbs the resonance between physical and psychical distance: he is physically close while remaining spiritually remote. He represents an incongruous and hence resented synthesis of nearness and remoteness.

National minorities and cultural “strangers” are first and foremost products of the modern state’s exclusionary logic. Following this line of argument, ‘strangeness’ can be understood as a conceptual borderland between communities, categories and cultures, and Jaffa – as a space that produces and inhabits instances of ‘strangeness’.15 This notwithstanding, strangeness cannot be reduced to being a product of a classification principle of the nation-state with respect to a national minority. Rather, in Jaffa it functions as the basis for social interaction. In other words, the relationship underlying “sociation” in Jaffa is neither one of friendship, nor of enmity, but a complicated synthesis of both (Simmel [1908]1971). The designation of Palestinians in Jaffa as a collectivity of strangers enables us to understand daily phenomena and paradoxes that are otherwise obscured by what Ulrich Beck called “methodological nationalism” (2003), namely the tendency to analyze complex social processes exclusively through the lens of nationalism and the nation-state. A central expression of the ambivalence of strangeness in Jaffa presents itself in accounts of elderly Palestinians who have personally experienced the Nakba, and who in its aftermath found themselves as close neighbors of new, unwelcome Jewish residents in town. These stories are at the same time narratives of identification and of othering. In the chaos that characterized Jaffa immediately after the war and well into the 1950s, Arab and Jewish families often ended up squatting together in luxurious pre-war Palestinian houses in Ajami, now haphazardly chopped up into flats. 14 The term “implicate” is used here after Portugali (1993:xii), to denote “enfolded inward”, suggesting the enfoldment or imploding of neighboring societies and the territories which they inhabit into each other. This notion suggests that the histories of Israelis and Palestinians, as societies and individuals, are not definable and cannot be understood independently of each other (1993:39). 15 The term ‘strangeness’ appears first in Simmel’s famous short essay “Der Fremde” (1908) where it is conceptualized to describe an individual “social type” which exhibits a “distinctive blend of closeness and remoteness, inside and outside” (Simmel [1908] 1971:149). Later, with the work of the sociologists Zygmunt Bauman (1995), and Ulrich Beck (1996), the concept was generalized to theorize a collective cultural condition that is symptomatic of “high,” “post” or “reflexive” modernity.

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Rivals on ethno-national grounds but struggling with common economic hardships, these families were often forced to share kitchens, bathrooms and other facilities. Significantly, notwithstanding the existential difficulties, this period is nostalgically evoked by Jaffa’s veterans as a period of a joint Arab-Jewish struggle for survival, complete with class solidarities of sorts. The hardships of the 1950s and 1960s thus created social proximity and an a-political cover of fraternity which often conceals the asymmetry in power between the two communities. In a similar vein, life stories told by elderly Palestinians are often realistic and disillusioned, at times even cynical, combining bitterness over the outcomes of the 1948 war with recognition of the advantages granted to aged persons by the (Israeli) welfare system. Life-story interviews I conducted in recent years bring out the complexity and ambivalence of these narratives (Monterescu and Hazan 2003). One particularly illuminating and paradoxic story is that of Subhiyye Abu Ramadan. Subhiyye was born in Tel al-Reesh – a village just east of Greater Jaffa which after 1948 became part of the new Jewish neighborhood Tel-Giborim, within the municipality of the new town Holon. Subhiyye belonged to a poor family which leased land from the famous Jerusalemite Khalidi family, selling their share of the produce in Jaffa’s market. Her narrative begins with an account of what happened in April 1948, as the frontline closed on Tel al-Reesh: There was a lot of fighting going on. The bullets got even to our house. All the neighbors left (Rahalu). No one stayed fearing the shootings. And then we moved to the Coptic Monastery in Jaffa. The rich people left the city earlier. Those who remained were only the poor. We used to grow vegetables and we had no money so we stayed and we came to Jaffa. My father is crazy, had he stayed in Tel Al-Reesh, the house would still be ours today…the Jews would never drive us out – at the time, there was no Amidar [the governmental housing company, DM] nor the Custodian of Absentee Property. We could have entered any house we wanted – including the houses of the rich. But my crazy father decided to settle in the orange grove near the Coptic Monastery. The houses were empty and the Jews didn’t ask for a “Kushan” – they only conducted a census and registered us. Abu Laban’s fancy green house became a military base. We were left with nothing because my father was a coward. He was afraid to squat a new house – in the end he was left with no honor and land (La ‘Ard wa-la Ard).

Subhiyye, who was 14 years old at the time, was soon forced by her family to marry a cousin: When the Jews entered Jaffa, everyone talked about Deir Yassin. They corrupted the girls (kharabu el-banat) and killed the men in Deir Yassin. In Jaffa they filled a vehicle with naked women (Mshalahin) and drove around ‘Ajami to scare the people. That is why many girls were married, so the Jews won’t corrupt them. I got married during the war with no wedding ceremony. We were afraid of the Jews so we just signed the marriage contract.16

16 For an identical account from Acre see Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker 2005.

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In the years which followed Subhiyye and her family found themselves living in proximity to Jewish immigrants. Her memory of that time is counter-intuitive: After the wedding my husband and I moved to live in ‘Ajami – we found an empty house and we entered. In ‘Ajami we lived in the same house with Jews. My door was here, and theirs was there. The kids grew up together. We used to cook together and eat together. And ever since the Jews moved in, we remained friends with them. The (Palestinian) landlords of the house and those who had owned the orange grove had left. And with the Jews who came we had no quarrel. Then the Jews left ‘Ajami and bought better houses in Rishon or Bat-Yam. Since that took place, the Arabs who remained are constantly fighting with each other (bitqatalu): this one curses the other, the other hits him… Arabs together are no good. Arabs and Jews together get along [the word Subhiyye used here was Mistadrim, a Hebrew word, DM].

Subhiyye, who has since been widowed, remarried and widowed again, has had eleven children. She spent twenty years of her life in Lydda, in a smaller and even more impoverished residual Palestinian community some 20 miles east of Jaffa. More recently she moved back to Jaffa, where she now lives on her own in an apartment she owns, supported by an old age pension from the state. Her perspective on the welfare state is reflective of her personal ambivalent position: One of my sons is in prison now, he has six children, and they get an allowance from the state. They eat and drink and dress better than when he was working. In the days of the Arabs and the English old women were barely getting any charity – today old women do not need to work or to beg and are not dependent on their children.

Subhiyye’s story offers a gendered insight into the relations between the political upheavals and patriarchal oppression, as well as into the impact of the Israeli welfare-state in the lives of independent women struggling to keep their families together. Her critique of the unyielding patriarchal order that barred her and poor young women like herself from an educating is sobering. She has not forgiven her father and her brother for forcing her into an unwanted, premature marriage at 14, and towards the patronizing middle and upper classes. Her account thus gives voice to a non-hegemonic Palestinian narrative, representing an uneducated underclass which refuses to idealize its pre-48 condition, insisting on a sense of betrayal from both the Arab states which failed to come to their rescue and the Palestinian families which failed to live in solidarity which each other. Her position reflects multiple strangeness and structural inferiority, deep frustration and lack of nostalgia to Ayyam Al-‘Arab, revealing an unfamiliar and often silenced facet in the intra-Palestinian discourse on and within Jaffa. Some might dismiss her account as a narrative of betrayal, collaboration or that of an old woman whose age got the better of her. For example Swedenburg, whose study of the memories of Palestinian combatants in the Great Revolt (al-thawra al-kubra) of 1936–39 (Swedenburg 1995:149), interprets this type of narratives as “collaborationist”, “accommodationist” rhetorics which “repeat well-known Zionist ideologemes,” and “cave in to Zionist pressure” (Ibid:139). My concern

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here, however, goes beyond these initial dichotomies. My interest is in the particular conditions in the social field in Jaffa that are producing such counter-intuitive and often paradoxical discourses. These narratives, I argue, reflect a complex perception of identity in terms of both the Palestinian “self” and the Jewish immigrant “Other” (cf. Bishara 1992). As such, they express an ambivalent subject position (Bhabha 1994): subordinate Palestinian elders who are right-bearing citizens of the same state that had occupied their cities and brought about their personal and collective ruin. Subhiyye’s transformation from a poor woman in a rural patriarchal society to a formal citizen entitled to social security benefits and an old-age pensions, as well as her varied experience in ethnically mixed and unified social environments for fifty years, yield a complex view of the Jewish other and of her own position of strangeness. Seen amongst other Palestinian personal narratives of resistance, frustration and nostalgia, her ambivalent life story emerges as both the product of mixed space in Jaffa space and as an element of its uniqueness. Spatial Dynamics: The Making of a Mixed Town on the Israeli Margins The third element of the cultural logic of urban mix in Jaffa is the dramatic demographic dynamics since 1948. The urban history of Jaffa unfolded from postwar loss and chaos on the part of Palestinians, through waves of newly arrived Jewish immigrants, three decades of disinvestment and, since the mid 1980s, a surge of neo-liberal urban renewal. These processes is represented in Figure 7.2, where population movement includes five chronological phases: • • • • •

The 1948 war and its aftermath: the exodus of 95% of Jaffa’s Palestinian residents. 1948–1960: Jaffa becomes a crowded and vibrant immigrant city. 1960–1985: Disinvestment and demolition as part of the Urban Renewal Plan and the (re)invention of the Old City as an Israeli artists’ colony. 1985–2000: The Municipality’s policy change and the promotion of gentrification. October 2000 to 2005: The Intifada and the crisis of the real estate market.

Approximately two thirds of Jaffa’s 15,000-strong Palestinian population reside in two fairly distinct parts of the town. One is ‘Ajami and Jabaliyya – two Palestinian neighborhoods which developed since the late 19th century south of the old walled city. The other is an area roughly to the east of Jerusalem Boulevard, the main commercial and transportation thoroughfare. The spatial and population histories of the two areas are quite divergent. ‘Ajami and Jabaliyya, which prior to 1948 had been established as middle class Palestinian residential neighborhood overlooking the sea, became, in the aftermath of the war a primary target for Jewish immigrants. It is in this part of town that Jews and residual

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Palestinian residents were living in the type of proximity described by Subhiyye and many others. Co-existence went beyond material aspects involved with sharing stairwells, entrance halls, kitchens and bathrooms, and involved cultural and political exchange too. The Suez crisis of 1956 and the 1967 Israeli-Arab war provide particularly salient reference points. In 1967, a Palestinian informant recounted, when Israel had not yet begun operating television broadcasts, members of his family were gathered with their Jewish-Iranian neighbors around the only radio in the house to listen to battlefield reports. As he put it: “we waited for the results of the war as if it was a soccer match. When they learned about the results, my father got up in anger, turned the radio off and said: OK you won...” This reality began to disappear however in the 1960s and 1970s, as the systematic neglect and disinvestment in the western neighborhoods of Jaffa triggered an outmigration of Jewish inhabitants, mostly to new housing projects in the eastern outskirts of Jaffa and neighboring Bat-Yam and Holon. Consequently the population in ‘Ajami and Jabaliyya – the areas singled out for gentrification in subsequent decades – decreased from 22,000 in 1961 (mostly Jews) to only 4000 in 1989 (mostly Palestinians).17 The physical ruins and visual neglect of these neighborhoods attracted foreign film companies seeking locations for action movies on the Middle East who had no access to Lebanon or Iran. In 1985 the director of “Delta Force” commented on his selection of Jaffa as the main site for his shooting by saying that Jaffa “looks just like Beirut after the bombings” (Mazawi and Khuri-Makhul 1991). The decades since the 1980s have seen an intensified process of gentrification, mainly in ‘Ajami. Local Palestinian proprietors as well as Israeli and international entrepreneurs build luxurious housing projects, some of which are fully fledged gated communities, marketed primarily to wealthy Israeli and Jewish foreign buyers, as well as to foreign businessmen and diplomats. The visual opulence of these projects, taking place in times and places in which most Arab residents are desperate for affordable housing, are transforming ‘Ajami into a mixed neighborhood again, only this time it is assuming strikingly different connotations, with a glaring and highly ethnicized class gap between the local Palestinian residents and the Jewish gentrifyers (see Sa’ar in this volume). In contrast to ‘Ajami, the Jerusalem Boulevard area to the east is going through a process of intermixing involving several marginal incoming groups. In the 1950 this area had Jewish immigrant families occupying small apartments, typically on the second and third floors of building that had shops, workshops and warehouses on the ground floors facing the street. By the 1970s, however, many of these immigrants were leaving for new housing projects outside Jaffa, much as the Jewish residents of ‘Ajami and Jabaliyya at the time. Meanwhile, the neglect and disinvestment in 17 In the 1970s, under Shlomo Lahat’s mayorship, the Manshiyya neighborhood on the north side of Jaffa and bordering Tel-Aviv was completely erased, creating a no-man’s land between Tel-Aviv and Jaffa. 70% of the old city was demolished and the ‘Ajami and Jabaliyya neighborhoods were significantly damaged (3125 housing units were destroyed between 1975–1985).

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‘Ajami and Jabaliyya pushed Palestinian residents to leave that area too, and many of them purchased apartments further east, along Jerusalem Boulevard. Throughout the 1980s, the eastern part of Jaffa thus turned into a mixed lower-class Jewish-Arab neighborhood.18 In the 1990s this demographic complexity increased further with an influx of hundreds of migrant workers from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe who found cheap housing in the city. Two points emerging from the demographic and spatial history of Jaffa are worth noting here. First is that the urban space in Jaffa has always been characterized by constant motion and demographic instability. Second, these dynamics have been dominated by inherent institutional and socio-political contradictions, rendering a straight-forward, unified characterization of the ethnic and class-based urban situation quite impossible. Demographic processes, geographic changes and planning policies in Jaffa created Jewish spaces within Arab ones and Palestinian spaces within Jewish ones. As a result, Jaffa’s spatial logic is characterized by an absence of clear correspondence between national-ethnic boundaries and spatial ones. Let me further elaborate on this reality by conceptualizing Jaffa as a “heteronomous space”: a paradoxical terrain whereby constituent parts follow divergent, sometimes mutually contradictory logics. Jaffa as a heteronomous space 19 Borrowed from Friedrich Meinecke’s work on medieval pre-national territoriality (Meinecke 1970), the concept of spatial heteronomy (Ruggie 1993) captures the “anomaly” of mixed towns in relation to the ostensibly clear-cut ethnonational logic of the nation-state. The logic of heteronomy describes systems whereby parts are subject to divergent modes of growth, behavior and development. In Jaffa, spatial fragmentation is such that within an area not larger than two square kilometers one finds seven totally different forms of spatial organization: (1) Old Jaffa (a.k.a. the “Artists’ Colony”); (2) the housing projects built in the 60–70s for Jews (shikunim in Hebrew or shikunat in Arabic); (3) the Al-Nuzha/Jerusalem Boulevard mixed lower-income neighborhoods; (4) the Palestinian neighborhoods of ‘Ajami and Jabilyye; (5) the new gentrified 18 For a complete geographical and statistical analysis of the demographic processes in Jaffa, see Omer and Or (2005) and Schnell and Benjamini (2004). 19 For Kant, heteronomy is the opposite of autonomy. Whereas an autonomous person is one whose will is self-determined, a heteronomous person is one whose will is determined by something outside of the person, such as overwhelming emotions. Etymologically, heteronomy goes back to the Greek words for “other” and “law.” Focusing on the problem of social and spatial order, heteronomy should be distinguished theoretically from Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, “of effectively realised utopia […] a sort of place that lies outside all places and yet is actually localizable” (1986), such as cemeteries, fairgrounds, gardens and ships. This section and the concept of heteronomy draw substantially on Ruggie’s genealogy of state borders and space in modernity (1993).

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Figure 7.2

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gated communities of Andromeda Hill and Jaffa Courts; (6) individual gentrifiers’ houses in Ajami that are quite different from gated communities; and finally, (7) enclaves such as Byaarat Dakke and Abu-Seif, where kin-based communities have built compounds in what remains of the old orange groves. The high density of

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heteronomous space is perhaps unique to Jaffa. Its principles, however, are common in other mixed towns as well. Let me briefly sum my argument about heteronomy then. Rather than taking the disjointed, essentializing and exclusionary territorialities fetishized by states and urban governance systems in ethnonational regimes at face value, the notion of spatial heteronomy questions models premised on such dichotomies.20 As an organizing logic, urban spatial heteronomy suggests not a denationalization of nation-based citizenship (as some writers on globalization were suggesting) but an internal, binational challenge to it which productively employs its “contact zone” (Pratt 1999) to create a “new geography of power” (Sassen 1996). Conclusions: Heteronomy and the Disjointed Scales of Mediation This edited volume identifies Jewish-Arab mixed towns as an understudied and distinct phenomenon in Middle-Eastern history and urban anthropology. Within this framework, this chapter posits mixed towns as a challenge to the hegemonic ethnonationalist guiding principles of the Israeli state, which fails to maintain homogeneous, segregated and ethnically-stable spaces. This failure, I argue, results in the parallel existence of heteronomous spaces in these towns which operate through multiple and often contradictory logics of space, class and nation. Analyzed relationally, these spaces produce peculiar forms of quotidian social relations between Palestinians and Israelis, producing counter-hegemonic local identities that challenge both Palestinian and Jewish nationalisms. Such processes have largely gone unnoticed in studies of Israel/Palestine, a field dominated by “methodological nationalism” and its tendency to equate the nationstate with society. Perceiving relations between Palestinians and Israelis as a zerosum game, this paradigm often looses sight of processes of mutual determination continuously at play between Palestinian and Jewish communities, as well as the political cultures and the urban spaces they occupy. This chapter attempts to link cultural, social and spatial processes in Jaffa. In terms of culture, it looks at the indeterminate image of the city; socially, it highlights a Simmelian concept of strangeness as an expression of ambivalent and nondichotomous subject positions; for spatial practices, it uses heteronomous space as an expression of intersecting spatial logics. More generally, I contend, an analytical vocabulary which emphasizes cultural indeterminacy, social strangeness, and spatial heteronomy can form the basis for a heuristic model applicable for most mixed towns. 20 One model premised on such dichotomy is the theory of “urban ethnocracy” (Yacobi and Yiftachel 2003), in which the authors identify capital accumulation, modern governance and the drive for ethnic and national control as three “engines” of social order. While Yacobi and Yiftachel see these processes as responsible for the advancement of ethnic control, my argument is that in Jaffa these contradictions are precisely what disable the possibility of urban ethnocracy.

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Focusing on socio-spatial relations, my argument is that an incomplete dialectic cycle exists which relates the social to the spatial and vice versa. One theoretical vector from the social to the spatial begins with the mutually constitutive relations between the Israeli and the Palestinian national movements. Following historian Zachary Lockman (1996) and geographer Yuval Portugali (1993) I argue that the two groups and their identities were constituted in a series of dialectic oppositions and homologies which not only opposed each other, but at the same time dialectically created each other, in dynamic but constantly asymmetrical relations of power. Thus the concept “mixed towns”, which emerged for the first time within British colonial discourse, was soon adopted by the Zionist settlers in Haifa and in Jaffa to depict what they conceived as their inferior position vis-à-vis a Palestinian Arab majority. Only later was the term transformed to denote the structural subordination of the Palestinian minority in contemporary mixed towns under Israeli rule. As inter-group relations play out on the ground, the mitigating factors associated with demographic intermixing, Simmelian stranger sociality and the blurring of ostensibly essentialist images corrupt any possibility for mono-nationalist definitions of the urban situation. These processes, compounded by unresolved economic tensions, public policies and ethnic relations produce the cultural and political urban regime I call “spatial heteronomy.” Proceeding from the other end of the dialectic, I argued that spatial heteronomy produces a sociality of stranger relations. The combination of demographic interpenetration, unintended consequences of municipal policies, systemic spatial fragmentation and the failure on the part of national definitions to define the full span of urban situations, corrupts the correspondence between spatial boundaries (that would delimit neighborhoods) and social boundaries (of a certain class or ethnicity). Thus, rather than inhabiting segregated social worlds, spatial proximity keeps strangers, aliens and allies within what Alfred Schutz termed the “horizon of relevance” (Schutz 1970) – a twilight zone of borderline sociality whereby nobody is truly friend or enemy (Simmel 1971). Jaffa presents two axes of mediation between the city and the state. One, illustrated in Abu-Lughod’s burial, is vertical, mediating local, national and transnational/ diasporic strategies of mobilization and identification. The other, horizontal axis, illuminates the reciprocal workings of nationalism and class-based forces. Looking at the vertical axis first, we see that while the ideal typical model of the European nation-state had evolved in a structure of symbolic amplification (Sahlins 2005), predicated on the nationalizing of the local and the localizing of the national and the increasing differentiation of national cultures and spaces (Sahlins 1989), cases such as Jaffa, where contradictions between the national and the local are anything but resolved, profoundly challenge this complementarity. Having failed to mobilize support from the Palestinian Authority or, for that matter, from others in the Arab World, Palestinians in Jaffa are too deeply implicated with Israel and its institutions to aspire for a meaningful autonomous Palestinian assertion of the collective self. Community organizing, cultural practices and political behavior

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remain fragmented, exemplifying a complex, synchronic dialectic of schismogenesis and homology (Bateson 1972). As for the horizontal axis, the mediation between nation and class is best exemplified in action and reaction surrounding gentrification. From a methodological nationalist perspective, one might have expect a natural coalition between Jewish residents in Jaffa on account of their shared national identity. In reality, however, a deep (and deepening) social and ideological division is apparent between Jewish residents which clearly stems from class and intra-Israeli ethnic cleavages. One counter-intuitive result of this is that the residents’ association representing most Jewish gentrifyers turns to the Palestinian community for cooperation (only to find that there as well their Ashkenazi and middle class characteristics set them apart). Engendering particularistic sectarian identity politics, spatial heteronomy produces a system whereby no single governing principle determines the formation of coherent political or civil coalitions. Ad-hoc coalitions between the wealthy and the poor, the Israelis and the Palestinians, entrepreneurs and public sector are situational, and seldom congruent with the ethno-national logic of the state. The Andromeda Hill gated community, for one example, was facilitated through an adhoc coalition between elements in the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate (who owned the land and were eager to sell some for a profit), a Jewish-Canadian entrepreneur and Tel-Aviv’s municipality, all joining forces at the expense of the weak Palestinian community. While theoretically significant for revealing the dynamics of urban space and interethnic relations, studies of mixed towns can bear political significance as well. More than half a century after the Nakba and half a decade after the breakout of Intifadat Al-Aqsa, the future of the Palestinian community within Israel remains an open wound and a socio-political enigma. Embodying both the impasse and the hope of minoritymajority relations in Israel, mixed towns are likely to remain pivotal for the region’s future. Highly sensitive to whatever course the conflict takes, mixed towns will always remain “sites of memory” (Nora 1997). Bearing indelible traces and sediments of the conflict’s history, they are at the same time a pressing internal problem, to be settled within the confines of whatever “Israeli” society will come to be. Genuinely trapped between state and nation (cf. Rabinowitz 2001), between identification and alterity and between past trauma and future normalization, mixed towns are in dire need of a workable framework of equal citizenship. To begin to resolve these problems and secure their future, Israelis and Palestinians alike will have to come to terms with their interdependency and relationality.21 Even if the immediate future of Israeli-Palestinian relations is premised on a logic of separation and distinction, mixed towns will always signify alternative political imaginings of binationality, coexistence and mutual recognition. 21 Thus in a public debate published a few years ago in Ru’ya (a magazine sponsored by the Palestinian National Information Center PNIC), sociologist Khalil Shkaki proposed a scenario of resolution in a future peace agreement whereby “large settlements will turn into mixed towns” (Shkaki 2000).

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References Cited Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and Ambivalence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind New York : Ballantine Books. Beck, U. (1996). “How Neighbors Become Jews: The Political Construction of the Stranger in an Age odf Reflexive Modernity” Constellations 2(3): 402–420. —— (2003). “Toward a New Critical Theory with a Cosmopolitan Intent” Constellations, 10(4): 453–468. Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bishara, A. (2000). The Arab-Israeli: Inquiries into a Split Political Discourse. The Jewish-Arab Schism: A Reader. R. Gabison and D. Hecker. Jerusalem, The Israeli Institute for Democracy (In Hebrew). Carter, T., F. (2004). “Violent Pastime(s): On the Commendation and Condemnation of Violence in Belfast” City & Society 15(2): 255–281. Elias, N. (1978). What is Sociology? NY: Columbia University Press. Emirbayer, M. (1997). “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology. 103(2): 281–317. Foucault, M. (1986). “Text/Context of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16(1): 22–27. —— (1990). The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1, An Introduction. NY: Vintage Books. Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Durham: Duke University Press. LeVine, M. (2005). Overthrowing Geography : Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880–1948 Berkeley: University of California Press. Lockman, Z. (1996). Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mazawi, A. and M. Khuri-Makhul (1991). “Spatial Policy in Jaffa: 1948–1990” In City and Utopia H. Lusky. (ed.) Tel-Aviv: Israel Publishing Company. Meinecke, F. (1970). Cosmopolitanism and the National State. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press. Mbémbé. A. (2001). On the Postcolony Berkeley: University of California Press. Monterescu, D. (2005). Spatial Relationality: Urban Space and Ethnic Relations in Jewish-Arab Mixed Towns, 1948–2005. The University of Chicago: Unpublished Dissertation. Monterescu, D. and Hazan, H. (2003). The Voice of Jaffa: Life Stories of Palestinian and Jewish Elderly in Jaffa. Tel-Aviv University: The Herczeg Institute for the Study of Old Age and Ageing. Nora, P. (1997). Les Lieux de Mémoire. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Omer, Itzhak & Or, Udi. Distributive Environmental Justice in the City: Differential Access in Two Mixed Israeli Cities. Tijdshcrift voor economische en sociale geografie Vol. 96. No. 4. 2005. p. 433–443. Orr, Thoedor, Hashem Hatib and Shim’on Shamir (2003), National Commission of

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Inquiry into the Events in the Arab Sector in October 2000. Jerusalem: Ministry of Justice. Portugali, J. 1993. Implicate Relations: Society and Space in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Pratt, M. L. 1999. “Arts of the Contact Zone,” in Ways of Reading. Edited by D. Bartholomae and A. Petroksky. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Rabinowitz, D. (2001) The Palestinian Citizens of Israel, the Concept of Trapped Minority and the Discourse of Transnationalism in Anthropology. Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 24 no. 1;64–85 Rabinowitz, D. and K. Abu-Baker (2005) Coffins on our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press Schnell, I. and Benjamini, Y. (2004) “Ethnic Segregation in Tel-Aviv Jaffa” Dela 21: 445–460. Ruggie, J. (1993). “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.” International Organization 47(1): 139–174. Ru’ya. (2000). “The Settlements: A Bitter War Against the Palestinian People” Workshop with the Participation of Khalil Shqaqi, Ali Al-Safariny and Khalil Al-Takatji. Moderated by Palestinian Parliament Member Na’if Jarrad August 2000. Sahlins, M. (2005). “Structural Work: How Microhistories Become Macrohistories and Vice Versa” Anthropological Theory 5(1):6–30. Sahlins, P. (1989). Boundaries: the Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees. Berkeley: University of California Press. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism New York : Vintage Books. Sassen, S. (1996). Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press. Schutz, A. (1970). Reflections on the Problem of Relevance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Simmel, G. ([1922]1955). Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliation Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press. —— (1971 [1908]). “The Stranger” In Levine, D. (ed.) On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Swedenburg, T. (1995). Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Yacobi, H., and O. Yiftachel. 2003. “Urban Ethnocracy: Ethnicization and the Production of Space in an Israeli ‘Mixed City’”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21:673–693.

Chapter 8

A Nixed, not Mixed, City: Mapping Obstacles to Democracy in the Nazareth/Natzerat Illit Conurbation Laurie King-Irani

Cities happen to be problems in organized complexity….They present situations in which a half-dozen or even several dozen quantities are all varying simultaneously and in subtly interconnected ways….The variables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they are interrelated into an organic whole (Jacobs, 1989: 433).

An argument can be made that the title of this volume is redundant. What are cities if not mixed? What is urban life if not a daily experience of social, cultural, and political diversities and hybridities, an organized complexity composed of differences (Jacobs, 1989)? Cities are key sites of processes of modernization, nation building, and the theory and praxis of citizenship (Holston and Appadurai, 1996). Ideally, urban settings foster and nourish the rich matrices of meaning and belonging that can generate new social, political, and cultural forms based on modes of organization that transcend primordial ties of kinship and ethnoconfessional membership (Ibid.). An unmixed city devoid of the quintessentially human quality of plurality,1 which Hannah Arendt (1958) identified as the sine qua non of a truly public realm of freedom, dialogue, political action, and creativity, is difficult to imagine. A state in which mixed cities are the marked, rather than the unmarked category, seems to be out of step with a globalizing world characterized by emerging, large-scale political and economic systems in which cities constitute key nodes in international networks of capital, communication, population movements, and governance (Sassen, 2002). A further argument could be made for excluding a paper about Palestinian Nazareth (henceforth “Naasira”) and Jewish Upper Nazareth (henceforth “Natzerat 1 In outlining an ontology of political action – a distinctively human capacity – Arendt stresses two key themes, natality and plurality. The latter, in anthropological terms, can be described as the relational and dialogical creation of individual selves, as the foundation of intersubjectivity, and thus as the very heart of the human condition itself. Arendt emphasizes that “the real can only be sustained through the presence of others. Plurality is a central condition of human existence – it is so crucial, yet so circumstantial. It can disappear under conditions of tyranny or mass society, or anytime the public realm is supplanted or destroyed” (Bickford, 1997: 91).

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Illit”) from this volume if we adopt the standard Israeli definition of a “mixed town”: “Jewish towns with a significant Arab minority [15–20%], most of which were, before 1948, grand Arab cities that were defeated and whose original Arab majority populations were displaced” (Galili and Nir, 2000). Obviously, the assumption that Jewish communities in Israel (or elsewhere) are unmixed and homogeneous cannot withstand fine-grained ethnographic study, begging the question whose definition – and evaluation – of mixity is at play here. Official discourses and public discussions about mixed towns in Israel illuminate the essentializing ideological practices of Zionism, which, like all nationalist discourses, attempts to put a very monocultural face on a profoundly plural sociocultural situation (Handler, 1989; Malkki, 1995; Herzfeld, 1997; KingIrani, 2001b). As Keane asserts, “Nationalism is driven by a bovine will to simplify things” (1988:87). The role of critical anthropological enquiry and fine-grained ethnographies of nationalist discourses, policies, and practices is, amongst other things, to complicate and problematize such glosses. Neither Naasira (The Arabic name of Nazareth) nor Natzerat Illit (the predominantly Jewish new town overlooking Nazareth from the east) meet the prevailing Israeli criteria for a mixed town. They are not – at least not yet – one municipality subsumed under a common council or otherwise integrated into a single structure.2 In sociological terms, the two communities do not display organic 2 Naasira’s population of 68,708 people live in an area of 14,200 dunams, while in Nazareth Illit, 47,941 people live on 42,000 dunams (a dunam is roughly a fourth of an acre). The average monthly income for men from Nazareth is 4,969 NIS while men from Nazareth Illit earn 5,755 NIS. The work force of each municipality, as of Summer 2002, is as follows: Nazareth: 23,912 and Natzerat Illit 20,523. In 1993, under the leadership of Prime Minister Rabin, both towns were designated Priority “B” Areas. Under Prime Ministers Netanyahu and Barak, however, Nazareth Illit became a Priority “A” Area, transforming it into a development region entitled to tax breaks and special monies. Nazareth, meanwhile, was designated a “no priority” area. One of the most obvious areas of economic disparity between the two municipalities is that of industrial parks. Nazareth still does not have a single industrial park while neighboring Nazareth Illit has two. Out of the mere 84 dunams Nazareth does have for an “industrial area,” garages and mechanics’ shops constitute the largest majority of businesses (37 percent), while actual industries only account for less than ten percent of the municipality’s total businesses. Delta Textiles, the only factory in Nazareth, employs 300 women; most of the company’s production was recently relocated to cheaper labor markets in Egypt and Jordan. Nazareth Illit has 4500 dunams of industrial park area and boasts chocolate, food, and textiles industries as well as shopping malls. A few years ago, Nazareth Illit received an extra 6000 dunams for an industrial park specializing in high-tech and heavy industries, Israel’s key economic spheres. Though this area was meant to serve the entire district, Nazareth Illit refused to enter into a partnership with Nazareth so that, in reality, the industrial zone belongs solely to Nazareth Illit. Consequently, more than half of Nazareth’s adult population is forced to work outside the conurbation while over 3,000 others from Nazareth and neighboring villages are jobless. Source: Interview with Ihab Sabbah, Head of Strategic Planning, Municipality of Nazareth. Income statistics are from the Adva Center Report, 2000.

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solidarity or economic centralization, or even a core and a periphery. Rather, this is an imposed cohabitation, a grudging cohabitation of culturally distinct and politically unequal communities. It is a situation whereby potentialities, complexities, and interactions have been limited by essentializing and reductionistic nationalist discourses, ideologies, and practices: Zionism in Natzerat Illit and a romanticized version of progressive Palestinian nationalism in Naasira recently supplanted by an essentialized and reductionistic Islamism. The considerable sociocultural and political differences within each municipality have been elided and silenced in the rhetorical interests of emphasizing one overarching and supposedly monolithic axis of difference: that between Palestinian-Arab and Israeli Jew.3 Natzerat Illit, founded as a Jewish development town in the late 1950s on lands expropriated through processes of dubious legality from Nazareth and other surrounding Palestinian localities, has an “unplanned” Palestinian population totaling 11 percent (Rabinowitz 1997). Yet given its proximity to Naasira, it is hard to say whether Natzerat Illit’s non-Jewish inhabitants are residents or commuters, since most Palestinians who purchase or rent homes in the various neighborhoods of the hilltop Jewish development town continue to work, play, study, socialize, worship, and get married and buried in Naasira (ibid). Hannerz (1980) directs our attention to relational and sociological, as opposed to geographical or demographic, definitions of the city. Hannerz’s argument on the nature of cities hinges on numbers and types of functions, role repertoires, and role relationships. Noting how urban settings are characterized by a greater “role inventory,” Hannerz goes on to situate the concept of “role” in embodied action, not simply institutional structure, by defining roles as “purposive situational involvements.” This focuses attention on urban life and urban roles rooted in particular recurring situations that bring diverse individuals and groups together in often serendipitous and unpredictable ways. It is not where one lives, but rather, with whom one interacts and how, that determines whether one is living an urban or a non-urban life. In presenting a comparative study of the genesis of the city, Hannerz delineates three urban modalities, rooted in three different socioeconomic processes of centralization: court town, commerce town, and shrine town. As we shall see in the following exposition, Naasira can, potentially, meet the criteria of all three modalities, given its role as an administrative and market town during the British Mandate, an Israeli market town (until the mid 1990s) and a Christian pilgrimage site. Explaining how and why Naasira has failed – or was made to fail – in all three modalities will be a key focus of this chapter. Naasira’s population was neither displaced nor depleted in 1948. To the contrary: Relatively few native Nazarenes (henceforth Nasraawiyyeen) fled in 1948. The conscious policy of Israel’s pre-state military forces and commanders during the 3 Or, to be more accurate, the main difference now emphasized is that between Jews and Muslims, i.e., differences based on religious communal identifications, stereotypes, and historical and moral claims. This trend is growing in the wake of the September 11th al-Qa`ida attacks on the United States.

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1948 war was to avoid violence, vandalism, and large-scale population transfers in this Galilean city famous throughout Christendom as the boyhood home of Jesus Christ (Morris, 1987).4 Although the predominantly Christian population of Nazareth was left relatively unmolested, thousands of uprooted villagers from the surrounding region, most of them Muslim, flooded into Nazareth in May through August of 1948 as their villages were razed, their crops and animals taken, and their lands expropriated during and immediately after 1948. The arrival of thousands of disenfranchised villagers, known ever since as “internal refugees” (laaji’een daakhiliyeen), increased and diversified the population of Naasira overnight, posing social, logistical, moral, and political problems that Israel’s largest Palestinian municipality has yet to resolve. Although Naasira had to absorb anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 displaced Palestinians seeking shelter, sustenance and employment in the aftermath of 1948, the town’s allotted living space was immediately frozen by state decrees and land expropriations, condemning the new state’s largest Palestinian community to chronic over-crowding, illegal constructions, continually shrinking green spaces, and unending traffic jams, all of which mar Naasira’s beauty and diminish the quality of life for its inhabitants. Mapping Mixity Viewed as mapped spaces on paper, or seen from the air, the contiguous municipalities of Nasira and Natzerat Illit certainly look like one large city. The two occupy a valley and surrounding hilltops and escarpments near the southernmost limestone ridge of Lower Galilee which overlooks the plain of Jezreel (marj ibn `aamer in Arabic). The total land area occupied by Naasira and Natzerat Illit exceeds 10,000 acres and is characterized by large buildings (the oldest of which in Naasira date back to the 17th century), green spaces, and dense concentrations of shops, public facilities, restaurants, hotels, schools, hospitals, various houses of worship, sizeable cemeteries, and other landmarks commonly associated with cities. The interlinked road system of Naasira and Natzerat Illit, characterized by at least four primary arteries and a large number of branching secondary and tertiary roads, accords with what one would expect to find in a metropolitan area with a combined population of over 125,000.5 4 Morris, in his seminal The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, details that: “Predominantly Christian Nazareth and its neighboring satellite villages from the first were earmarked for special treatment because of the city’s importance to the world’s Christians. On 15 July [1948], the day before the town’s conquest, Ben-Gurion cabled Carmel [a military field commander] to prepare a special administrative task force to take over and run the city smoothly and to issue severe orders against desecration of monasteries and churches and against looting. …The order…was understood to imply a prohibition of the destruction of houses and expulsion of population as well” (1987: 199–201). 5 If we include the populations of the surrounding Arab localities of Yafat-an-Naasria, Raineh, Kufr Kana, Illut, Mashshad, and Iksal, as well as the Jewish development town of

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But the populations of Naasira and Natzerat Illit are not combined in any meaningful sociological, interpersonal, or cultural sense. They are instead uncomfortably juxtaposed, culturally and architecturally distinct, virtually segregated, unequal in resources, power, and possibilities within the state context; and given rising levels of fear, mistrust, and anger resulting from the disturbing political events of the past three years, decreasingly interrelated through ties of sociability, friendship, employment, or intermarriage. Such disparities, divisions, and limitations comprise the key reasons why neither municipality can properly be called a city. “Conurbation” is a better description,6 as it describes the area’s physical characteristics – a dense and ever-expanding built-up environment characterized by complex road systems, demographic concentrations, and distinctive settlement patterns – without conveying much information about the everyday socio-cultural, phenomenological or political dimensions, the “purposive situational involvements,” enacted and experienced by the Palestinian and Jewish citizens who live in the adjacent municipalities. Some characteristically urban dimensions are missing from everyday life in the Naasira/Natzerat Illit conurbation: mixing, complexity, interdependence, complementarity, variability of relationships, and unpredictability of interaction (Jacobs, 1989; Hannerz, Ibid.). This is not surprising, given the nationalist goals that first led to the building of Natzerat Illit in the 1950s: to secure and Judaize more of the young state’s spaces while obstructing the emergence of centralized and potentially autonomous Palestinian urban agglomerations and preventing any problematic mixing and interdependence of Palestinian and Jewish Israeli populations. David Ben-Gurion summed up Natzerat Illit’s raison d’être succinctly in 1957: “The new settlement must be a Jewish town that will assert a Jewish presence in the area. Not a suburb of Nazareth, but a separate town in its vicinity” (quoted in Rabinowitz, 1997: 6). Natzerat Illit, unlike Naasira, was very much a planned community. It did not grow organically over a period of centuries as a result of processes of economic and political centralization (Hannerz, Ibid.), gradually evolving into distinct quarters, markets and artisanal zones like its Palestinian neighbor, but rather, expanded in fits and starts that paralleled consecutive immigration waves and the political trends of the day in the upper reaches of the Israeli government. Natzerat Illit developed mechanically, according to commands issued by ministerial offices and planning commissions far away in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The directed and contingent nature of Natzerat Illit’s development is visible in the discontinuous and very Magdal ha-Emeq to the east, the population of the Nasira-Natzerat Illit conurbation exceeds 160,000. The majority of those living in this area are Arab citizens of the state (Falah, 1993). 6 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a conurbation is “a group of towns forming a continuous built-up area as a result of urban sprawl. Some geographers distinguish between a uninuclear conurbation, which has developed around a single, great city, such as London, and a polynuclear conurbation, such as the West Midlands conurbation of Walsall, West Bromwich, Wednesbury, and Wolverhampton. The term metropolitan area is increasingly used as an alternative to conurbation.”

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distinct groupings of settlements, mostly multi-storied apartment buildings, visible throughout the town. As Rabinowitz notes: Each wave of new immigrants directed at Natzerat Illit was complimented with a package of housing development initiated, financed and carried out by the central government and the Jewish Agency. Consequently, the bulk of the town is made up of bounded housing compounds….Whereas in Natzerat Illit few of the estates would qualify as slums, the gloomy signs of the period are nevertheless there: monotonous edifices made of cheap materials, narrow corridors, constricted stairways, unimaginative interiors….Natzerat Illit’s…physical environment spreads out to the point of losing a sense of closeness and personal warmth often found in smaller towns. Residential compounds are not only well bounded, but also removed from one another, compelling people to use cars and buses rather than walk (Ibid.: 31–32).7

As is now becoming clear, a “mixed town” in the Israeli context refers not to a sociological model, such as Furnivall’s “plural society” (1948), but rather, to the failure of a nationalist policy objective, an eruption of non-Jewish social and cultural phenomena in a supposedly pure Jewish space. According to Zionism’s nationalist logic, then, mixed towns are targets for strategic state intervention in the form of urban planning. Examining why Nasira and Natzerat Illit do not comprise one mixed city, but rather two nixed towns, entails a foray into some of the most lively and controversial social, geographical, and historical research now being conducted in or about Israel, much of it described as “revisionist” or “post-Zionist” (Peled, 1992; Yiftachel, 1998; Rabinowitz, 1997, 2001a; Shlaim, 2000; Silberstein, 1999; Torstrick, 2000). Lately, revisionist scholars from a variety of disciplines have turned their attention to the reasons for and the implications of the absence of the Palestinian city in contemporary Israel/Palestine. This topic demands a critical historical approach since Palestinian towns (e.g., Haifa, Jaffa, and Lydda), were last seen at the close of the British Mandatory period in the late 1940s. The rise of the Israeli state corresponds with the demise of the Palestinian city. Revisionist research implicitly poses philosophical questions and moral quandaries about the meanings and trajectories of Zionism and democracy – officially the twin foundations of the Israeli state – as well as possibilities for dialogue and new types of socio-political relationships across cultural and political borders. Given its focus on socially-constructed meanings and the politics of nationalist narratives in the Israeli context, revisionist research demands a cultural anthropological perspective to comprehend how Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel interpret and negotiate their lived experiences of, and embodiment in, the politically contested and historically fraught built environment of Israel/Palestine. Qualitative ethnographic methods, more so than statistical surveys or GIS-derived data, reveal the effects 7 As Jane Jacobs (1989) notes in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the lack of a sidewalk culture is an index of a city in poor sociological health, as is the prevalence of single use, bounded zones, which Jacobs considers fatal for urban health.

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of state and municipal ideologies, policies, and laws on the intersubjective worlds of those living in the culturally constructed and politically tense Nasira/Natzerat Illit conurbation. In the process of undertaking such research, we just might deessentialize some discourses and locate some bridges and intersections capable of transcending the stark borders now separating Naasira from Natzerat Illit.8 Cognitive Maps of the Conurbation It is impossible to describe the Naasira/Natzerat Illit conurbation without reference to history, policies, and emotions. The history is that of the state of Israel’s treatment of its non-assimilating Palestinian citizens, who now comprise almost twenty percent of the country’s population and thus pose a growing challenge to the precept that Israel can remain both a Jewish and a democratic state. The policies of relevance are the state’s on-going, multi-pronged effort to Judaize the Galilee, which, along with the Negev, is home to the highest concentrations of non-Jewish Israelis (Falah, 1991; Yiftachel, 1998, 2001); and the resistant, countering policies of the former Communist-dominated municipality of Naasira, which deployed nationalist and secular discourses in a failed attempt to fashion Naasira as the vanguard of the modern Palestinian city and the forge of the ideal Palestinian citizen in Israel (KingIrani, 2001a). Residents of Nasira and Natzerat Illit alike share the emotions, largely negative: fear, anxiety, suspicion, mistrust, and anger – all indices of an endangered, more so than a dangerous, urban environment (Jacobs, 1989). Scholars and policymakers, no less than those who live in Naasira or Natzerat Illit, have their own maps and models of this conurbation: “a frontier representing a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s macrocosm” (Rabinowitz, 1997); “a refugee camp” (Habibi, 1992), “a still-born city” (Zreik, 1999); “a site of ethnic fragmentation and spatial control” (Falah, 1992); “a threat to the state” (Koenig Report, 1976); “a national treasure” (Jeraissey, 1992), and “a key to the gates of action Zionism” (Peres, quoted in Rabinowitz 1997). This paper, however, focuses on the cognitive maps guiding and charting everyday relationships, reflections, judgments, hopes, and fears embodied in Nasraawiyeen’s interactions with, and readings of, the built environment of the Naasira/Natzerat Illit conurbation,9 particularly in the wake of several momentous events: the failure of the Nazareth 2000 urban renewal 8 Examining somewhat similar political, historical, and philosophical issues in a completely different context – that of Canadian/First Nations relationships – Professor Michael Asch (2001) has drawn attention to the role and responsibility of anthropology as a discipline, and anthropologists as citizens, to “find a place to stand” and open up new ways of perceiving and engaging with the painful history and difficult dialogues between indigenous and settler societies in modern nation-state frameworks. I am indebted to his humane and wise observations and suggestions. 9 This paper is based on ethnographic field research conducted in Nasira and Natzerat Illit in 1991–1993, as well as telephone calls, letters, and e-mail communications with residents of Naasira over the past eight years; and a three-week visit in August 2002, during

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program and the related outbreak of violence between Muslims and Christians in Naasira in the late 1990s, the pogrom-like attacks on Nasraawiyeen by residents of Natzerat Illit in October 2000, and the ongoing Al-Aqsa intifada on the other side of the Green Line. An Independent Republic or a Swollen Village? Nasraawi (Arabic for Nazarene) discourses about Naasira are marked by melancholy enumerations of deficiencies – of funding, infrastructure, space, leadership, solidarity, and potentialities – in the context of the Israeli nationalist project. Despite its nicknames as the “Capital of the Arabs in Israel” and the “Independent Republic of Nazareth,” not to mention its status as the only all-Arab urban setting in Israel, Nasraawiyeen frequently dismiss their hometown as “just a swollen village.” Indigenous analysts of Nazareth’s social structure and political organization often state that it is “not really a city” at all . (Bishara, 2000), noting that its inhabitants are “still awaiting the birth of the city” (Zreik, 1999). Following attacks on residents of Naasira by mobs from Natzerat Illit in October 2000, which culminated in the killing of unarmed Palestinian protesters by police snipers and included threats to the life and home of MK Azmi Bishara, and in the wake of the disastrous failure of the Nazareth municipality’s ambitious “Nazareth 2000” urban renewal project, Nasraawiyeen now evoke metaphors of suffocation, constricted movement, illness, and death to express their perceptions and feelings about Naasira and its increasingly disadvantaged economic and political status in relation to Natzerat Illit. Ten years ago, Nasraawi discourses about Naasira were contentious and often sardonic, but significantly more optimistic. Some key themes of municipal and popular political discourse in 1992–93 were renovation, regeneration, and rebirth (tarmim wa tajdid), as the goal of restoring the dilapidated older heart of Naasira to its former glory was twinned with a related aim: the reinvention and restructuring of Naasira’s leading political coalition, the Communist-dominated Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (al-jebha ad-dimuuqraaTiyya lis-salaam wal-musaawaa, henceforth “jebha”), which had held Naasira’s mayoralty and the lion’s share of seats in the municipal council from 1975–1998.10 Local Islamists had won a third of the municipal council’s seats in the 1989 elections. Meanwhile, the Communist Party component of the jebha coalition was under increasing attack from within and without as the Communist world suffered a series of crushing blows. After the fall of the USSR, the jebha was in need of major renovation – or perestroika, as most people termed it in public meetings and which time I and a colleague, Mr. Fady Copty, filmed everyday life interactions in public places in Naasira and Natzerat Illit for a period of one week. 10 The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and the seeming advent of a guided peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, initially encouraged optimism and hope in Naasira. The assassination of Prime Minister Rabin and the subsequent election of hard-line Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu, deflated most of these hopes, however.

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informal private conversations. The loss of an identity and affiliation linking Naasira to sources of global power beyond Israel had a profound impact on Nasraawiyeen. The primary vehicle of the two-pronged effort to renovate the town’s distinctive political party as well as its ancient, though threadbare, architectural treasures, was the ambitious Nazareth 2000 project, launched by the municipality in the early 1990s with the goal of completing an extensive urban facelift on the city along with the construction of new roads to lessen traffic, a general upgrade of the sewage system, the creation of new sidewalks, plazas, hotels, parking lots, and other facilities to attract more pilgrims and tourists; and major infrastructural enhancements to improve the overall quality of life for Nasraawiyeen. The Labor Government of Yitzhak Rabin, crucially dependent upon Palestinian Knesset Members for its parliamentary majority, had promised the municipality considerable funding and technical assistance, as well as an upgrade of Nazareth’s status to Development Zone “B”, which would have enabled the municipality to enjoy tax cuts and investment incentives.11 Despite hope, enthusiasm, slick publicity campaigns, unprecedented ministerial support, state-local coordination, and the announcement that Pope John Paul II himself would inaugurate a new plaza near the Church of the Annunciation, the municipality and the jebha soon lost control of the project, infrastructurally, symbolically, and politically. As a joint venture of the municipality and several state ministries, Nazareth 2000 was ultimately designed to meet the desires and needs of tourists, state officials, and Israeli and foreign businessmen more so than the needs and concerns of Nasraawiyeen. The area to be most affected by renovations – the old suq and the Latin quarter, were home not to Communist Party supporters, but rather to low-income Muslim communities unaffiliated with any local political parties, and often supporters of the Islamic Movement. Some were native to Naasira, others were members of the aforementioned internal refugee community. Their immediate concerns were poverty, unemployment, crime, drug abuse, and despair, not tourism revenues or a secular political coalition’s sudden identity crisis. A number of projects and procedures central to the Nazareth 2000 initiative were contracted out to firms, bodies, and professionals beyond Naasira, despite the presence of talented architects, engineers, and conservation specialists living in the town. Informants related that low-income merchants and artisans in the old suq were not given adequate opportunities to weigh-in on an urban development plan that would change their work environment and require them to relocate for several months while renovations were in progress, a demand that few could afford to comply with economically. The Nazareth 2000 project did much to expose cultural and political heterogeneity within Naasira itself. Although unintended by the municipality, Nazareth 2000 took on increasingly Christian overtones, which was ironic for an initiative spearheaded 11 Many of these promises had not yet been fulfilled at the time of Rabin’s assassination, however, and the next government, led by the Likud Party’s Benyamin Netanyahu, reneged on most of them.

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by a Communist-dominated municipality representing a predominantly Muslim population,12 many of whom were descendants of internal refugees who had never felt particularly welcome in Naasira to begin with, and who were now realizing that the prime beneficiaries of the renovation of their adopted town were to be Christian pilgrims, Israeli businessmen and tourist agencies, the Pope, and the jebha.13 It’s A Long, Long way to Tora Bora When the Nazareth 2000 renovation team razed an old school building located just south of the Church of the Annunciation and just north of an ancient Muslim shrine in order to commence work on a large, Italian-style plaza, it became clear that the work area might obstruct access to the Muslim shrine. Tensions, mistrust, and anger over this slight to local sensitivities quickly reached the boiling point. Several Muslim activists took over the building site, thereby halting all renovation work, and staged a sit-in that lasted for months and drew thousands of worshippers/protestors for Friday prayers each week (Rabinowitz 2001b). In a remarkably short period of time, the construction site became the locus and catalyst of Muslim political identification and mobilization. Muslim activists and preachers, many from outside Naasira, commenced daily prayers near the shrine. Before long, prayer rugs and green flags demarcated and sanctified the borders of this little piece of holy land, now the epicenter of the Communist-dominated municipality’s crisis of representation and legitimacy. Dividing lines quickly emerged: the dispute pitted native Nasraawiyeen Greek Orthodox, Communists, and the Vatican representative to the Holy Land on one side against Muslim internal refugees, poorer Muslim communities native to Nazareth and the Galilee, and Israel’s Likud and Shas-dominated Religious Affairs Ministry on the other. The municipality claimed the plaza had been registered as state land since the Ottoman era. Nazareth’s Islamic movement leaders countered that it was Islamic waqf property by virtue of the presence of the domed shrine, said to be the tomb of Shihab ad-Deen, a nephew of Salah ad-Deen, the legendary Kurdish Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders in the Middle Ages. The conflict escalated. Soon, meetings of Nazareth’s municipal council were rendered impossible because of threats, accusations, fisticuffs, and acrimony Rabinowitz 2001b). Eventually, the Israeli government and the Vatican stepped in as 12 At the time of my field research, which coincided with the announcement of the Nazareth 2000 plan, Naasira was 65% Muslim and 35% Christian. Current statistics indicate that Muslims are now 70% of Naasira’s population, while Christians from a variety of sects are now just 30% of the town’s population. 13 One of the more bizarre outcomes of the joint venture between Nazareth’s municipality and external businesses was a public relations event that required municipal employees and council members to dress up like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and their contemporaries in order to serve hors d’oeuvres to visiting businesspeople and potential investors. One of the firms involved in the Nazareth 2000 project was said to be a subsidiary of the Disney Corporation.

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mediators, though each side in Naasira perceived external intervention as serving the interests of their opponents, as well as representing a throw-back to familiar patterns of patron-client relations so common in Palestinian municipal politics in Israel from the 1950s until the 1970s (El Haj and Rosenfeld, 1989). One of the great achievements of the jebha had been decisively to end the era of humiliating patronage politics in Naasira and to exert local-level Palestinian political agency in bold new ways that creatively challenged state as well as local identity discourses and hierarchical political structures (King-Irani, Ibid). This achievement earned Naasira the title of “jumhuuriyat an-Naasira al-mustaqalla” (The Independent Republic of Nazareth), as well as popular admiration throughout the Arab world. The jebha’s golden age officially ended with the election of a municipal council heavily dominated by Islamic Movement activists, though still headed by a Communist in the mid-1990s. Though depicted in the media as yet another example of “a clash of civilizations,” or an index of inherent conflicts between an essentialized Islam and Christianity, the Shihab ad-Deen imbroglio was the fruit of the politics of municipal exclusion more so than theological differences, and as such constituted a rude awakening for the municipality and the jebha about the deepening – and ultimately fatal – crisis of representation and legitimacy they were now confronting. Suddenly, no one could deny that Naasira was mixed in ways that few had ever reckoned with or prepared for. Internal diversities and pluralities long occluded by the jebha’s hegemonic and totalizing discourse, evident in campaign mottos such as “kull an-naasira al-jebha!” (“All of Nazareth is the Front!”) and frequent calls for towheed as-sufouf (unifying the ranks), now burst forth in dramatic ways before the eyes of the world as CNN and BBC camera crews descended upon Naasira to film the ugly street violence that marred the town’s Easter celebrations in 1999. The results of the jebha’s electoral defeat and ideological eclipse are now immediately noticeable on the streets of Nazareth, particularly in and around a highly visible area that had been slated for extensive renovation: the entrance to the old suq and the grounds surrounding the Church of the Annunciation. At the time I conducted research in Nazareth nearly a decade ago, the Shihab ad-Deen shrine was a neglected and seemingly forgotten old structure on the margins of Nazareth’s main thoroughfare, of interest mainly to stray cats. I passed it several times everyday and never saw anyone visiting it. Rallying around an Islamic monument provided at least one segment of Naasira’s population with a solution to the inescapable problem of fragmented identity, one that confronts all Palestinian citizens of Israel, Muslim and Christian alike. But in so doing, the Islamic activists played into essentializing state discourses and stereotypes of “anti-democratic” “violent” and “radical” Muslims, thereby fueling the arguments of Israeli officials who warned of the peril of giving “irrational” Arabs any political room in which to maneuver, whether in Israel, the Occupied Territories or indeed in the wider Arab-Islamic world. Despite the fact that the Islamist activists eventually won their battle, managed to halt further construction of the proposed plaza, and even got an agreement signed

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to build a mosque on part of the site of the razed school building, their shantytown protest/prayer area was dismantled only in 2003, when Ariel Sharon’s government finally did away with the plans for a mosque in the square and restored the original plan for a town plaza. The plaza has since been built, and was destined for inauguration in late 2005 or early 2006. In August 2002 I noticed a few young men coming and going daily at the site dressed in attire distinctive of the Taliban forces in Afghanistan: sharwal, turbans, long vests, and other fashion accoutrements, some khaki, popular in Tora Bora, but until now, rarely worn by Muslims in Palestine. Friends affiliated with the jebha – Muslims and Christians alike – found this development darkly hilarious, but noted with exasperation that it further marred Naasira’s image, scared away tourists, and enabled Israeli authorities and spokespersons, whether at the state or municipal level, to depict Israel as a last bastion of rationality in an otherwise irrational and extremist Arab Middle East. Invoking Islam as the basis of one’s identity and political action provides immediate access to matrices of meaning and belonging that extended far beyond Nazareth – even beyond Israel, just as earlier decades’ affiliations with the Communist world helped people forget how very trapped they were as a non-Jewish minority in Israel (Rabinowitz, 2001a). This notwithstanding, despite the significant victory of the Muslim activists to mobilize an under-represented sector of Naasira’s population to triumph in the 1998 municipal elections, the Islamic movement has done little to resolve the various, and deepening, problems confronting Naasira, problems such as unemployment, drug abuse, rising crime and violence, garbage, graffiti and a dearth of tourist revenue. Not surprisingly, the Muslims had much less success in the 2003 elections, although they still form a force to be reckoned with in local government. In 2002, when municipal work came to a halt due to a deadlock in relations between the Muslim activists and the Jabha, including the mayor, there was talk of the government appointing a committee to oversee the work of the municipality. Some friends and ethnographic informants opined that it was just a matter of time before the merger of Naasira and Natzerat Illit would be complete, after which Naasira would become the colorful and exotic – though dangerous and perennially run-down – Palestinian section of Natzerat Illit, following a trend already visible in the old city of `Akka. Such pessimistic speculations are not groundless. Signs of a likely future merger between the two municipalities, to the clear advantage of Natzerat Illit and at the expense of Naasira, have already appeared on the horizon. Misplaced Hearts One of the key indices of a healthy and dynamic and urban culture is a cinema or similar centralized sites of sociability, cultural expression, and leisure activities. In 1991–93, when I was conducting field research, several informants commented that the demise of Naasira’s cinemas and coffee houses was a curious matter warranting

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further research. Most hypothesized that it stemmed from the advent of television: private entertainment had killed off public leisure activities and all the social and cultural elements associated with them. “People just stay at home now, watching videos and eating bizr (roasted watermelon seeds)!”, an exasperated political activist of 30 told me in the summer of 1992. One man, however, cited a correlation between Naasira’s growing population, chronic over-crowding, and the fact that Naasira, since 1948, was no longer a city, but a collection of loosely linked yet distinct and semi-autonomous “villages,” due largely to the presence of so many internal refugees who had preserved their diverse traditions, dialects, and kinship networks, remaining unintegrated into Nazareth’s social structure and kinship networks for several decades. He suggested that the death of Naasira’s public theater, cinemas, and coffee house culture had much to do with the fact that Naasira no longer had an identifiable center, but rather was home to many competing centers.14 “Naasira’s heart used to be near the ‘ain (Mary’s Well). Now where is it? No one knows!” One of two new architecturally distinctive and symbolically significant structures on the border zone between Naasira and Natzerat Illit may well be a good candidate for the new title of city center: the Lev Ha`ir shopping center and cinema. The center’s name (“Heart of the City” in Hebrew) raises eyebrows in Naasira. “If they are considering that location the ‘heart’ of their city, a place that is right between Naasira and Natzerat Illit, rather than a kilometer or so east in the true heart of Natzerat Illit, it means they are planning to swallow us,” said a young man from Naasira’s Coptic quarter. Despite these misgivings and suspicions, Nasraawiyeen, along with Palestinian citizens of Israel from surrounding Palestinian villages, are frequent visitors to Lev Ha`ir’s shops, restaurants, ice cream parlor, and cinemas. During the two visits I made to the shopping mall in late August of 2002 in the company of Palestinian friends, large groups of Palestinian teenagers as well as Palestinian families were out in force, buying back-to-school supplies in the lower shops, and enjoying pizza, ice cream, and falafel sandwiches in the fast food area on the top floor next to the cinema entrance. Though many of the young Palestinian women present were dressed conservatively, some even wearing hijaab, many of the young Jewish girls strolling through Lev Ha`ir wore risqué, eye-catching ensembles reminiscent of Britney Spears’ MTV attire. A group of young Palestinian men had staked out a table in a pizza restaurant overlooking the lower shopping area to survey these young women.

14 Unbeknownst to this gentleman, he had rephrased one of the key themes of Jane Jacobs’ book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1989): the need for centralized, mixed-use areas that constantly bring various categories of people together in public places at different times for diverse ends. Such settings are highly generative of diverse relationships, multi-nodal social networks, and interactions characterized by trust and common interest in the welfare of others.

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One of my young companions said that romantic relationships between Palestinian boys and Jewish girls sometimes begin here at the mall, which makes Jewish parents in Natzerat Illit a little leery. “Dating is probably okay, but marriage between Palestinian boys and Jewish girls? – No, hardly anyone is ready for that!” said a teenaged girl from Naasira. Even teenagers know that nationalist hearts must not be misplaced on the wrong side of the municipal/national border. About a kilometer to the southwest from Lev Ha`ir, and once again, straddling the Naasira/Natzerat Illit municipal border, is a new and inviting structure erected for the Tuesday Market (shuq shlishi), which a decade ago took place only on Tuesdays in an open field. The “Tuesday Market” is now a very successful business venture, open several days a week. Merchants and shoppers, both Palestinians and Israelis, come from far and wide to engage in trade and commerce under an attractive and capacious covered structure that resembles a modern version of the old suqs of Arab cities, though much wider and laid-out according to an easily navigable grid system. Friends related that many people who used to sell their wares in the old suq of Naasira now come here to sell instead. They have to pay a fee to the municipality of Natzerat Illit to do so, but apparently it is worth it. Since the violent events of Spring 1999 and October 2000, and after two years of the al-Aqsa intifada, few Jews will venture into Naasira, particularly the old city, to shop, despite the fact that the Nazareth 2000 project’s renovations of the old suq brought about marked aesthetic, logistical, signage, and hygienic improvements. Palestinian merchants’ relocation to the new Natzerat Illit market space, no less than Nasraawiyeen’s growing tendency to shop there, is a matter of some controversy in Naasira. Those in favor say it is just too much trouble to deal with all the traffic and lack of parking space in Naasira when one can simply board a bus and be delivered directly to the entrance of the modern Natzerat Illit market in a matter of minutes. The efficient use of time is increasingly important to Naasira’s many twoincome households. And besides, most items are cheaper at the Natzerat Illit market, according to many Nasraawiyeen. Thus the heart of commerce in Naasira is dying, and Nasraawi merchants and shoppers are inadvertently helping to kill it. “A Finger in our Eye” The Crusader Man became the landlord. An enemy with holdings. Full of trust, Sword-bearing, armor-wearing, with a coat of mail. Kind of a jumpy guy, the Crusader man.15

15 An excerpt from Israeli poet Shelley Elkayam’s 1987 poem, “The Crusader Man,” which Ammiel Alcalay interprets as a comment on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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By far the most noticeable and commented upon visual change in the Naasira/ Natzerat Illit conurbation is the new courthouse in Natzerat Illit. An immense and imposing structure whose size and dimensions are entirely out of proportion to its surrounding landscape, the new courthouse is an inescapable and towering presence on the horizon – as long as viewed from Naasira or the western sector of Natzerat Illit. If one travels to the eastern-most edges of Natzerat Illit, the new building is not visible at all. Clearly, it was built with a particular audience in mind: Nasraawiyeen, who have given the gargantuan building disparaging names: al-waHsh (the monster) and al-qal`a (the fortress), noting that it is “like a finger in our eye,” a constant, concrete taunt reminding Nasraawiyeen who calls the shots and dictates the terms. Foucault would have a field day with this building. Even an architectural reviewer for the Israeli daily, Ha’Aretz, could not help but comment upon the political, semiological, and ideological subtexts of the new courthouse: Although justice must be seen, the question is how and to what extent. The new courthouse in Upper Nazareth…presides over a hill and looks like a hybrid cross between a Crusader fortress, a Greek temple, a wicked witch’s castle and a fashionable high-tech plant. It stands like a command post on a hilltop in Jewish Nazareth, overlooking the Palestinian population of Nazareth, sprawling down the hillside below. It also leaves no doubt as to who wants to represent justice or the law – and to whom. (Zandberg, February 17, 2000).

The placement of the huge courthouse on the very border between Naasira and Nazrat Illit elicits lively comments and bitter criticisms from Nasraawiyeen. The enormous new structure represents a wider trend, codified in state development plans dating back to the 1960s, to centralize all government offices in mono-use zones in Jewish localities. The new courthouse is just the first of several monumental government buildings slated to be erected here, all of them serving the administrative needs of Israel’s entire northern region (ha-Tsafon). Government offices formerly located in Palestinian Naasira have gradually been relocated, one by one, to Natzerat Illit over the past two decades. The area of Natzerat Illit planned as the new administrative center for the entire northern region will eventually cover 17 acres along the highest point on the border between Naasira and Natzerat Illit. The placement, altitude, and concentration of these nationally symbolic and administratively key buildings surely send a message, as noted by the aforementioned architectural reviewer in Ha’Aretz: There are many logistical advantages in having all the government’s offices in one place, but just as with shopping centers, such acropolises threaten the indispensability of the city. In light of the nature of the delicate relationship between Upper Nazareth and Palestinian Nazareth, the concentration of all the government offices here has national ramifications as well as local and urban ones (Ibid.). Elkayam is from a Jewish family that has lived in Palestine for seven generations (Alcalay, 1993: 112).

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The area immediately surrounding the imposing new courthouse also conveys political messages and symbolic meanings. Attempting to ascend to the courthouse from Naasira is a challenge. Though the building looms large and dominates the general view of the horizon from nearly every point in Naasira, it seems, like a distant castle in a fairy tale, unattainable by direct means. This is ironic when one reflects that the building is the region’s chief hall of justice. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, to whom full equality, and thus justice, often appear unobtainable in Israel, the difficulties of reaching the courthouse seem entirely apropos. The courthouse is not on a main or secondary street, and accessing it by car from Naasira required a court battle. A new road now links the Nemsaawi neighborhood of Naasira to the lower reaches of the courthouse from the north side of the complex, minimizing the travel time formerly required to reach Natzerat Illit. This short-cut road linking the two municipalities was not part of the state or regional planning map and required a legal struggle to be approved and built.16 Cars ascending this road must now stop before a flashing red light at the exact point where they cross over to Natzerat Illit from Naasira, in a stop and start motion that friends jokingly called “bowing before the court house.” Approaching the western side of the courthouse from the upper area of the Eastern quarter of Nazareth requires scaling a steep and ill-maintained street ascending through a no-man’s land of garbage, sabr (prickly pear) cactus, coiled wires, and the jumbled flotsam and jetsam of building materials left behind by the construction team that erected the building. Descending again and re-entering Naasira’s space, one immediately notices a new, though archaic-looking, monument fashioned of rough-hewn stones, the humble height of an average man. The monument commemorates the life and death of `Omar `Akkawi, a 42-year-old Palestinian man from Naasira who was shot dead on this spot in October 2000 by police snipers firing from the area of the Courthouse building during a program-like raid launched by Jewish residents of Natzerat Illit on Naasira. For many Nasraawiyeen, it is impossible to contemplate the size, altitude, and location of the new hall of justice without also remembering how strategically well-situated a site it is for snipers, an association hardly consonant with the purposes of a hall of justice charged with ensuring the rule of law. “What will become of us?” Corresponding inversely to the size, power, and prominence of the new courthouse as the dominant – and indeed the dominating – architectural symbol of Natzerat Illit is a small, neglected, and diminished structure on the main street of Naasira, which was once the town’s heart: Mary’s Well (`ain al-`adhraa). In a 1992 statistical survey, I asked respondents to choose, from a series of places and structures in Naasira, the 16 Conversely, at least two other roads, both of which enable residents of Natzerat Illit to come and go without having to navigate the traffic-laden streets of Naasira, were built without problems or delay since the mid-1990s.

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one that best symbolized the town’s character, identity, and profile, as well as the one that was personally most meaningful to respondents. The clear winner was Mary’s Well, easily surpassing the well-known Church of the Annunciation, the largest church in the Middle East, as well as the oldest mosque in Naasira, al-jaami` alabyad, in the heart of the suq. Despite figuring prominently in the jebha’s and the municipality’s renovation plans of the early and mid-1990s, as well as having been a key component of the logos for both the Communist-dominated coalition and the Municipality of Nazareth, Mary’s Well today presents a sad, indeed a shocking, sight: the water source has been cut off, graffiti defaces the structure, and trash and cigarette butts fill the basin where cool and refreshing water used to pool in days gone by. In 1992–93, the small, treefilled plaza near Mary’s Well was seldom devoid of people. Older Nasraawiyeen rested on the benches or sat along a low wall watching passers-by and chatting as children skipped and played around the well. The adjoining plaza constituted the most popular site for sit-ins and political protests. Now it is a deserted and desolate area, frequented neither by tourists nor Nasraawiyeen – at least not by day. At night, someone is leaving an impressive number of empty beer bottles behind the well, and someone else has affixed some small rectangular decals, neatly printed in red and black ink on white paper, which ask plaintively in Arabic “What will become of us?” or warn against ‘al-`umalaa’ (informants and infiltrators), drawing attention to the links between informants and drug dealers and sternly warning young people to avoid both. Although attractively resurfaced in original stone as part of the Nazareth 2000 project, Mary’s Well now sits alone, forlorn, and ignored. Nazareth is now a tourist town without tourists, a holy site devoid of spirit, a market town without shoppers or merchants, and a municipality without municipal council meetings. Its well has no water, its people have no hope, its leaders have lost their vision, and its fragmented parties and voluntary organizations are scarcely able to coordinate the most basic public activities. According to the primary criteria cited by Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Naasira is clearly a dying city. Nasraawiyeen know and feel it keenly. As an ethnographer of the town, I did too. Various friends and informants, aware that my doctoral dissertation research had focused on the municipality’s and the jebha’s attempts at rebirth and renovation in the context of the planned Nazareth 2000 project, sarcastically asked only days into my visit last August: “keef tetsawwari al-baladiyya issa? Mitl bis meyyit, mush haik? – fee reeha taali`a minha” (“What do you think of the municipality now? It’s like a dead cat, no? There’s a bad smell rising from it!”). Young people returning to Naasira after obtaining their bachelor’s degrees at the Technion, Hebrew University, or Tel Aviv University were clearly unhappy and frustrated to be back in Naasira after experiencing more hopeful and vibrant urban environments. “It’s like attending a long, unending funeral reception here!” said a young woman of 23. “Maybe later, when I am sixty, it will be a good place to live,

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to be close to family and friends as I age, but now, it is so frustrating and suffocating to be here!” Walking home through a fog at midnight after an evening spent in a virtually empty coffee house in a beautifully renovated structure in Naasira’s old city, a wide hall nostalgically adorned with every photograph, print, or painting ever done depicting Mary’s Well in better times, my friends and I stopped before a building, completely closed up, which purported to be Naasira’s House of the Writer (Dar al-Kaatib). The scene presented an eerie, post-apocalyptic visual text: garbage was strewn everywhere, a rusted-out car was parked at an odd angle next to a dry and dusty fountain in the center of the newly refurbished plaza. We suddenly noticed the sharp and unmistakable odor of something dead and decaying (which turned out to be a very large rat). “fee bis meyyit!” laughed one of my friends. “tab`aan, taqreeban wasilnaa `albaladiyya!” responded the other. (“It’s the ‘dead cat’,” said one, to which the other replied, “Naturally, we have nearly reached the municipality building!”). I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket / I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it17 Yet is Natzerat Illit faring any better? Visually, it is a much more inviting and attractive place than it was just a decade ago. Stylish new buildings, lovely landscaping and parks, new promenades and gardens account for the improvements, not to mention the significantly higher annual budgets provided by the Interior Ministry to the Jewish municipality, per capita, in comparison with Naasira. But driving through Natzerat Illit, one notices few people walking through or sitting in these charming parks and plazas. Natzerat Illit has sidewalks, but little if any sidewalk culture. Sociologically speaking, its population is not as settled, tightly knit, stable or deeply rooted as Naasira’s. Unlike Naasira, it is not a natural or an organic settlement, but an artificially planned one, the raison d’être of which seems to be less to be what it is, than to emphasize what it is not. Natzerat Illit is less a city than it is a Jewish island in the Palestinian sea of the Galilee. Fear of the other, separation from the other, and difference from the other is built into its very sinews – infrastructurally, sociologically, and ideologically. The central government is constantly sending new immigrants to live here. Most of them arrive without ever having been consulted as to their preferred place of residence. Their interests and desires are not important. What matters is that they are Jewish bodies – a collective, not individuals – evening out a demographic disparity in the Galilee. Many of these immigrants eventually sail away to Tel Aviv or other urban centers, such as Haifa or Jerusalem, rarely dropping anchor in Natzerat Illit.

17 From the lyrics to “Closer to Fine,” by the Indigo Girls, 1989.

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Despite enjoying considerable funding, state support, and excellent landscaping, Natzerat Illit is a dour and depressing place to visit. It feels like a temporary waystation between destinations, not an organic and permanent settlement of people at ease with and integrated into their surroundings. Surveying the various names and faces of its residents – hailing from India, Argentina, Ethiopia, Belarus, Tashkent, Poland, Morocco, Rumania, and Iran, not to mention Naasira – one wonders at the diversities and hybridities of culture, language, dreams, desires, perspectives, and potentialities that have been simplified and homogenized into a standardized Israeli image in the town’s ulpanim and immigrant absorption centers. The Jewish population of Natzerat Illit alone constitutes quite a lively mixture, but this seems not to be appreciated or encouraged. Instead, the town’s plurality is an elided set of experiences, perspectives and histories, a silenced chorus of diverse voices, an untapped human resource.18 Conclusion: “Can Anything Good Come out of Nazareth?”19 Cities remain the strategic arena for the development of citizenship….With their concentrations of the non-local, the strange, the mixed and the public, cities engage most palpably the tumult of citizenship. Their crowds catalyze processes that decisively expand and erode the rules, meanings, and practices of citizenship. Their streets conflate identities of territory and contract with those of race, religion, class, culture, and gender to produce the reactive ingredients of both progressive and reactionary political movements…. (Holston and Appadurai, 1996: 188).

This eloquent description of cities’ rich ferment of plurality, hybridity, and generative capacities – social, intellectual, artistic, interpersonal, political and moral – draws attention once again to the fact that Naasira and Natzerat Illit are nixed, that is, unmixed, towns. What keeps them nixed is not just the physical borders, imposing buildings, circuitous streets, and barriers visible to any pedestrian, nor municipal budgetary discrepancies, nor the linguistic and cultural differences between the two communities. The roots of the problems confronting both municipalities lie in the limited, limiting, and essentializing nationalist discourses, ideologies, and planning policies of the Israeli Government, which have elicited similarly reductionistic discourses and practices in Naasira. All of these essentializing projects, whether carried out by the state, the municipality, political parties, or opposition movements, 18 In late 1992, I noted a potentially promising development in diversity and intermunicipal interaction: Russian-speaking men and women in Naasira, who had gone to school in the former USSR on Communist Party scholarships, had begun forming friendships with new Russian immigrants in Natzerat Illit. Some Russian women began coming to the Democratic Women’s Club in Naasira to help with sewing projects. A number of friends in Naasira expressed a liking for many of the new Russian immigrants in the early 1990s, as they found them less racist and more relaxed in the company of Palestinian citizens. But that era now seems to have ended. 19 John, 1:46.

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have manifested a “bovine will to simplify things.” They have reduced complex and plural collectivities to one-dimensional stereotypes and categories: “Jews and non-Jews.” Such discourses and policies extinguish untold possibilities for creative interaction, dialogue, and relationships, both within and between the neighboring municipalities, thereby blocking the potential emergence of new social formations and cultural perspectives. In Israel, boundary-fixated discourses and ideologies are codified in laws and institutionalized in the planning maps and urban policies of various ministries (Yiftachel, Ibid). Naasira and Natzerat Illit –and indeed Israel as a whole – are the poorer for it. Such policies, practices, and maps render difficult, if not impossible, the human condition of plurality that Arendt identified as crucial to the emergence of a truly public realm, the venue of democracy and the matrix of full individual and collective human development. It is no secret that Israelis and Palestinians now face frightening problems and dangerous dilemmas, and it is obvious to anyone who watches the evening news that conventional approaches to these crises have failed utterly. The very thing that would render Israel’s nixed cities truly, vibrantly mixed cities – a revolutionary remapping of citizenship categories, rights, and potentialities that would foster greater equality, justice, inclusiveness and democracy – might also save Israelis and Palestinians from the stultifying, limiting, and suffocating effects of their own and each other’s essentializing ideologies and practices. Nearly half a century ago, Jane Jacobs noted the crucial role that enlightened and humane urban planning could play in resolving the interrelated crises of race relations, crime, and poverty in urban centers of the United States: Does anyone suppose that, in real life, answers to any of the great questions that worry us today are going to come out of homogenous settlements? Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves (Jacobs, 1989 [1957]: 448).

In the foregoing presentation, I have endeavored to show how essentialized and reductionistic ideologies, codified and concretized in urban planning, state policies, municipal politics, and prevailing national stereotypes, have prevented plurality, dampened the potentialities for regeneration, and blocked the well-springs of new relationships, visions, and discourses in the Naasira-Natzerat Illit conurbation. References Cited Alcalay, Ammiel 1992 After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Arendt, Hannah 1958 The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Asch, Michael 2001 “Indigenous Self-Determination and Applied Anthropology in Canada: Finding a Place to Stand,” in Anthropologica XLIII: 201–207. Bickford, Susan 1997 “Propriety and Provocation in Arendt’s Political Aesthetic,” in Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Meaning, Craig Calhoun and John McGowan, eds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bishara, Azmi 2000 nadwa tanaawalat `arab 1948: “nuwaajih khatar asrala mutasara`a.” [A symposium on the Arabs of 1948 “We are confronting the danger of accelerated Israelization.” An interview with Dr. Azmi Bishara. Majallat addiraasaat al-falastiniyyah (Journal of Palestine Studies) 41: 31–62. Falah, Ghazi 1992 “Land Fragmentation and Spatial Control in the Nazareth Metropolitan Area.” Political Geography Quarterly 44: 30–41. Furnivall, J.S. 1948 Colonial Policy and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galili, Lili and Ori Nir 2000 Series of articles on mixed cities in Israel, online edition of Ha’aretz Newspaper. Habibi, Emile 1992 Interview with Author, December 6, 1992. Handler, Richard 1981 Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hannerz, Ulf 1980 Exploring the City. New York: Columbia University Press. Herzfeld, Michael 1997 “From Troubled Waters to Boiling Blood: The Dangers of Metaphor,” in Cultural Intimacy. London: Routledge. Holston, James and Arjun Appadurai 1996 “Cities and Citizenship.” Public Culture 8: 187–204. Jacobs, Jane 1989 The Death and Life of the Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books. Jeraissey, Ramez 1992 Comment made during a municipality meeting, May 11, 1992. Keane, John 1997 Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. King-Irani, Laurie 2001a “Maneuvering in Narrow Spaces: An Analysis of Emergent Identity, Subjectivity, and Political Institutions among Palestinian Citizens in Israel.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana UniversityBloomington. —— 2001b “Outside the Rules of the Game: Democracy, Discrimination and the Future of Palestinian Citizens in Israel,” a paper presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, http://wwics.si.edu/mep/irani.html. Koenig, Israel 1976 Koenig Document. Malkki, Liisa 1995 Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morris, Benny 1987 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peled, Yoav 1992 “Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State.” American Political Science Review 86: 432–443.

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Rabinowitz, Dan 1997 Overlooking Nazareth: The Ethnography of Exclusion in the Galilee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— 2001a The Palestinian Citizens of Israel, the concept of a Trapped Minority, and the Discourse of Transnationalism in Anthropology.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24: 64–85. —— 2001b Strife in Nazareth: Struggle over the Religious meaning of Place. Ethnography Vol 2 no. 1: 93–113. Sassen, Saskia, ed. 2001 Global Networks, Linked Cities. London: Routledge. Shlaim, Avi 2001 The Iron Wall. New York: Norton. Silberstein, Laurence 1996 The Post-Zionist Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture. London: Routledge. Torstrick, Rebecca 2000 The Limits of Coexistence: Identity Politics in Israel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Yiftachel, Oren 1997 “Democracy or Ethnocracy?: Territory and Settler Politics in Israel/Palestine.” Middle East Report 207: 8–13. Zreik, Raef 1999 “A Bridge to Nowhere.” News from Within, August, 22–28.

Chapter 9

Exit From the Scene: Reflections on the Public Space of the Palestinians in Israel Raef Zreik

Re-entering Haifa or on the Way Back After graduating from high school I started my studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Haifa for me was just a station on my long journey from my northern village of `Aylabun to Jerusalem. Haifa was a normal place with normal shops; a familiar place. I used to take the direct bus from Haifa to Jerusalem, which was bus number 947. The bus drives via the seashore, then it takes a left near Hertzelia directly to Jerusalem. There are no stops along the road. It is as if Jerusalem is choosing you, and not that you are choosing (Jerusalem). The road from Haifa to Jerusalem was a boring road, an uninteresting one. I could not see anything along the road. It is not a feeling of alienation, it is less than that, the scenes are simply meaningless, no attachment or detachment. Reaching Jerusalem was a special experience. Jerusalem was a place of a different quality. For me it was not just another place, it was not in continuity with the place before it. Jerusalem was an island in the midst of a sea. The place starts with Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a distancing place. It distances you from your family, and you discover your individuality. It was also the first encounter with the City; the first city that you live in and that lives in you. You can call it a breeze of nationalism and individualism. Jerusalem was a distance place, but it was familiar. But my East Jerusalem was an occupied city. My first meeting with individualism and nationalism, was also my first meeting with occupation. Jerusalem was a city of the birth and death of dreams. Now you have graduated; you are a lawyer, and you want to choose a place to live. Neither east nor west Jerusalem can swallow you. This time you have to choose a place to live. The place is not choosing you any more, this time you have to choose it. You have to locate your self on the map. Haifa comes to mind. I can choose Haifa. I take the same bus again. This time the road looks different. Jerusalem has changed the meaning of all the space between Haifa and Jerusalem. If Jerusalem is

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as familiar and relevant as Haifa, why then does the whole space separating them seem irrelevant, unfamiliar and invisible? This time, the way back to Haifa was different. The space was visible, it was rejecting me, but it was visible—I could see it. I could not stop in the middle of the road and choose a place to live. The invisibility has turned into alienation. Jerusalem has changed the meaning of Haifa to me. Now both cities look to me as two small pieces from a large puzzle of a picture. I can see the absent picture: the place that does not exist. Jerusalem has helped me to see what is invisible in Haifa. That is how I had re-entered Haifa. Haifa A Suspension Bridge Over Wadi Al-Saleeb Wadi Al-Saleeb, a neighborhood of stone houses whose windows are not opened. They were closed fifty years ago and have never been opened since then. It is one of the last pieces of circumstantial evidence left of the crime. Language might deceive you to say that these are “deserted houses” without realizing who has deserted whom. “Deserted houses” is analogous to “Forsaken properties”. In order to make the traffic that goes through the winding roads of Wadi Al-Saleeb and leads to Hadar Center move smoothly, a high and broad suspension bridge was built, covering the sky of the Wadi. Cars can now cross the Wadi at high speed and hurrying passengers fail to see the scene of the blinded houses staring at them. A hundred meters are crossed in five seconds. Fifty years are reduced into five minutes. It is a bridge that connects places; a bridge that jumps over time. Those who refuse to reduce time and are attracted by curiosity may enter Wadi Al-Saleeb only to be faced by a surprise of a large sign hanging from a collapsing wall with the announcement: “A Quarter for Artists Will Be Established Here!” An executioner waits for fifty years and decides to forgive himself! Beit Al-Karma (Bet Hagefen) Beit Al-Karma or Beit Hagefen, as it is called in Hebrew, is situated at the south edge of the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Al-Nisnas where two streets meet. Beit Al-Karma is a Jewish Arab center that caters to matters of coexistence and reconciliation and announces the “coming of the spring”. The building is situated at the intersection of Zionism Street with Hagefen Street. Zionism Street is the one that was called “the Nations Street” one day. Then it was reduced into “one nation”, which was reduced into “Zionism”. Hagefen Street in Hebrew, which means “vine” in Arabic, was also called Al-Kuroom Street in Arabic, which means “vineyards”. It was changed into “Hagefen” Street, which means “vineyard” in Hebrew. In my opinion, this habit of changing the plural into singular, and the movement from “nations” into “one nation” and the change of “vineyards” into “vineyard” is

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an ugly habit, especially if a building that symbolizes coexistence, tolerance and pluralism perches on the intersection of the two streets. When it was established, Beit Hagefen was on the border of the Arab existence in Haifa. For forty years it has been performing its activities. However, I have never heard that it has performed any activity in the leisured Jewish area of the Carmel. I wonder why we have to get accustomed to their presence while they are not ready even to acknowledge our absence and they are not required to get accustomed to our presence. Every year the municipality organizes events during what is called the “festivals of Holidays.” This event supposes to gather three main religions in a week of celebrations. The public sphere of Haifa turns the Palestinians into Christians and Muslims, and at the same time turns the Russians, Ethiopians, the Polish and Sephardic etc.. into one Jew; a game of identity shaping. Fifty years have passed and a new quarter has not been built yet for the Palestinians in Haifa. We have not demanded a new quarter in Haifa. Beit Hagefen continues its activities and it is still standing on the border of the Arab existence in Haifa. The Soccer Stadium in Kiryat Eliezer A pitch covered with dark green grass. An Asian atmosphere joins the local team “Maccabi Haifa” with the other competing teams. Here, Zahi Aramali, the Arab football star from Shafa-Amer, played fifteen years ago. Since then, the team has enjoyed the admiration of Arab fans. Eleven players with green-white colors dance with the round ball with another team of eleven players. The crowd of fans is divided into fans of Maccabi Haifa and fans of the other competing team. The stadium redefines the borders: the Arab young men share the same fencing cage with the fans of the Jewish team inside. An iron fence separates them from the fans of the other team on both sides. Two iron barriers indicate the unity of fate for both sides of fans. It is a unity of brotherhood inside the barbed cage. An iron barrier divides people again, and reconstructs the identities. It is a space that enables the Arab to flow into it as one of “them.” The soccer playground is a temporary embodiment of a temporary and transient “WE”. The playground is a small factory that temporarily reshapes identities. The Jewish fans borrow certain curses from their Arab “brothers” and yell them in a Polish accent and the Arab fans repeat the same curses in the same accent. It is a sort of borrowing the borrowed. Between the Seashore and the Kenyon (Shopping Mall) The high minaret of Al-Kababeer Mosque overlooks from above to guard the sea. No one cares for it. The seafront extends along the long coast. The place is crowded night and day. A shy Arab presence is there. No one shouts along the beach. Here, whispering turns into an ancient Arab quality. No one calls. The air has a specific density.

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Some young men glimpse at the sand-colored bodies of the half-dressed young girls and continue on their way. The Kenyon is an elaborate place. It displays a crowded family presence. Here and there are baby carriages. An attempt to regain some self-confidence. The relationship between you and the space goes through your purchase power. The presence of the Arab is felt, first as a consumer and then as an Arab. The money in your pocket mediates between you and the commercial stores, the displaying windows and the storeowners. These are some of the few occasions when the Arab can be somewhat “rude” without getting involved in problems. A trivial pale presence colored by heavier absence. Sahit Alhanateer, or Where did the Church Go? Sahit Alhanateer means the “Carriages Square”. After 1948, the name was changed to Paris Square. It was a transportation center for carriages, taxis and buses. At that time you could take a cab to Beirut or Jenin. After 1948 you could take the cab only to Nazareth. After 1967 you could again take a cab to Jenin. After 2000 you can take a cab only to Nazareth. Near the square there was a church. Near the square there is still a church, but now you can’t see it. In the last 10 years buildings were erected everywhere around the church. Is the church still there? Does it exist if we can’t see it? It is a game of history and geography. In some sense the geographical landscape is the accumulation of history. History is the event and geography is the evidence of the event. Is there an event beyond the evidence that can prove it?

Schools and Dreams Schools are a tricky matter. You might manipulate the process of population zoning, when there is a linguistic difference, simply through the location of schools. Arab children go to Arabic speaking schools and Jewish children go to Hebrew speaking school. Give me the location of Arabic schools in Haifa and I will give you the map of the Arabic presence in the city. Parents are the slaves of their children. If you want to keep a neighborhood without Arabs, you don’t need any regulations for that, simply don’t build any Arabic schools there. This reality holds the parents hostage, because to move in space, to change location, to enter a new Jewish neighborhood without Arabic schools, is to endanger their relation with their children, their tomorrow, their dreams. Ben Gurion After Independence You drive to the west across Haatzmaaoot Avenue (Independence Ave.), at the traffic light you turn left. You are entering Ben-Gurion Avenue. Facing you, at the foot the

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Karmel Mountain, the renovated gardens of Abbas envelops you. All houses in the area have been renovated. The street is full of new restaurants and cafés. Towards the evening it becomes full of noise, whispers and smoke. That is where you want to be. The leading restaurants here are Fatoosh, Makan, Duzan. The Road Leading to Arab Al-Na’eem Village Arab-Al-Na’eem is an unrecognized village, though it was established before the establishment of the State. Thus, we can say that it is a village robbed of recognition, which means that the State does not recognize it as a residential area. The land upon which the village is established was declared ‘agricultural land” though the land has been populated by its people. There is no consideration for this existence on the land. The road leading to Arab-Al-Na’eem deceives you. The numerous street signs on both sides of the road inevitably tell you about the existence of two Jewish settlements: Yuvalim and Ashhar. Their age does not exceed the number of the fingers of two hands. The population amounts only to a few hundred. The two settlements were established on confiscated lands from their Arab owners. There is no sign that tells you about the existence of Arab-Al-Na’eem Village. Anyway, it does not exist on a map. Usually, maps represent the shape of place on paper and show it as it is, while in this case the paper of maps tries to change the nature of the place. The place has to adjust itself to the map and not the opposite. Instead of drawing Arab-Al-Na’eem on the map to represent the real situation, it has been obliterated as a step towards its obliteration from reality. The same thing has been done to the street signs. Since the State of Israel cannot remove Arab-Al-Na’eem from the world, it tries to remove it from the memory of the travelers along the road and declares its absence from the geography of the country. The beautiful paved road takes you into the settlement of “Ashhar”. The way to the right takes you into Ashhar settlement while the road to the left takes you to Arab-Al-Na’eem. Suddenly the paved road ends and is substituted by a rocky and earthy one. From now on until you arrive at Arab-Al-Na’eem village, your body has to get accustomed to the conditions of riding horses and not cars. A few minutes drive, which can hardly be sufficient to smoke a cigarette, separate the entrance of Arab-Al-Na’eem village from the entrance to Ashhar. However, they are two different worlds. The people of Arab-Al-Na’eem do not build their houses of stone and concrete for fear that the State may demolish them. Therefore, they build temporary houses of asbestos and metal boards. For fifty years they have been building temporary houses. There were ordinary houses here, built of stone and clay but the State destroyed all of them. But the people rebuilt them. A whole village is built without licensing- an illegal village.

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“Mohammad,” whose house narrowly has space for the family, added one more room to his asbestos house, which has no electricity or running water. Mohammad was brought to court. The accusation: “unlicensed building.” Mohammad wonders: “How can I get a license? There is not any procedure which enables me to get a license. Originally, you don’t recognize the area as a population area and there is no master map for the village. You are responsible for the absence of the map.” Mohammad has no choice. He cannot prove that he is innocent since he does not possess his own choices. He did not choose to be a law violator. His crime does not lie in the fact that he built his house without a license. His crime is that he built a house. According to this logic, Mohammad was born to be a criminal. Mohammad and the State exchange roles. The victim and the executioner exchange roles. Instead of accusing the State of depriving Mohammad from water, Mohammad’s presence on his land turns into a crime. Mohammad has no way to prove his innocence unless God grants him some of His divine qualities. Thus, he can either build his house in the air, or leave. Al Musherfeh Turns into a Street Al-Musherfeh is a village in the Triangle district. It is inhabited by hundreds of families. Recently, the Ministry of Interior has decided to set up a regional Local Council that combines Al-Musherfeh with three other villages in the region. The name given to this local council is “Eron Local Council.” The offices of this local council are in Affula. Anyone who goes now to renew his identity card or to get a new one will be surprised to discover that the name of his village as registered in his card is “Eron” and the name of the street is Al-Musherfeh. In this way, a whole village has been turned into a street. Similarly, some houses were built near Kufr-Kana in the Galilee. Even before the houses were populated the place had already been called “Beit Rimon” and the neat intersection had been called “Beit Rimon Intersection.” All this had happened before the families moved into the houses. Thus, we see how a village is turned into a street, and how a street is turned into a village. Sometimes, the place hides its history and conceals what it had. Here, the place reveals its future and indicates what it does not have. Nazareth – The By-Pass There is Nazareth and there is Nazareth Illit. The people of Nazareth call Nazareth Illit “Shikun of the Jews,” which means “the Neighborhood of the Jews.” Nazareth Illit is a city of fifty thousand people and the people of Nazareth still call it “Neighborhood of the Jews.” Their intuition refuses the robbery of names. Thus, they have invented a name appropriate to the existence of the strange immigrants upon their land. There is a by-pass between Nazareth and Nazareth Illit which defines the borders between the two places. It is a street that puts limits to Nazareth while it opens

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new horizons for Nazareth Illit. The same street, the same border draws limits for Nazareth while it gives birth to Nazareth Illit. It is an end of one place and a beginning of another one. It is a deadly by-pass . A street that can give life and take life in a knockout. On entering the town, the passenger’s eyes are confronted by the view of two gigantic buildings on the Nazareth Illit side of the by-pass. On the top of the mountain, there are two cold, haughty overlooking buildings that watch Nazareth and its quarters. They overlook, but are unreachable, and absolutely remove all doubts with regard to fact of who the boss of the place is. There is a dense attempt to subjugate nature and the native people alike. The first building is the Municipality building of Nazareth Illit, which was built only two years ago in a city of forty years of age careless to the fact that its neighbor, Nazareth, is two thousand years old. It replaces time by place and protects itself against history by geography. The other building is the building of the District Court. Here, the idea of “sovereignty of law” gives up its figurative meaning in favor of its literal meaning entirely. It is a building that spreads power but it is afraid and worried. It is a sleepless suspicious building. On the slope of one of the opposite hills of Nazareth, you face three buildings in the middle of a green area: the Convent of the White Nuns, the Salisian Church, and the Mosque of Prophet Sa’een. Inside Nazareth You’ve entered Nazareth. Densely built concrete buildings catch your eyes, suffocating traffic and garages, whose signs are written in Hebrew. Here and there are aristocratic buildings. It is a place, which is neither a village nor a town. It does not have either the rural tranquillity or the city space. It is a place that has neither the rooster’s crowing nor the cafe’ of the intellectuals. It is a place that has no connection with the fields and the innocence of the earth or with clubs, cinemas and public squares. It is midway between the past, which passed, and the future, which will not come; midway between the lost village and the absent city. To live in Nazareth means to have no address. The streets have no names or numbers. You have to be a post office box or a certain name in Al-Worood quarter or Al-Safafra Quarter or Bir-Al-Amir Quarter. You have to accept your ambiguous position. Nazareth is a city without a sidewalk and without the temper of the sidewalkthat condition in which the city combines some of its citizens after having split them from their organic genetic group and scattered them in order to reorganize them in the mess of the sidewalk. A sidewalk is a place where the individual can practice his anonymity for a few minutes and where his alienation meets with another temporary alienation, which creates a temporary intimacy, and weaves a dreamy state of anticipation: a beautiful smiling face, a cafe’ that tempts you to drink a cup of coffee, a false sale. The sidewalk is the factory of trivial surprises.

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Nazareth does not have a public square, a public park, or any public place. It is a place that belongs to no one but is the property of everyone. It is a city devoid of the atmosphere of the city- that open space which scatters the individuals so that each individual will attain his own peculiarity, uniqueness and his unrepeated character; that space which gives its main interest to the wills of the individuals and their desires and emancipates them from their premeditated affiliations. We are still here waiting for the city, with its sidewalks and squares. A sidewalk that separates us initially and gathers us finally. On Public Space, Control and Planning What has remained of the public space, physically and mentally? Who owns the public place? Who dreams about it and plans it? The first thing that draws the attention of the observers of place-planning in Israel is the central nature of property and planning on the part of the State and the absence of a center among the Palestinians. Most of the land in Israel (93 % of the State land) is a public property. It is owned by the State or by the Jewish Fund – Keren Hakayemet. In contrast, this public ownership is absent among the Palestinians. Public ownership is absent among us and private ownership is absent among them. There is also a national central nature of planning in charge of the National Council for Planning and the Department of the Lands of Israel in addition to other national foundations like the Department of Nature Reserves and others. These foundations deal with planning in a way that enables them to see the general picture of things, which sees place as one unit in conditions of accord and harmony. It is the harmony of one body that obeys the centrality of one mind. All these foundations aim their activity against the Palestinian. Conversely, the absence of center is prominent among the Palestinians in Israel. They face the Israeli centrality individually, both as individuals or villages, without having a real possibility of coordination and without having devoted professional experts for this necessity. This situation reduces one’s trust in collective activity and increases the significance of defense of the individual, the local and the private things. The place “Palestine” turns into a group of endless places, which sometimes conflict with one another without realizing what combines them. In this way, the public body that is supposed to defend the public space (as a material place) disappears and defense centralizes on defense of the private space. Therefore, one can see Mercedes cars driven on broken streets and see Adidas shoes without having playgrounds. The space remains with no one to defend it. Throughout their modern history, the Palestinians have not achieved the crystallization moment of public will that is practiced in the public place. The public place belonged once to the Ottoman Empire and once to the British Empire. Now, the public place is possessed by “the other” between which the Palestinian a state of alienation prevails.

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Private and public property presupposes the duality of object and entity. The object refers to the material or spiritual presence of a certain thing, such as lands, cars, shares and books that, theoretically, tend to be possessed by a certain entity. In order to make the relations of ownership work out, they need possessing entities such as individuals, companies and other legal owners. In order to have public ownership, it must be preceded by the existence of a certain entity that represents the public will which is entitled to be an owner of a public place. The absence of this public entity is what I mean when I say that the public space has been left without people to defend it. Consequently, we notice that there is a strong concentration on the matter of land confiscation from its Arab owners, namely, conditions of aggression against private property. The fact that the whole public open space is no longer waiting for us does not occupy the mind of anyone. Besides, we did not attend the public space to notice its absence from us, and our absence from it. Our thoughts are not oriented to any specific public place with which we identify. In this connection, we can ask: “What connects between Um-Al-Fahem and Nazareth? And what connects between the slums in Haifa and the unrecognized villages? What do we mean by saying that we are from the same place? What are the limits of this place?” With regard to this, we should ask ourselves: “What are the potential indications of the fact that throughout the last fifty years the Palestinians have not demanded the establishment of a new village? Or a new town? Or even a new neighborhood in a mixed city? Do we perceive ourselves as people living in the homeland or living only in the homeland that was? Is this homeland the homeland of the fathers or the homeland of the sons, too? Do we consider ourselves as part of the open space or not? Most probably, the person who is born in Kufr-Kana or Rama or Tira will grow up in his village, will love in it, will work in it and will die in it. There is no mobility in place. Every village is an empire in itself. This is what I mean by “the fragmentation of place”. Recently, especially after Oslo agreement and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, our place has become more broken up. From the beginning, and for a long period, we have been reduced politically and have been excluded from the national project. That is what the PLO has chosen and what we have chosen. Fine. The national movement was moving behind the wall. We were clapping for its success and were crying for its misfortunes and stumbles. After the Oslo agreement, there has been a danger of excluding us from the place. We might get out of the place and it might get out of us. It might suspend its shade from us and then, history and geography might be rewritten according to the balance of power. Palestine the State and Palestine the Authority become one thing, and Palestine the homeland becomes another thing. Here, we got involved in names. If Palestine is “there,” where the Authority and the territories A,B,C are, then, what is “here”? What should we call our space and fields? Should history give in to politics completely? We have got involved in this game of names. History has been our shelter and the protector of our narrative. From now on, we have to get used to new language.

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Here, place is being broken up completely. Here is the office, here is the house and here is Espanioli neighborhood. Here is Nazareth and here is `Aylabun like scattered islands in a sea. Now, two parallel ideas converge in my mind : the idea of the absence of public space in its immediate and material meaning: absence of the square, absence of the sidewalk, absence of the park, absence of the public buildings which individuals feel are the property of the public, absence of the open space awaiting our presence; and the idea of the absence of a center in its cultural and political concept, which is likely to represent and crystallize the collective will of the Palestinians in Israel; the absence of the guiding moral and political center; the absence of a directly elected representative body that represents this crowd and reflects its will within a Palestinian wholeness; the absence of a “Social Contract” exclusive of Palestinians that adjusts the common and the different things and turns their differences into diversity within unity. The absence of this project can be called the fragmentation of political wholeness. Here, the absence of the public place meets with the absence of the public time. The public time is the time of the group, its pulse, its focus, its historical rhythm, its future self-image and its ability to have collective dreams. In short, it is the ability to travel in time; to travel backwards to recover its memory and travel forward to create a dream. The process of recollection – traveling backward in time – and the process of dream-making – traveling forward in time – are two different shapes for one presence, which is the presence in time and the ability to move in it. A dream is not a futuristic moment only; it is a thread that connects between the present moment and a certain imagined moment in the future. A dream is an attempt to follow the track of changing reality into a better one. Being so, a dream needs memory. A dream cannot be achieved through reducing memory. There is no image for the future if the past does not show up in the present. Nihility has no dreams and no dreams come out of nihility. Dreams belong to entities only. They are an extension of the memory and they cannot live without it, though they are likely to surpass it. All this is clear and obvious. However, the other side is true, too. The process of recollecting the past is taking place now. It is a selective process. The past does not wait as the passengers do in the train waiting rooms. We choose from this past what we like of images, scenes and persons. The process of recollecting the past is taking place in the course of our search for a dream. The attempt of searching for the future opens the doors of the past for you. The past needs the future in the same way as the future needs the past. Memory does not live in itself and for itself. Memory lives in the context of creating a dream. Thus, the process of creating a dream becomes a necessary condition for our ability to maintain our memory. In view of this, the attempt to maintain the scene and defend it or to “recover” the scene that was in the past is not a process to be taken for granted. Sometimes, the past and what has remained to tell about its scene constitute a heavy burden and memory constitutes an obstacle in the way of dealing with the living reality and its

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suppression becomes the best way to enable people to coexist with the present scene. Only our ability to dream about a “new” scene is likely to get the past scene out of its heavy idolization. Finally, we can talk about the break-up of time in the same way as we talk about the break up of place. The split, torn, and broken up place creates split and broken up thoughts. The by-passing roads do not only create borders to the place but also create in the mind borders around the place. On the other hand, the absence of the homeland mentality and the right of having a public space weakens the potentiality of the Palestinian in Israel to expand in the open space as a homeland that he belongs to, and has the right to move in, wherever and whenever he likes. Since our ability to move in time gives space another dimension, our ability to move from one place to another gives time another dimension. Thus, the question of your presence in history and the question of your presence in geography become one.

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PART 3 Gendered Perspectives on Mixed Spaces

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Chapter 10

Contested Contact: Proximity and Social Control In Pre-1948 Jaffa and Tel-Aviv Deborah S. Bernstein

Voices From the Periphery In June of 1936, shortly after the outbreak of violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in the border area of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, marking the beginning of the Arab Rebellion, the following letter was sent to the Tel-Aviv municipality.1 It was written by residents of Neve Tzedek,2 a Jewish neighborhood bordering on the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Manshiyya. In Rokach St, No. 24, belonging to Mr. M. Fevre of France and his representative Attorney A. Siger, apartments have been let to depraved women of ill repute, from the underworld, who have come from Jaffa and deal with all forms of atrocity and depravity with no limitation or manners. This (situation – D.B.) has significant impact on us and on our children as lately, in the evening hours, Arabs have begun to visit them, and this is becoming dangerous to public safety. We the undersigned, appeal to the Tel-Aviv municipality in the name of the honor of the public and the honor of two nearby synagogues – to put an end to this outrage and remove the evil from our midst.3

Tel-Aviv municipality forwarded the letter of complaint to the Palestine Police, Divisional Police Headquarters, Crime Department whose reply was received shortly.

1 Most of the primary documents to be referred to in this article come from the Tel-Aviv Municipal Archive (TAMA). The documents were written originally in Hebrew and translated by myself (D.B.) unless stated otherwise. 2 Neve Tzedek was the first neighborhood established (in 1887) by Jews living in Jaffa, who wanted a semi-separate neighborhood outside of the heart of downtown Jaffa (Shavit and Biger, 2001:56–80). 3 The letter was signed by ten people, house-owners and tenants. 24.6.36, TAMA 4-3642.

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I am honored to inform you that after an investigation we have learnt that in the second floor of the above mentioned house lives a Sephardi family of six, in crowded conditions. With them is presently living a Sephardi woman who previously worked in a cafe in Jaffa, and an acquaintance of hers, a taxi driver known to us, visits her from time to time. In this home there is no depravity and the suspicions of the neighbors are probably due to the visits of the above mentioned taxi driver.4

Ten years later, in October 1946, a letter was sent to the Tel-Aviv municipality, from the same area, by Zakharya Kohlani, once again expressing apprehension about actual or potential contact between Jews and Arabs in the borderzone between TelAviv and Jaffa I have learnt from neighbors that the partner to my lot of land, Mr. Shmuel Afari has asked for a permit from Tel-Aviv municipality for the retail sale of alcoholic beverages in No. 9, Mea She’arim St. I share this lot of land and have a joint wall with the above Mr. Afari, the number of which is also No. 9. The first ground for my objection is that because his lot is located on the border between Jaffa and Tel-Aviv, on a major street connecting the two cities, this will cause a constant concentration of clients from among both Arabs and Jews, and will make the place a meeting place for the lovers of drink. Your honor certainly knows that borders are always places most vulnerable to outbursts and attacks, quarrels and incitement, and therefore it is the obligation of the municipal and government authorities to do whatever they can to provide the most effective means of ensuring the safety and peace of the public.5

These letters, and others like them, tell a complex story. It is a gendered tale of contact and a fear thereof; of interaction, apprehension and mistrust. These cases of loaded and contested contacts, and they ways they played out in socially peripheral settings are at the focus of this chapter. ‘Contested contact’ are daily interactions growing from spatial proximity in conditions of collective strife. In this case these are routine, often mundane contacts which take place across ethno-territorial and cultural boundaries in the midst of an ongoing struggle about the very definition of these boundaries – where they run, which side is dominant, which has control on what takes place on either side. It is, I wish to emphasize, a gendered scene: the ones who are primarily seen to cross the boundary – and hence present a challenge to it – are women perceived as interacting or potentially interacting with men on the other side. This is of course in marked contrast to the symbolic significance with which women are traditionally burdened as keepers of collective boundaries – a contrast that deepens the implicit and explicit threat presented by ‘boundary keepers’ who elect to cross it, thus so blatantly obfuscating it. The notion of ‘contested contact’ removes us away from the taken-for-grantedness of boundaries. Instead it focuses attention on a variety of situations whereby mundane 4 5

Ibid. Kohlani to T-A Municipality, 30.10.46, TAMA 4-2343.

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events implicitly (at times explicitly) challenge processes of boundary formation. It draws us away from the center, the political arena, to the semi-public/semi-private sphere of residence, neighborhood, consumption and leisure, so often absent from the politically laden historical narrative of Israel-Palestine (Doumani 1995; Bernstein 1999). The concept highlights the gendered significance attributed to women’s presence and to women’s acts, which take place, to a large extent, beyond the gaze of the elites, and yet are never removed from social control. These conflicting and contrasting trends present themselves most vividly when we look at Tel-Aviv and Jaffa in the 1930s and 1940s. This was a period of rapid demographic growth both among Jews, predominantly by immigration and settlement, and among Palestinian Arabs both by natural growth and internal and external immigration (Gertz 1947:46–7). It was a period of national struggle between two emerging national entities, a time when challenges to evolving boundaries were an extremely sensitive issue. Firmly consolidated boundaries, clearly visible, acknowledged and controlled, would, in all likelihood, attract far less attention. It is, I shall argue, the fluidity of boundaries in formation which makes them vulnerable and makes crossing the boundary, or otherwise ignoring it, both feasible and at the same time fraught with threat and danger. Zionist/Israeli historiography has predominantly focused on the new Jewish/ Hebrew settlement, affiliated with the organized national movement – ‘The Yishuv’. It has been conceptualized as a separate entity, within, yet removed from the overall context of Palestine. This ‘separateness’, as conceived by the Jewish settlement and its elites, was fully accepted by the evolving Israeli/Zionist historiography. Over recent years, as part of major shifts of historiography, the relations between the Jewish settlement and the Palestinian Arab society have become the core of historiographic study and debates (Ne’eman 1995; Ram 1996; Shafir 1996:1–21). Elsewhere (Bernstein 2000) I problematize this separateness, questioning constructions of exclusion and inclusion and offer a critique of how boundaries between the Jewish and the Arab collectives were constructed. But if my earlier work focused on the institutional and ideological efforts which went into constructing boundaries by institutions on both sides, this chapter focuses primarily on the permeability of boundaries at times of boundary consolidation. The phenomenon of permeability and fluidity will be discussed in the context of commodity consumption, residence and leisure which took place in urban spatial proximity. I shall argue that this proximity was shaped, constrained and challenged by emerging national boundaries, and that proximity in turn affected the formation of these boundaries. At times proximity challenged the emerging boundaries and their discourse of separation. At other times national alienation and enmity added stress and strain to the spatial proximity and reinforced the prevailing discourse and practice of separation. Proximity among people of basically similar status, as among employees in a work place, residents in a neighborhood or consumers of common leisure led, at times, to joint action and a sense of solidarity. Our concern, therefore, is with situations in which a ‘mix’ existed, though probably in most cases not out of intention, choice or

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ideological commitment to national-crossing. Our focus will be on situations which appear to indicate ‘crossing-over’ boundaries, or simply not recognizing them and thus, ‘walking through’ them. Nevertheless, such ‘crossing’ behavior did not, as noted above, take place in a vacuum, and was not divorced from the processes of national consolidation which continued, at times exacerbated. At the same time, there were effective moves to seal the boundaries. Closure took place at a number of mutually reinforcing levels. One level was related to political and economic developments such as those following the outbreaks of violent clashes between Arabs and Jews. These had a strong impact on everyday relations of consumption and residence at peripheral, border areas, reinforcing hostility and fear. Likewise the recurring economic shifts between prosperity and depression were relevant to boundary-crossing consumption. During periods of prosperity, the nationally motivated banning, espoused by both sides, of various forms of economic transactions, was far less effective than it was during periods of depression. A second level of closure formation was institutional. This was the case primarily regarding institutional arrangements within the Jewish settlement. The autonomous institutional structures of the Jewish Yishuv stemmed from the desire to create a separate social/national entity and facilitated its formation. The development of Tel-Aviv as a separate neighborhood (1909), then autonomous township (1921) and later independent municipality (1934), can serve as a prime example (Shavit and Biger, 2001:90–104, 159–66). A third level effecting closure, and possibly the most salient, was the rhetoric of separation which effected most aspects of life of the Jewish immigrants and settlers – “Hebrew Labor” (Avoda Ivrit) and “Hebrew Products” (Totzeret Ha-Aretz), are the best known examples. Finally, these multiple levels of nation building and boundary formation were reinforced by direct forms of social control, pulling offenders back into line, or behind lines. Thus proximity and the daily contact it enabled/facilitated never existed in a vacuum. It challenged boundaries, yet at the same time, was itself challenged by forces of separation, at a number of different, yet mutually reinforcing levels. Proximity, contact and the crossing of boundaries took on a gendered significance when women were involved, or seemed to be so. The apprehension regarding the evolving boundaries interrelated with the restriction of women’s movement in and out of the collective, a movement sanctioned, even prohibited, in patriarchal societies. Recent research and theory have pointed to the intricate relations between patriarchy, the social construction of gender, and nationalism. Yuval-Davis, in her numerous studies on gender and nation, has identified four main forms by which nation and nationalism defined the construction of gender, and most specifically the position of women and the construction of femininity: women as biological reproducers, as cultural reproducers, as defined by differential conceptions of citizenship and as linked to military enterprises (Yuval-Davis 1997). Women’s significance as cultural reproducers, and more generally, the symbolic significance of women and womanhood in the imagining and the consolidating of the national collective, is of central importance for the issue of ‘contested contact’.

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Women’s symbolic significance may take various forms such as a mythical female figure as a symbol of the collective and/or major female roles (mother, daughter, sister, beloved) symbolizing national entities such as, amongst others, the motherland, the nation as the beloved of the male fighter (Baron 1993; Najmabadi 1997). Women, contained within closed circles such as family and home, were seen as markers of collective boundaries by being contained within them. Thus women could be seen both as reinforcing boundaries when remaining within them, and threatening boundaries when crossing them or when seen as approaching too close. Mixed towns, or more generally mixed spaces, can be characterized by a sense of intimacy, often in marginal settings, invaded by all levels of separating forces. The gendered and sexualized significance attributed to contact, to mixing, to all forms of behavior which could be seen as crossing of national boundaries, heightened the sense of intimacy, and at one and the same time, reinforced the pressure for separation. The period under scrutiny here saw rapid Jewish immigration and urban growth under British rule. Tel-Aviv began as a small, well planned neighborhood in 1909. It was initiated by Jews who wanted to leave Jaffa and establish a substantially different neighborhood, modeled after various European styles. This new enterprise was contrasted both with ‘Oriental’ Jaffa and with the earlier neighborhoods established by Jews on the outskirts of Jaffa, which within a short period, it was argued, took on the crowded and oriental look of Jaffa itself. The town grew rapidly, in territory, population and housing. In 1921, with the beginning of the civilian rule of the British mandate, the town numbered approximately 3,600 people, had within it 240 buildings and 2,200 rooms, spread on 1,430 dunams. According to the 1931 census, the population had increased to 46,000, there were 4,020 buildings, 24,500 rooms on 6,500 dunams. The Jewish immigration from Central Europe during the mid-1930s raised the population drastically to 150,000 and construction followed suit (Shavit and Biger 2001:93). It was the largest Jewish town, established and populated as part of the national immigration project, and run by a Jewish municipality. It was the center of the new Jewish national settlement, and the locus of its political and cultural institutions. Some considered it the center of modernity and progress, while others rather saw urban decadence and an odd mix of European metropolitanism and seedy small town ugliness. At the same time, Tel-Aviv was often sharply contrasted to Jaffa – Oriental and full of charm, yet lacking the dynamism, progress and growth of its northern Jewish/European neighbor (Shavit and Biger, 2001:27–51; Bulletin of Tel-Aviv Municipality, 1938/9:19–20; 1940/41:180). While Tel-Aviv has always been considered to be the first Jewish (‘Hebrew’) town (Ha’ir Ha’ivrit Harishona), it was, together with Jaffa from which it broke off, a mixed urban space. This created a tenuous, fluid, shifting relation between the two urban entities. The description of Tel-Aviv’s municipal boundaries, published in the Official Gazette, 1934, in preparation for the municipal elections, tells a

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far richer story than was intended by the drafters of the document.6 The twisting boundary which demarcated Tel-Aviv municipality from Arab villages, land owners and the town of Jaffa to its north, east and south, made use of an assortment of land marks – natural vegetation such as cactus hedges, agricultural cultivation such as the citrus groves of both Jewish and Arab landowners running side by side, as well as private and public construction, homes of Jewish and Arab well known families, roads and railway tracks. The zig-zagged line, which left a number of new Jewish neighborhoods south of the Tel-Aviv municipal boundary, in Jaffa’s municipal zone, indicates the difficulty of tracing a clear-cut separation. A number of quotes from the Municipal Corporation Ordinance demonstrate the point. Referring to the southern boundary and its route from east to south it reads: “Thence westward exclusive of the orange grove of Attal but following the acacia fence and cactus hedge which forms the eastern boundary of the orange grove of Hassan Eff. ‘Ali Mahmud which is excluded, thence northward…”7 Skipping the description of a zigzaging line between orange groves and cactus hedges, the Valhalla Quarter8 (excluded) and the railway station (excluded as well), the description of the boundary continues – Thence north-westward along Barnett St. to its junction with Manshiyya St. excluding the house of El-Akkad as far as but excluding Zakariya’s Mill. Thence in an easterly direction excluding Jaber’s Mill, thence northward but excluding the property owned by Debbas and Homsi jointly, thence northward to the house of El-Ish where it turns westward, thence northward along the western border of the Summeil Road passing, but excluding the house of Yahya Abu Sit, thence in a westerly direction to the northern limit of the house of Haj Zuhdi ‘Abdo, thence in a southerly direction following the Massudiya Road, thence in a westerly direction along the property of Amin Bey Nassif to the north-west corner of the said property at the sea.9

Druyanov, the official ‘historian’ of Tel-Aviv, noted the attempt, when negotiating boundaries between Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, to refrain from including in Tel-Aviv’s domain any home owned by a non-Jew or any such cultivated land (1939:272).10 At the same time, the zigzag of the border line clearly indicates the extent to which, in practice, the Arab, the Jewish (and the German) did intermesh, or intrude on into the other. The portrayal of a ‘line’ which divided Jewish Tel-Aviv on the one hand and Arab Jaffa on the other, is misleading. It would appear more appropriate to refer to an ‘area’ rather than a ‘line’, an area ‘in between’ the southern neighborhoods of Tel6 Supplement No. 1 to the Palestine Gazette Extraordinary, No. 414 of 12th January, 1934. “Municipal Corporation Ordinance” No. 1 of 1934. Pp. 81–3. 7 Ibid., 83. 8 Established by the German Templars who settled in Palestine in the second half of the 19th century. 9 Ibid. 10 Druyanov noted this point when discussing the negotiations over the municipal boundaries of Tel-Aviv when granting it the status of an autonomous township, in 1921.

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Aviv, partially on the ‘Tel-Aviv side’, partially on the ‘Jaffa side’, close to the center of Tel-Aviv yet peripheral. Predominantly Jewish, it was an ethnic mix of Jewish immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, North Africa and Europe, bordering on Manshiyya and Jaffa with a fluid, not formally demarcated border. This was one, but not the only meeting ground, to which we shall now turn. Our concern, as noted above, is with the everyday, the mundane – or relatively so, the semi-private semi-public spheres of life which are often excluded from the collective story and memory, especially in its official versions, in favor of the public, and predominantly the political sphere. Everyday domesticity, consumption and leisure created grounds for proximity, leading, at times, to joint goals and common interests. These spheres of life can be characterized as peripheral in a number of respects. First, consumption and leisure were attributed far less importance, in the context of nation building and national struggle, than the spheres of politics, production11, and the creation of Hebrew culture. The latter spheres were identified with the public sphere, while the former were associated, predominantly, with the private sphere. They, too, were not left untouched. Some attempts were made to organize the activities of consumption, and to make explicit connection between consumption and nation building. According to national decrees, only Jewish produced commodities were to be consumed, and cultural activities were to be carried out in Hebrew, conveying the new national and social values. Nevertheless, in practice, the highly organized institutional system of the Yishuv was effective mainly in the public spheres of politics and labor. Consumption and leisure remained predominantly determined by individual, unorganized choice. Second, much of the contact between Jews and Arabs took place in the peripheral neighborhoods, just south of the core of lively, glittering, “Hebrew” Tel-Aviv. Dunevitz conveyed the sense of distance in his popular history of Tel-Aviv: “Strange is the geography of Tel-Aviv” he wrote, “at a distance of 200 meters from the heart of the city, from Magen David Sq.. lies one of the city’s main suburbs. Your eyes hardly rest for a moment from the glitter of neon and the car lights of Allenby St. and already you have dropped into the oppressive darkness of the alleys of Kerem Ha-Teymanim [The Yemenite Vineyard, or The Yemenite Quarter – D.B.] ” (Dunevitz 1959:109). An additional aspect of marginality was the demographic composition of the bordering neighborhoods, which were populated largely by Oriental Jews, immigrants from Muslim countries. The sense of distance between the European (Ashkenazi) elites of Tel-Aviv and the Oriental residents of the border neighborhoods became evident during the Arab Rebellion, in 1936. The violent attacks and clashes in those neighborhoods led to the escape of many of the inhabitants who fled north, to the safer neighborhoods of Tel-Aviv, where they came under the charge of the Tel-Aviv municipality. “The great disaster which occurred revealed to the whole city a different world, which till then was known to only a few”, said Eliezer Perlson, the head of 11 Politics and production were often interrelated. Production was ‘nationalized’ via the call for a closed economic sector which would employ Jewish labor only, as an essential step towards nation building (Shafir, 1996; Bernstein, 2000).

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the Welfare Authorities of the Tel-Aviv Municipality, referring to the violence and casualties in the border areas, “the world of the Eastern neighborhoods: Orientals, the world of the ghetto, of poverty, filth and crowding. Thousands of children without proper care…..If they will not be taken care of , a grave curse will grow here which will be with us for many years: disease, poverty and children of the streets” (Quoted in Shavit and Biger 2001: 284). Thus daily contact between Jews and Arabs took place in social arenas which were considered marginal in various respects; unidentified with the processes of nation building, associated with the private, distanced from the organized institutions and occupied, partially, by an ‘un-known’, yet Jewish, population. Women’s presence in this sphere was both natural and suspect. The semi-private/semi-public spheres of consumption, domesticity and leisure were part of women’s domain. Yet, women’s presence on the periphery was associated with the ominous, dark, alley-like, liminal world of the in-between, close to the boundaries of the collective, and thus a suspect presence. Domesticity contained women’s sexuality within its appropriate sphere; life on the margins threatened a divergence, beyond the domestic, beyond the accepted. To conclude, the everyday social contact to be discussed, took place away from the newly constituted national gaze – though not completely so. It was still under the national gaze, often a male gaze, though possibly just beyond it, at least some of the time. There was contact between Jews and Arabs, yet it was opposed, gendered, and usually suspect. All in all, it was “contested contact”.

Figure 10.1

Continuity of Tel Aviv, Manshiyya and Jaffa along the waterfront, 1920s. Source: Tel Aviv Municipal Archive. P-02875

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A Methodological Note Before moving to the scenes to be discussed, a methodological note is called for. The spheres with which we are concerned, peripheral, unorganized and private, are, by their very nature, much less documented than the public and organized social spheres. Institutions retain their organized activities via their archival documentation. These can provide a glimpse into the unorganized as well, but it is incidental and hardly represents the experience and understanding of those directly involved. Thus the historian of everyday life is challenged to make innovative and suggestive use of an assortment of sources, not always used by the more conventional historiographic work. These include the daily press and periodicals, memoirs and visual representations, and a careful and critical use of institutional documents. Many of the documents referring to places of leisure, for example, originated as complaints filed against them by neighbors, passers-by or agents of social control such as the religious establishments and the welfare municipal officers. Such complaints convey to the reader some knowledge of what was taking place at the time, as well as, and intermeshed with, the perception, sensitivities and biases of the neighbors and on-lookers. For lack of other sources such documents will be used in this chapter as sources of information, but a careful and cautious reading is essential. Consumption and Leisure Contact between Jews and Arabs in the sphere of consumption refers, primarily, to boundary crossing by people who ignored national divisions when doing their marketing, whether of commodities, professional services, technical-mechanical services or places of leisure. Such boundary crossing was significant, as both national movements attempted to ‘politicize’ (or ‘nationalize’) the sphere of consumption. Both, using relatively similar rhetoric, called on their followers to contain their purchases within their national group, explicitly calling for the banning of the national rival. As we have no systematic data relating to patterns of consumption, we propose to use advertisements as a proxy.12 The assumption made is that continuous advertising can serve as an indication that the advertised product or service was indeed consumed. We shall be referring to advertisements which appeared in the daily Arab newspaper Filastin, through which we shall gain insight into the relation between nationalism and consumption. Filastin appeared in Jaffa beginning 1911, owned by Isa el-Isa, a Christian resident of Jaffa (Kabha, 1996:6). The newspaper was one of the most widely read. It was affiliated with the Palestinian national movement, mainly with its more moderate sector, and represented the growing Arab urban middle class. In striking contrast to the Arab national appeal to ban Jewish products and merchants, Filastin carried numerous advertisements by Jewish establishments of all sorts, 12 The discussion of advertisements as an indication of consumption is based on an ongoing project carried out by Badi Hasisi and myself.

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importers, whole-sellers and retailers, professionals, mechanics and beauty saloons, travel agents, cafes, cinemas and dance halls. Some examples will demonstrate this uncommon combination : “Yofi”, declared an advertisement in English, Hebrew and Arabic, calling on the readers of the newspaper to purchase their clothes in the TelAviv shop called ‘Yofi’ in Allenbi St.(Filastin, 25.7.35). ’Ha-Arnak’, once again in the three languages, announced its elegant leather bags, to be bought in Tel Aviv, Allenbi St. and in Jerusalem (Filastin, 12.1.43). Jewish importers and whole-sellers of alcoholic beverages advertised their wares side by side with Christian Arab names (e.g., Filastin, 16.4.33, 17.2.35, 12.7.35). ‘Aviva’ advertised her sewing salon where the best quality dresses and suits could be purchased and ‘Ester’ announced her hair dye (Filastin, 13.1.40, 20.1.37 respectively). Liber and Elite factories advertised their chocolate and candy (Filastin, 1.1.33, 28.1.40 respectively). Corsets were to be bought in Herzel St. in Tel-Aviv and toys at Rosenfeld’s in Jerusalem (Filastin, 13.7.33 and 30.1.40 respectively). The contested nature of these advertisements, proxies of consumption, becomes evident by the call for ‘national consumption’ which appeared on the pages of the very same issues of Filastin. During the years of 1933 and 1935, with the growth and consolidation of the Palestinian national movement which preceded the outburst of the Arab Rebellion in 1936, slogans appeared almost daily advancing the cause of nationalism via consumption. The slogans called for the purchase of Arab goods, of goods of the motherland – “Shaja’u Watani”, “encourage the products of the motherland”, the readers could see daily in the Filastin (e.g., almost daily through 1933). Other advertisements highlighted the ‘national’ character of the commodity being advertised – Arab produced, Arab managed, and Arab marketed goods. For example, the Brothers Shalabi appealed in their advertisement of the biscuits they produced – “We are not only asking you to encourage the national products, we are also providing products of better quality than the European ones and for lower prices. Your demand will invigorate national industry” (Filastin, 14–20.10.33). Or the cigarette producer el-Mikatti who asked when advertising his produce – “Are you interested in the independence of your motherland and in saving its lands? If so you should encourage the great national project, the project of the national cigarettes –” (Filastin, almost daily, April 1933). In addition to the commodities advertised, even more contentious were the Jewish places of leisure which appealed to Arab clientele, this time in striking contrast to the Jewish national attempt to restrict social contact. Cafes advertised the entertainment they offered, such as Cafe Lorentz owned by an Arab and run by a European Jew, on Jaffa-Tel-Aviv Rd., Cafe Ha-Yarkon, close to the Herbert Samuel Promenade, and Cafe Orot in nearby Bat-Yam which advertised its “full lighting, music and dancing, and excellent service” (Filastin, 26.3.37, 12.11.40, 1.11.40 respectively). Cinemas advertised their weekly program, in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (e.g., Filastin 2.7.33 and 15.9.35 in Tel-Aviv and 30.12.40 and 3.11.43 in Haifa), and Reo dance school promised to teach in the most professional manner and to introduce those

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attending it to ‘nice people’ (Filastin 31.3.40).13 We know little of who attended the Reo dance school, and of who danced with whom. We suggest that the continued advertisement in an Arab newspaper indicates that some of the paper’s readers did respond to it. In this case, we can be quite sure that these would be men and that on coming to Reo’s (or other such schools) they would have the opportunity of meeting with Jewish girls and young women. While we have no testament of the young Jewish girls who came to dance, creating the main attraction of the place to both British and allied soldiers and, it would appear, to Arab men, we do have evidence of vehement complaints by Jewish individuals and authorities. Neighbors objected strenuously to the noise and music till late hours, in a residential area, and to the mix of young Jewish girls and foreigners.14 The unorganized consumers seem to have opted for the market of commodities and leisure which suited them best.15 National crossing in the sphere of consumption was evident, even if not necessarily abundant, serving as a challenge to the totality of the national project. Thus the advertisements, which appeared in the daily Arab press, point at the permeability of the social and economic barriers which both national movements were attempting to construct. The Twilight Zone – Sea Front, Cafes and Prostitution The sea front stretched north from Jaffa along the newly built buildings of Tel-Aviv. The Herbert Samuel Promenade ran along the water front, and the beaches attracted crowds of all ages, men women and children, school classes, gymnastic lovers etc. (Azarya 2001). The Tel-Aviv Casino stood close to the water and cafes opened all along the Promenade. It was a liminal area, the borderline of the town to the west, a meeting ground of local residents and foreigners from near and far. The British journalist who visited Tel-Aviv in 1936, wrote: Only a few years ago the desolate sands were substituted by houses and streets and only a narrow stretch of sand was left for the bathers. It was the Jews who transformed the place into a beautiful place for bathing. The Arabs never even dreamed of this but now they frequently come to Tel-Aviv to bathe in its sea. By the way, well known Arab leaders, whose public opinion on the Jewish question is highly negative, spend their time here 13 Additional dance schools also advertised in Filastin, such as Hans Gott (15.11.42) and Sylvia Stein Studio (14.1.40). 14 Inspection by religious authority due to complaints of ‘depravity’, 9.8.42, TAMA, 8-887. 15 We know very little about Jewish clientele of Arab merchants, even by proxy. Nevertheless, there was a wide spread campaign for the purchase of Jewish made goods, including agricultural products, opposing both Arab merchandise (egg, tomatoe, watermelon) and foreign products. Such a campaign, including large posters, clearly indicates that many people did opt for the cheaper ‘Arab tomato’. There are also indications of Arab peddlers in the streets of Tel-Aviv , once again arousing complaints filed mainly by their Jewish competitors, e.g., Meat peddlers 18 Iyar, 1928, TAMA, 8-743; and shoe-shiners, 7.9.32, TAMA, 8-750.

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Figure 10.2 Promenading along the beach in winter of 1936. Source: Tel Aviv Municipal Archive, P-00271

Figure 10.3 Postcard of sea front during bathing season. Approx. early 1930s. Source: Tel Aviv Municipal Archive, P-01323

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pleasantly, in the company of their Jewish friends. Hundreds of Arabs from among the poor come to the Tel-Aviv beach to view the bathers.16

The journalist did not specify which bathers were the object of the gaze of the neighboring poor, but complaints sent to the Tel-Aviv Rabbinate and to the Mayor complete the picture. In the beginning of the bathing season of 1932 a letter was sent to the Chief Rabbinate from a resident of Tel-Aviv At the beaches, men and women bath together. They get undressed in a wooden building, where compartments are separated by planks which are often cracked. […] In the corridors the men and women meet together half naked. Bathing is completely mixed. On the sand at the sea front it comes to total absurdity: woman lies alongside man, and men find themselves near women in immodest attire. […] The blasphemy is beyond description. And all this encourages our neighbors to come in flocks to gaze at the daughters of Israel in their shame.17

Cafes were part of the water front scene. More generally, Jewish and Arab cafes were part of the urban milieu of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa respectively, as they were a part of urban settings in general. They were meeting grounds, where people gathered at different hours of the day, for varying purposes. Single people, friends gathering together, business meetings, mothers out with their baby carriages sitting in the cafes on the promenade, couples out for entertainment, music, dancing and cabaret shows, women in search of men, men in search of women. Cafes in Tel-Aviv were one of its cultural markers, as groups of immigrants brought with them their cafe-culture. Tziona Rabau, in her memories of her childhood in Tel-Aviv in its early days, prior to the First World War, describes the first cafe in Tel-Aviv, a Hungarian café: There was a warm and intimate atmosphere in the cafe. Small tables stood in the different corners of the place, with chairs and small upholstered sofas. The cafe was managed European style. – Real coffee was served in cups and milk in a special pitcher, – and the cakes! (Rabau, 1973:41–2).

In later years, after the Polish and central European Jewish immigrations of the 1920s and 1930s, cafes appeared in their dozens (Helman, 2000:250–60). They were one of the attributes of Tel-Aviv which gave it its European urban character in the eyes of many of its residents and visitors.18 Cafes were indeed cultural isles, 16 Ledislaw Ferno (or Farago, the print is not clear – D.B.) 1936. Quoted in Yediot Iri’yat Tel-Aviv (News of Tel-Aviv Municipality), 8(8): 183. 17 Yaacov Apel to Chief Rabbinate, 22.5.32, TAMA, 4-3734. Two additional letters sent to mayor by Rabbinate, see, 25.5.32, TAMA 4-3734; 11.5.33, TAMA, 4-3734. 18 Write ups by Australian and British journalists during WWII, when Australian, British and other allied forces vacationed in Tel-Aviv, see “Broadcast Talk”, January 1941, TAMA, 4-154a; Wilfred Binns, “Night Our in Blackpool of the Near East, Tel-Aviv? City out of sand and Paradise for Soldiers on Leave” in Near East, 7 December, 1941. For view of Jewish foreign visitor, see the write up by the author Shalom Ash (1936/7) “Tel-Aviv”, in Yediot Iriyat Tel-Aviv, 7 (3–4): pp. 116–7 (Hebrew).

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but quite varied ones. There were the intimate family-like cafes and the glittering night spots with their musical and other entertainment. Cafe Smadar, for example advertised “Miriam and Raymond, the dance artists which all of Tel-Aviv comes to see – with their new and spectacular dance – Cocain” ( 9 Ba-erev, 29.12.38). Shlosha Cushim (Ibid., 2.6.38), advertised its orchestra, its “modern music and entertaining tune”, as well as “its fresh air and utmost elegance” (Ibid.) and Cafe Aliz, formerly Gdanski, advertised its gaiety and high spirits in the summer of 1942, during the dark months of the War, “It is hot outside and cool inside, dark outside and light inside, dull outside and full of gaiety inside. Every night a concert and dancing with Prof. Roman Shlitzer and the famous singer – Vilco” (Ibid., 16.7.42). Many of the cafes were well known establishments, markers of the growing city.19 Piltz, was one of the best known cafes; a write-up in one of the popular journals posed the question “What actually is Piltz?” on the occasion of its move from downtown Allenbi St., to Ha-Yarkon St., close to the waterfront. What exactly is Piltz? Piltz assumes different forms. In daytime, before night comes, it is a meeting place for men and women of leisure. The middle class of cafe houses, we could say. The band plays tranquil mixes of Sofes or operettas by Domicetti. But once the sun has set and stars wonder in the heavens, Piltz is transformed into a bar through and through. Lights and darkness merge in an atmosphere of notes and cocktails. And he who is still an optimist in 1938, as 1939 sets in, in spite of being Jewish and a democrat, may well enjoy it. Piltz attempts to chase the gloomy present to oblivion (9 Ba-Erev, 29.12.38).

Beside these clearly European establishments, there were other cafes, identified with ‘the East’, blurring the distinction between ‘Jews of the East’ and Arabs of Jaffa. Reference to cafes, associating them with the East, were usually in the form of complaints by infuriated neighbors who found the sounds, noises, smells and in general presence of the place offensive and disturbing.20 One such petition, sent to the Mayor of Tel-Aviv on 24th of October, 1938, signed by fourteen neighboring tenants and landlords, puts the case clearly and blatantly –

19 Some were well known as intimate, family like cafes. Sheleg Ha-Levanon (The Snow of Lebanon) was such a case. Two write-up emphasized the modesty of the place, its family like atmosphere, the consideration shown to people who lacked the money to pay for their coffee, etc. See 9 Ba-Erev, 8.4.37, 16.2.39. 20 It is important to note that complaints concerning noise and late hours were not restricted to cafes associated with ‘Eastern’ entertainment. Complaints were especially frequent during the summer months when cafes placed their tables and held their performances outside, and when neighbors most probably opened doors and windows to cool off from the heavy heat. Such letters of complaint asked repeatedly to lower the volume and shorten the hours, but did not disqualify the place all together. See for example, complaints against noise made by youth movements, e.g., 30.5.37, TAMA, 4-3642; bridge club which kept open till 2.00–3.00 am, 28.7.37, TAMA 4-3642, Sport club, 10.7.38, TAMA 4-3642 and many others

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His Honor H.I.Rokach Mayor of Tel-Aviv Tel-Aviv Re: A Complaint Sir, We the undersigned, property owners and tenants of Lilienblum St. speaking for ourselves and for the other residents of the aforementioned street, respectfully wish to draw his attention to a complaint and a request as follows: As a result of the events at the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa frontier, a (Jewish) man of Oriental extract has relocated his well known café, known as Hayim Talbi, to 17 Lilienblum St. – an old house, one of the first ever built in Tel-Aviv, with a large courtyard and tall trees suitable for this purpose. This has become the meeting place for idlers or, more precisely, the usual circle of clients of Jaffa coffee houses who were compelled to leave them. They spend their days playing backgammon, cards and other games, both legal and illicit. Shouts and quarrels all day and night rupture the air, and rupture the heads of the residents, robbing their sleep at night and disrupting the peace and daily works of office personnel. The official language is Arabic, with cries such as sada, abyad, moya and hilba21, and the endless clatter of domino stones and other instruments used in various games drive the residents insane. Additionally, the place attracts immoral traffic, and the quarrels between women and their husbands late at night, when they come to get their husbands out of there in the hope to save some money for livelihood before it is all lost in card games, are also very large and great […] Therefore our request from his honor is to investigate the matter at the earliest convenience, and to do away with this malignant illness in such a way that citizens and residents of the neighborhood will no longer suffer from people who congregate at this coffee house, who generally are not citizens of Tel-Aviv and usually come from neighborhoods outside.22

The offensiveness of the East, in the form of its cafes, music and sounds, is clearly expressed by another letter sent, some years later, to the Mayor of Tel-Aviv by inhabitants of Kalisher St, bordering on Manshiyya. The ‘noises’ which floated across, or rather, blared across, were rejected in the following terms – Opposite Kalisher St., on the opposite side of Rehov Ha-Carmel, is Cafe Farouk. It is in the territory of Jaffa but we ask his honour (the Mayor, D.B) to turn to the relevant authorities to prohibit this Cafe from making such noise with its gramophone 24 hours

21 Sada is Black bitter coffee, abyad is tea, moya is water and hilba is a kind of desert. 22 This refers, it would seem, primarily to Jewish peripheral neighborhoods which were part of Jaffa municipality and populated mainly by Jews from Muslim countries. 24.10.38, TAMA, 4-3642. Further complaints filed against this cafes, primarily referring to prostitution of Jewish women and Arab men, see 2.7.43, TAMA, 8-887.

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The proximity of the East was offensive and threatening, especially after the outbreak of the Arab Rebellion which led to the implanting of the culture of Arab cafes into Tel-Aviv, by those who closed down their establishments in Jaffa and reopened them, or similar ones, in Tel-Aviv. In 1939 we learn of the prohibition, passed by the Tel-Aviv municipality, of selling Arrack and of playing domino and card games in the cafes of Tel-Aviv. “It is now five years since the regulation prohibiting the sale of arrack for consumption on cafe premises in Tel-Aviv was introduced, whereas as we known, no such prohibition was imposed in any other town in Palestine”, wrote the owners of a number of cafes to the District Commissioner.24 The description they gave of their cafes and patrons was, for a change, highly sympathetic. No reference was made to noise or to alien habits, and no mention of women and the inevitable accompanying immorality: The different classes of the Tel-Aviv population and their habits are no doubt known to you, and would therefore be superfluous to tell here on the well known custom of the Oriental and South-European to spend their free time in a cafe, which is their club and place of recreation at one and the same time; there they converse over a cup of coffee, there they tell each other their sorrows and joys, there the contractor finds his worker and vice versa; the cafe animates life and creates an atmosphere of companionship between the people. Between conversation and conversation they indulge in the games of the Orient, – tablet, domino; cards are also played. The games are absolutely harmless and are not played for money. Only a trifling fee equally divided is paid by each of the partners for the use of the requisites. As is the custom with Oriental people, they play without excitement, the games absolutely non-hazardous ones.25

An interesting and indicative variation is the one that conflates Arab and British patrons of the cafes, exemplified in the following appeal of inhabitants of a quiet Tel-Aviv residential neighborhood. What suits one place, they argued, need not necessarily suit another. In their words: “A Cafe is about to be established according to the liking of the Arab and English customers. With alcoholic beverages, good looking waitresses and special corners […] In our view there are plenty of such places by the water front[…] and there is not justification to open another one in a residential area“26. Significantly, Arab and British clients – the former presumably epitomizing the East, the latter representing Europe and the West – were linked 23 From Inhabitants of Kalisher to the Secretary of Tel-Aviv municipality, 21.6.46, TAMA., 4-3644. 24 Nachmias Reuven to Commissioner of District of Lud, 29.10.39, TAMA, 4-2337 (archival document – in English). There is no way of knowing whether Arabs also attended these cafes, enjoying the Arak served there. 25 Ibid. 26 Israel Weinberg and M. Shapira to Secretary of Tel-Aviv Municipality, 15.4.40, TAMA, 4-2314.

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together as foreigners, alien to the local inhabitants of Tel-Aviv. It should be noted that Jewish public opinion at all levels objected strongly, at times vehemently, to all socializing of Jewish women with British and other soldiers and officers, and not only to socializing with Arab men, national rivals.27 Cafes along the borderline between Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, such as Jaffa-Tel-Aviv Rd. and Shabazi St., as portrayed by various onlookers, demonstrate the mixed nature of those establishments, and the gendered aspects of such a mix. Shabazi St., running from Neve Tzedek through to Manshiyya, had numerous cafes which were clearly meeting grounds for the residents of both Jewish and Arab nearby neighborhoods, providing a place for people who tended to move, it would seem casually, between the Jewish and the Arab space. The following descriptions appeared in reports by the police in response to complaints filed by some of the nearby Jewish residents Shabazzi 23. It is invariably empty except for the few inevitable loungers who always occupy seats in a little alleyway alongside the premises, and drink coffee and gazoz. There is no other attraction in this cafe, such as gambling etc. But there is a dubious woman, the sister of the proprietor, who acts as a waitress. It is rumoured that she occasionally dances in a “kan-kan” in Jaffa. As some of the patrons, if they may be termed as such, of this cafe, are Arabs, there is no doubt that there is more than a vestige of truth in this statement. Cafe Baghdadi. Ezra Shlomo, 17 Shabazi St. Without a doubt, this place is the main attraction of Shabazzi St. All hours of the day it is crowded with very shady characters, who sit and gamble, playing all manner of card games and dominoes. Here too, the “chalk and slate” system of scoring is favoured, although on a few occasions players have been apprehended in “flagrante delicto” passing money. Many women, undoubtedly prostitutes, gather in this cafe, and hang about, passing from table to table.28

The mix of Jews and Arabs was in itself worthy of noting by the writer of the report, and even more so by the filers of the complaints, as was the suspicion aroused by the presence of women in such mixed arenas – as waitresses, dancers, or – “undoubtedly” prostitutes. These issues did not subside as can be seen by an additional complaint filed some five years later: In the home of Mr. Resnick, Shabazzi St. 23, there is a cafe which holds alcoholic beverages as well as perfumed maidens. These two ingredients form an attractive force for youngsters of shabab from amongst our good neighbors, who assemble nightly and sit up late till midnight. It often comes to pass that they emerge out of this ale house intoxicated,

27 The socializing with the British won much greater attention than that of socializing with Arab men. It also took place in somewhat less peripheral settings. Nevertheless, the issue of the gendered contact of Jewish women and British soldiers and officers is tangential to the issues of this chapter. 28 . Supervising NCO to D.D.S.P. Tel-Aviv, 23.10.37, in response to complaint by neighbors. TAMA, 4-3642.

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Café Lorentz, located along Jaffa Tel-Aviv Rd., provides another example of a mix, and its gendered aspects. Owned by Hinawi, member of a well known landed family of Jaffa (Berger, 1998:13–44) and run by F. Nusbaum, it placed an advertisement in Filastin (26.3.37) announcing the opening of its new season, with novelties including daily live music. Lorentz was a well known cafe, frequented by well-off Jewish families of Tel-Aviv, British officials brought there by their TelAviv hosts, and also, it would seem, Arab patrons. During the War it was a meeting place for British officers, and one can assume – their British and Jewish female companions. Being a ‘respectable place’ no complaints were filed against it and we have no reports in response. Yet, it seems, that just behind Cafe Lorentz another meeting place for Jews and Arabs was located, run by the Jewish “Rivka, blond, Ashkenazi” and the Arab Rashad who brought together young Jewish girls and Arab men for the purpose of prostitution.30 Cafes were arenas of gendered contact, arenas of crossing. Along the water front and the beach, in the small streets just off the promenade, along the borderline streets and in Jaffa itself, some level of mix of Jews and Arabs clearly existed. It is impossible to assess the scope of such a mix, the extent to which Arab men frequented Jewish establishments and vice versa, but such crossing did take place, and was often referred to by onlookers. Arab men walked along the Tel-Aviv beaches primarily to view the bathing Jewish women, a habit which created an outcry among inhabitants of Tel-Aviv who were incensed by the women’s lack of modesty in dress and manner.31 Numerous cafes were frequented by Arab men, a phenomenon reported by neighbors usually implying some form of sexual contact between the Arab men and the present Jewish women. One example will suffice. A letter signed by “The neighbors” was sent, in June 1938, to the Mayor of Tel-Aviv regarding cafe Migdalor (“The Lighthouse”). The letter was written in poor Hebrew, most probably by recent immigrants to Tel-Aviv: There are 3 girls there, they are not good, and they are sick, and they know Arabs and bring them into the cafe. There are also English, and they give them ‘arrack (liquerish based liquor) and all sorts of drinks, for free. Of course people get drunk and create

29 Residents to Management of TA Municipality, 10.8.42, TAMA, 4-154a. 30 Report by Investigator of the Rabbinical authority in response to complaints by neighbors, 30.5.42, TAMA, 8-887. 31 Many complaints, primarily by religious Jews, were filed over the years. The emphasis of the complaints was on the outrageous bathing costumes and the mixed swimming of men and women. Some of these complaints also made reference to the ‘neighbors’ who came to glare at the Jewish women and to articles in the Arab press (no specific reference) which criticized the Jewish women for the lack of respectability and negative influence. See for example, Samuel Levy, to Diezengoff, 3.6.36. TAMA, 4-3734.

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scandals, and the neighbors can’t stand it. We therefore ask the municipality to see to it that in the city of Tel-Aviv, and especially in this cafe there won’t be any Arabs.32

From time to time a story appeared in the press regarding young Jewish women dating flashy Arab men, black eyed, moustached, driving a new car with plenty of their father’s money flowing from their pockets.33 But the crossing was not only in one direction. Jews also lived in Jaffa or moved into Jaffa. This was true both for Jewish men and Jewish women though on the whole, the eye of the observer did not treat them in the same manner. We learn of Jewish men who liked to frequent the Arab cafes of Jaffa, passing the Nargila from one to the other.34 The newspaper’s write up was critical of such doings, as were welfare officers who noted that fathers and brothers of youngsters under probation were known, in some cases, to spend their time in the cafes of Jaffa.35 We know very little of Jaffa’s attraction for Jewish men, nor do we know whether cultural similarity was a factor and whether the men concerned were predominantly Jews who originated from Arab countries. One indication of the appeal of Jaffa is present in the autobiographical novel published in 1972 by Hayim Guri, a poet and journalist who was born in Tel-Aviv in 1923 and who grew up there following the life style of the ‘new national youth’ . The novel brings the sights, locations and characters which shaped his early years in TelAviv, and Jaffa featured strongly. It depicts Jaffa as an alluring and mysterious place, feminine and sexual, with tastes, sounds and sights of the Orient and of ancient days. In his words: A labyrinth. Endless nameless alleys, originating in light, leading on to chilled darkness and disappearing faces. The sun makes its way west above gramophonic restaurants choked with Um-Kulthumian imploring, echoes by a comforting, Egyptian, Abdul Wahabi response.36 Florentine beams. Balconies with iron flowers and Geranium plant pots. I

32 Neighbors to Mayor, 14.6.38, TAMA, 4-3642. The letter was sent during the Arab Rebellion. 33 Write ups about relations between Jewish women and Arab men appeared mainly in the sensational Iton Meyuhad (“Special Newspaper”), e.g., No. 5, 17.11.33; No. 74, 21 Iyar, 1935; No. 384, 29 Av, 1944; No. 387, 20 Elul, 1944; No. 397, 1945; No. 434, 1 Elul, 1945, No. 455, 9 Shvat, 1946. The paper at times used the Gregorian calendar and at time, the Jewish one. 34 Iton Meyuhad, 7.2.34. 35 Reference was also made to such a habit in welfare documents, critically noting that fathers of youngsters under probation tended to frequent Arab cafes in Jaffa, see “Report of Municipal Hostel for Working youngsters (Delinquent)”, October–December, 1934, e.g., Israel Avraham, “Step father, drunk, spends his time in Arab cafes returning home late at night”, Mizrahi Sasoon, “His father is a builder but is not continuously employed, likes to spend his time in Arab cafes and the son is following in the steps of his father”. TAMA, 4-2116c. 36 Um-Kultum and Abdul Wahab, famous Egyptian vocalists of the middle of the 20th century.

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Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities see women through arched windows. Dark women, their mouths reddened like furnaces, silent like dream-concubines. And on, with Muslim, Isphahani blue.(Guri, 1972:98).

Jewish women and young girls also crossed over to Jaffa. Some worked in Arab cafes as waitresses, singers and dancers.37 As far as the social workers who reported on such cases were concerned, such behavior was tantamount to prostitution, or clearly would lead to it. The girls, when questioned about their presence in Arab cafes, explained that they were singers, dancers, “artists” according to them, and worked where they were appreciated and well paid.38 Women crossed over to Jaffa when establishing intimate relations, a subject about which there was a general silence, broken by odd comments, bits of information, sensational melodramatic write-ups and references in later written mémoires. Some women converted to Islam and to Orthodox Christianity, implying marriage with Arab men.39 Comments in passing refer to women who “went off with Arab men”. Such derogatory comments appeared from time to time in documents of social workers40, in those of religious authorities41 and in memoires. Two examples of the latter are those of Moshe Levi Nahum, the Mukhtar of the Yemenite Quarter (Kerem Ha-Teymanim), which bordered on Manshiyya (Tivoni 1978: 168–70) and Hayim Guri’s ‘pictorial’ survey of characters in Tel-Aviv: “Tzipke went out with the English. I heard the owner of a kiosk sigh and say: ‘If I could only have the money this one grabbed’. They said that barring a streetcar she has been under everything and everyone. Eventually she escaped with an Arab to Beirut, where she converted and her tracks were lost (Guri 1972:111). The sensational Iton Meyuhad carried melodramatic stories of young Jewish women, often in need though not always, who married Arab men, soon to learn that they had made a grave mistake. The relations, inevitably, ended in violence and/or 37 31.3.38, E. Perlson, Head of Department of Health and Welfare, TAMA, 4-2154a. The report tells of teenage Jewish girls who worked as hostesses, singers and dancers in Arab cafes in downtown Haifa and in Jaffa. 38 Ibid. Some of the girls with whom Perlson spoke did refer to themselves, according to him, as prostitutes. 39 Iton Meyuhad, No. 253, 1942, gives details of 10 women who converted over the year 1942–1943. Jewish women who married British and allied soldiers and officers appear, on the whole, not to have converted. 40 E.g., A report on the condition of ‘neglected girls’ in Haifa and Tiberias, stated that in the latter place ‘serious relations with Arabs and mixed marriages had become a frequent phenomenon’, Report by Dr. M. Perl, 1942, TAMA, 4-0021. In a report concerning girls in the care of the Tel-Aviv municipality reference is made to the mother of one of the girls who left home and married an Arab man, TAMA, 19.3.42, 4-0021. 41 e.g., Chief Rabbinate to Tel-Aviv Municipality concerning need to care for the young girls of a woman who married a Muslim and converted , formally or informally, to Islam, 4 Iyar, 1937, TAMA, 4-1770; When reporting on A.T. who procured women as prostitutes, mention was made of the fact that his wife had left him and converted to Islam, TAMA, 22 Sivan, 1942, 8-887b; Complaint sent to religious authority concerning a Jewish woman who was married to an Arab with whom she had a ten year old son, 13 Av, 1943, TAMA, 8-887a.

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desertion.42 Mémoires tell us of other relationships, not necessarily so destructive. Aharon Shlush, for example, of a veteran Sephardi family, wrote of Effendi Siksik, a large land owner, who married a Jewish woman and lived intermittently in Jaffa and in Tel-Aviv (Shlush 1991:137–8); Gila Uriel wrote of a heart breaking romance between Sabina (of Tel-Aviv) and Raul (of Jaffa), both from well off and respectable families of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, respectively. The vehement opposition of Raul’s family endangered both, and eventually led to the woman’s leaving the country (Uriel, 1989:113). From time to time additional information appears, such as Jewish women who had followed their husbands as refugees in 1948 and renewed their relations with their Jewish families after 1956 or after 1967.43 The incremental nature of this information, and the haphazard way it has come to my attention, indicates that in all likelihood, other cases existed. All crossing of girls and women to Jaffa, to ‘Arab territory’, was seen by the Jewish beholders as verging on ‘depravity’. Prostitution in its narrow and limited sense of sexual relations in return for monetary payment, was an arena of multiple forms of ‘nation crossing’. Clients crossed over to prostitutes of other nationalities. Arab men, as well as British and other allied soldiers, frequented Jewish prostitutes in cafes, along the sea front, in rented rooms, hotels and brothels.44 Jewish men, of whom we hear much less, visited Arab prostitutes in Jaffa.45 There were Arab women prostitutes who worked along the waterfront of Tel-Aviv, according to a report initiated by the Rabbinical authority, due to the higher rates to be earned in Tel-Aviv as compared to near-by Jaffa.46 Jewish women working as prostitutes were, at times, located in Jaffa or other Arab settings; some lived in Jaffa and probably served clients of all nationalities, some joined an Arab brothel47 or a brothel opened

42 In some of the stories the relations were not formalized in marriage, e.g., see Iton Meyuhad, No. 26, Av, 1937; No. 397, 1945. 43 Some such write ups appeared at the time in the Hebrew daily press, though regrettably I have not yet been able to locate them. 44 The presence of Arab clients was a recurring theme in the complaints of neighbors. See numerous complaints in the files of the Rabbinical authority in Tel-Aviv, TAMA 8-887a,b; 8-1111. This of course does not mean that Arab men did not frequent Arab prostitutes in Jaffa, as well., as did allied soldiers. 45 Interview with an approximately seventy years old man who talked of his teen age years as a working lad in Tel-Aviv and his visits, together with his mates, to prostitutes in Jaffa., (June 2003). A complaint by Arab families living along the Jaffa-Tel-Aviv Rd., in July 1947, referred to brothels which, according to police response, served both Jewish and Arab well off men. No mention was made of the identity of the women working there. Complaint by neighbors (28.7.47) and Police response (19.9.47), The Palestine Police, Israel State Archive (ISA). As in the previous note, this does not mean that Jewish men did not frequent Jewish prostitutes within Tel-Aviv. 46 Report submitted to the Rabbinical Authority, 18.4.45, TAMA, 8-887. 47 Report, Ibid.; A court case which reached the Supreme Court of Appeal concerning the management of a brothel in Jaffa, referred to four women who worked there, one of whom was in all likelihood Jewish, going by her name – Mania. Civil Appeal, 65/41, ISA.

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by the military in Jaffa,48 and some moved, or were moved, from Tel-Aviv to Jaffa, and from there on to Haifa, and at times, to Beirut.49 Procurement was often carried out by joint Jewish and Arab cooperation; at times by Jewish and Arab men, at others by Jewish women and Arab men.50 The various forms of mixing, whether purchasing of merchandise or of sexual services, whether meeting in the semi-illegal gambling clubs,51 or loitering along the waterfront52 and near-by cafes, entailed lowering of boundaries. Such mixing can be seen as boundary crossing, a conscious choice to move over, to move into the territory of the alien collective. It can also be seen as an act of ignoring boundaries, or possibly of unawareness of their existence and a perception of space as a mixed, yet continuous, territory; not parcelated into nationally defined, exclusive, bounded sections. In either case, such spatial and social movements were threatening to the hegemonic project of nation formation, in the midst of national rivalry and enmity. Such mixing was also, at times, a gendered situation. The crossing over by Jewish women was highly contested by both sides, in both national camps. From the Zionist perspective, female crossing was a betrayal, seen as a breach of a long Jewish tradition of female purity. It was women and their proper conduct who were seen to serve as guardians of the collective both from within, as guardians of the family, and from without, guardians of collective boundaries. From the Palestinian perspective, Jewish women were portrayed as flippant and seductive, traits which were given national significance. A short write-up in Filastin, for example, tells of a Jewish procurer and the woman who worked for him, who came over to Jaffa to seduce Arab men, managing to ‘trap’ two hundred Arab men in one month (Filastin, 10.5.35). Such seductive behavior was portrayed as the epitome of the national and social danger imposed by Zionism. Jewish women’s incitement of Arab men so as to rob them of their money, their honor and the familial commitment, was seen as both analogous and complementary to the Zionist robbing of Arab land. Sheila Katz notes a drama in the 1920s involving a Jewish seductive woman who got two Arab men to register their land in her name, after which she threw them both out – landless. The analogy needs little elaboration (Katz, 1993:333–34).

48 See, Gelner to Rokach, 27.11.40, TAMA 4-2154b. 49 Organized networks of procuring seem more prevalent in relation to young, teen aged girls, than somewhat older women. See, Gelner to Tversky of Haifa Community Council, 1.2.38, TAMA 4-2154a; Gelner to Rokach, 14.11.38, TAMA 4-2154a. 50 e.g., Gelner to Rokach, Ibid.; Report to Rabbinical Authority, 30.5.42, TAMA 8-887. 51 Ha-Aretz reported the police breaking into a gambling club in Lilienblum St. 6, TelAviv. Thirty two players were present, twenty Jewish of Oriental origin, five Ashkenazim and five Arabs. The language spoken by all was Arabic. n.d. 52 See, for example, write up in Filastin of a Jewish girl who sat with two Arab youngsters along the waterfront near the casino of Tel-Aviv. A Jewish youngster tried to forcefully pull the girls away and a fight between them resulted, Filastin, 6.9.35.

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Neighborly Relations Daily neighborly relations are possibly even more difficult to record and interpret than those of the twilight zone. The daily routine, especially in its mundane aspects, remains, in most cases, unnoted and undocumented. Archival material deals with routine institutional care on the one hand, and with special needs, special events, ruptures and complaints, on the other hand. It contains documents sent by residents calling for institutional action and, at times, it contains the institutional response. Neighborly relations, when positive and sustaining, leave much fewer archival traces. Mémoires, written usually years later, referred from time to time to close, neighborly relations between Jews and Arabs, especially in the neighborhoods linking Jaffa and Tel-Aviv. It is from such comments, for example, that we learn that the neighborhood of Manshiyya stretching north of Jaffa, and the Yemenite Quarter (Kerem ha-Teymanim) directly to its north, both had a mixed Jewish and Arab population, though the former is usually identified as a purely Arab neighborhood, and the latter – as Jewish. Ora Terri, for example, who arrived in Tel-Aviv with her family from Yemen in 1933, mentions, in passing, the two rooms they rented in a fine house owned by an Arab on the sea front “in a mixed Jewish and Arab neighborhood called ‘Manshiyya’ - - - Our relations with the Arab-Christian family which lived in the third room (in the apartment- D.B.) were good” (Terri, n.d.: 22). Shlomo Tivoni in his biographical writings of the Yemenite Quarter and its Mukhtar,53 refers as well to the mixed Jewish and Arab population – “Jews and Arabs lived in the same house in unity, they would meet each other and would share both joys and sorrows” (Tivoni, 1978:165). He went on to describe problems which arose over time, due to the proximity, focusing on young Jewish girls, orphans, who fell for Arab men and converted to Islam.54 Others refer to the close and often widespread relations of their fathers and/or grandfathers and grandmothers with Arab neighbors, villagers, tradesmen and politicians (e.g. Rabau, 1973:93–4; Shlush, 1991:98, 137). At the same time, there is also evidence of fear, alienation, even abhorrence of Arabs, expressed by Jewish residents of the semi mixed neighborhoods. Numerous letters were sent by them to the Tel-Aviv municipality, repeatedly expressing their sense of marginality and discrimination in relation to the rest of Tel-Aviv, and their apprehension and hostility regarding Arab presence. These feelings were often framed in gendered terms, emphasizing the danger posed by Arab presence to respectable Jewish women, or the detrimental impact of Jewish women already led astray by their contacts with Arab men, on the rest of the community. We, the residents of this place of havoc known as “Kalisher St.”, which borders on Manshiyya (Jaffa), both landlords and tenants, appeal to the municipality to protect us from the proximity of Arab cafes, filled all the time, day, evening and night with all sorts 53 Mukhtar, a formal position taken over from the Ottoman period , the head of a village responsible directly to the District Commissioner. 54 More generally of his contact with Arabs living in the Kerem and in Jaffa, as well as with Arab officials and dignitaries, see pp. 166–71.

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of dangerous elements: agitators, thieves, brothels, prostitutes and procurers, with their wild shouts and singing, with their radio gramophones and loud speakers at night which embitter our life and our rest. And all together how does such proximity influence our children from an educational point of view!55

This letter was sent in October 1937, clearly under the impact of the clashes of the Arab Rebellion. But other similar letters are available from earlier years. To quote one letter sent in 1933 (Shkhunat Afek). In our neighborhood there are two undesired tenants, both in respect to the security of the place and morally. One tenant (female tenant) is of the leaders of the communists who lives with a well known Arab, a communist who agitated against the Jews […]. He was arrested by the government for half a year. These tenants live near us and cause great suffering from the sanitary point of view, as they pour their dirty water on purpose, to anger the public, in the middle of the street, near the kindergartens, which brings about all sorts of diseases. The second tenant maintains a brothel and invites Arabs to her, and there are often ‘scandals’ in her home. This has a very negative effect on our children and it is also dangerous to the security of the public and causes great discomfort.56

Such letters, and others like them reveal a mix of a sense of marginality in relation to Tel-Aviv on the one hand, and enmity and fear towards the Arab ‘neighbor’, on the other. The latter was expressed in a rhetoric of cultural superiority, equating Arab, noise, dirt, immorality and danger – physical, medical and moral. What sense should be made of such letters? What makes neighbors vie against each other? When does the commonality of sorrows and joys end and a sense of fear and rejection, pervade? Should such letters be seen primarily as an internalization of Zionist ideology and discourse, aimed at constructing boundaries at potential points of contact, thus implying a passive incorporation of a nationalist ideology divorced from peoples’ experience and interest? Or are they better seen as responses to actual outbreaks of violent clashes by those individuals who happened to be caught in their midst? Regardless of the broader historical forces which created the grounds for such outbreaks, their impact on the Jews living in the area, was to raise both their fears and their biases, thus reinforcing calls for separation where daily contact had existed. Concluding Comments This chapter presented cases of contact between Jews and Arabs in urban centers, primarily Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, of Mandate Palestine. I have focused on the unorganized, everyday spheres of life – consumption, residence and leisure, though contact, no less contested, existed in spheres of labor and politics, as well. 55 Residents of Kalisher St. to Tel-Aviv municipality, 6.10.37, TAMA 4-3642. 56 Tenant and house owners of Afek neighborhood to municipality, 13.2.33 TAMA 4-3642.

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I have argued that, due to proximity, which in many cases occurred in marginal situations, there existed a potential for common interests and common action. Such contacts, such actions, were in dynamic tension with diffuse, divisive nationalisms, intent on establishing their coherent entities and consolidating their boundaries. The divisive forces impinged on everyday life in numerous, mutually reinforcing, ways. Possibly most significant were the recurring outbursts of violent clashes between Arabs on Jews, in mixed and bordering areas. Such clashes were usually initiated by Arab men, in opposition to the ever evident growth of the Zionist national project. The recurring of the clashes every few years during the 1920s and 1930s left no room for an extended period, even a decade, of uninterrupted, casual, daily relations. Concomitantly, organizational and institutional divisions were established, aimed primarily by the Jewish leadership to consolidate the evolving national boundaries. Even though everyday life was less effected by institutional control than the more public spheres, and especially that of labor, municipal boundaries developed and effected the orientation of the people involved. The dividing line between Jaffa and Tel-Aviv shifted over the years, expanding the municipal territory of Tel-Aviv, but at the same time creating ambiguities along the border line. Jewish neighborhoods belonging to Jaffa municipality, received many of their social services from the TelAviv municipality, especially after the Arab Rebellion of 1936–39, even though at the very same time they felt marginal to and neglected by Tel-Aviv. The rhetoric used by the leaderships of both national collectives also invaded every day practices. Most relevant for this discussion was the call, on both sides, to buy commodities produced by the members of one’s own collective – ‘Knu Totzeret ha-Aretz’, ‘Shaja’u Watani……’, conveyed the same, separating and internally consolidating, message both in Hebrew and in Arabic. Both talked of ‘the land’, ‘the homeland’ – using their slogans to appropriate it and identify it exclusively with their collective. In addition to the contextual forces just discussed, direct social control was exerted in numerous circumstances. Much of the documentation used in this chapter stemmed from acts of social control, such as complaints and investigations. Social control was most apparent in cases of gendered ‘deviance’, when neighbors, parents, religious authorities and the law were mobilized to intervene and return girls and women to their ‘proper place’ – within the home, within the family, within the collective. Thus, given both proximity, contact and restraining factors, the question which remains is to what extent everyday movement within mixed territories, challenged the hegemonic national project. Or in other words, to what extent did the crossing of national boundaries and the small, day to day breaking of nationally determined prohibitions, convey a rejection of the nationally oriented dictate of both parties involved. The short scope of time between the large Jewish immigrations of the 1920s and 1930s and the breakdown of almost all forms of proximity in 1947–8, makes it impossible to answer the question with any certainty. I would argue that all forms of contact, including those discussed in this chapter, were challenging and threatening, as can be seen by the applications of varied forms of social intervention and control. The fluidity of boundaries in formation, integral to the novelty of the

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national entities among both Jews and Arabs, made them vulnerable, and thus, I would suggest, made boundary crossing both possible and threatening. I would further argue that by the 1930s and 1940s, and most probably quite a bit earlier, the separatist force of nationalism was paramount, leaving little room for alternative consolidations. Boundaries of all sorts were, admittedly, not clear cut, yet they were far from being open or essentially negotiable. It might well be the power of nationalism, even if in formation, rather than its weakness or reversibility, which focused attention on crossing and mixing. Boundaries were permeable, fluid, and in certain circumstances flexible. But they were also constrained by the force of macro events and by the pervasiveness of social control. Boundaries were present, but so was the crossing of boundaries. Decades have passed, and yet it would seem that the dynamic process of consolidation and challenge of boundaries has not subsided, has not come to rest. Whether this is grounds for optimism or pessimism, I dare not decide. Cited References Azarya, Maoz (2001) Nature Granted us the Sea – An Outline for the Cultural History of the Coast of Tel-Aviv, 1918–1948, Ofakim be-Geographia, Vol. 53: 95–112. (Hebrew). Baron, Beth (1993) The Construction of National Honor in Egypt, Gender and History, Vol .5 No. 2: 244–55. Berger, Tamar (1998) Dionysus at Dizengof Centre. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad (Hebrew). Bernstein, Deborah (1999) What Can Be Seen From There, Cannot Be Seen From Here, Perspectives and Insights on Israeli Historiography, Sociologiya Yisraelit, Vol 2, No. 1:23–50 (Hebrew). Bernstein, Deborah (2000) Constructing Boundaries, Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine. Albany: Suny Press. Beshara, Doumani (1995) Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 2: 5–28. Druyanov, A. (1939) The Book of Tel-Aviv. Tel-Aviv: The Committee for the Book of Tel-Aviv and Tel-Aviv Municipality. Dunevitz, Natan (1959) Tel-Aviv: Sands which Became a City. Jerusalem and TelAviv: Schoken press (Hebrew). Frankel, Jonathan (1986) The “yizkor” Book of 1911 – A Note on National Myth in the Second Aliya. In: H. Ben Israel et.al (eds.) Religion, Ideology and Nationalism in Europe and America , Essays in Honor of Yehoshua Arieli. Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel and the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History. Guri, Hayim (1972) The Crazy Book. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. (Hebrew). Helman, Anat (2000) The Consolidation of a Civil Society and Urban Culture in Tel Aviv during the 1920s and the 1930s . Dissertation Submitted for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Hebrew).

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Kabha, Mustafa (1996) The Role of the Press and Journalistic Discourse in the Arab Palestinian National Struggle, 1929–1939, Dissertation Submitted for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy, University of Tel-Aviv, Israel (Hebrew). Katz, Sheila (1993) Women and gender: Palestinian Nationalism before 1950. Founding and Confounding the Boundaries. Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1993. Najmabadi, Afsaneh (1997) The Erotic Vatan [homeland] as beloved mother: to love, to possess, and to protect, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 39, No.3: 442–467. Ne’eman, Gulie Arad (1995) Israeli Historiography Revisited, Special Issue of History and Memory, Vol. 7, Number 1. Rabau, Tziona (1973) Tel-Aviv on the Sands. Ramat Gan: Masada publication (Hebrew). Ram, Uri (1996) Memory and Identity: The Sociology of the Historians’ Controversy in Israel, Te’oria ve-Bikoret, No. 8 (Summer):9–32 (Hebrew). Shafir, Gershon (1996) Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882 – 1914. (Updated edition) University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. Shavit, Yaacov and Biger, Gideon (2001) The History of Tel-Aviv. Tel-Aviv: Ramot Publications (Hebrew). Shlush, Aharon (1991) From the Galabiya to the Tembel Hat. Tel-Aviv: (publisher not mentioned) (Hebrew). Terri,Ora (n.d.) With a Yemenite Step, Memories and Stories. Tel-Aviv: E’ele baTamar (Hebrew). Tivoni, Shlomo (1978) My Friend’s Vineyard. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad (Hebrew). Uriel, Gila (1998) Strange/Foreign Love. In Uriel Gila, The Happenings in Tel-Aviv. Tel-Aviv: Aleph (Hebrew). Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997) Nation and Gender. London, Sage publications.

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Chapter 11

Mixed Cities as a Place of Choice: The Palestinian Women’s Perspective Hanna Herzog

Approximately ten percent of the Palestinian citizens of Israel reside in places that Israeli parlance usually refers to as ‘mixed towns’, a category that currently includes Haifa, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Beer Sheba, Lod and Ramle. As Rabinowitz and Monterescu (this volume) illustrate, each of these towns has its own history in terms of the “mixing process”, producing a variety of urban lifestyles, ambience and future prospects.1 Scholars have alluded to the problematic use of the term “mixed” as a faithful characterization of life in these towns in Israel. While Palestinian residents often share the same urban space and municipal administration with Jewish residents, in practice these towns display considerable degrees of segregation along ethnonational lines. Labor markets in many of the mixed towns are split, educational systems are separate, most leisure and amusement venues cater for either one community or the other and so on. Some scholars have thus suggest the term “living together separately” (Roman and Weingrod 1991) as a more appropriate depiction. Others allude to the inherent inequality in mixed towns in Israel, suggesting that the very term ‘mixed town’ is a liberal gloss over a situation which in reality is more akin to suppression of one group by the other (Yacobi, this volume). This said, however, it is obvious that mixing processes create opportunities for Palestinian citizens residing in them which surpass those available to residents of purely Palestinian rural communities. Life in mixed towns in Israel is not as segregated as life in Palestinian villages and towns, all of which are peripheral to Israel’s geography, economy and mainstream cultural and social life. Mixed towns thus offer more openings, particularly for young middle class people seeking better education, economic and professional options, cultural life and social networks. This paper focuses on the experience of educated Palestinian women in mixed towns in Israel. It argues that mixed towns, particularly more metropolitan ones like Haifa and Jaffa, while obviously featuring some major disadvantages for Palestinian residents, nevertheless offer a space of choice for many Palestinian women. Separated from the advantages and undesirable pressures of community and 1 For recent accounts of various cases in Israel see Falah, 1996; Rabinowitz, 1997; Romann and Weingrod, 1991; Torstrick, 2000; Weingrod and Manna, 1998; Yiftachel, 2003.

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kinship which characterize rural communities, young women living in mixed towns find themselves under less social control and enjoy broader individual and social freedoms. The result is an urban space where dialectic processes of hope and despair, inclusion and exclusion, identification and alienation allows women to expand and sometimes redefine their multiple social identities. Palestinian Women and Cities The majority of the studies dealing with mixed cities in Israel focus on interethnic relations and the impact of national identity on power relations and public equality, even in places where interaction does take place between Jews and Palestinians. The present paper joins the small body of studies on this topic conducted from a gender perspective (Sa’ar 2001; Shokeid 1980, Monterescu, 2003). A leading assumption of the gender analysis approach is that the private/domestic sphere is an integral part of the social/communal structure. It is the task of such analysis to reveal the complex and multi-faceted realities in which the private and public spheres converge, their boundaries blurring into each other. Studies of women in the urban context suggest that compared with rural life and suburban domesticity, urban life, while often fraught with other challenges, has enhanced the emancipation of women in Western societies (Wilson 1992). This holds true for women immigrants, and women in the Third World, including Muslim countries, where urban life plays an important role in reformulating gender relations in both public and domestic spaces (Moghadam 1993, Westfried, 2002, Afshar, 1996). An understanding of the role of the city in the life of Palestinian women must take into consideration the social history of Palestinian towns, which was truncated in 1948. The war and its consequences ripped particular towns and, more importantly, the notion of the city from the social fabric of Palestinian society. The majority of urban residents were expelled and/or left the country, and the population became mostly rural (Farsoun and Zacharia 1997; Kimmerling and Migdal 1993). The only Arab towns that remained intact within the Green Line were Nazareth and Shaf’amar. However, as opposed to other cases in the world where the city urbanized the rural migrants, in the case of Nazareth, the town was drawn into the rural hinterland and was absorbed by it. In the words of Hasan (2003), Palestinian society was “stripped” of a city. Most contemporary Palestinian towns in Israel, while defined as urban by state decrees, are not cities in their sociocultural structure. In practice they are large villages that retain, to a great extent, the traditional, patriarchal community structure and culture. The mixed towns therefore serve as the main – if not the only – urban space that is currently open to Palestinians. As this study demonstrates, the decision of women to live in them, and in particular in the larger metropolitan ones becomes a leading means of redefining their social status, gender relations and national identity.

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Methodology The article is based on 25 in-depth interviews (out of a total of 108) conducted as part of a study of Palestinian women with Israeli citizenship (Herzog 2004). The purpose of the study was to explore the world of educated women and peace activists. Among the interviewees were residents of Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Lod. The data that form the basis of this paper emerged from the women’s narratives and their personal decisions as to what to emphasize in their individual life stories. The narratives are not uniform in structure, since they were not offered in response to questions framed with the intent of understanding their experience in mixed cities. What we see is the subjective world of these women, in the context of an ethnocentric, race- and gender-based social order in which the place of residence – in this case, the city – plays an important role. The premise of the study, which is based on the cumulative body of research on Palestinians in Israel in general, and those in mixed towns in particular, is that living conditions in mixed towns are inherently unequal. The claim of coexistence, far from being a reality, is in fact a myth, perhaps a case of wishful thinking. For the women interviewed, in fact, urban existence, not necessarily coexistence, is the key element. Palestinians in the Jewish state lead a circumscribed existence, with their living space clearly demarcated. All the interviewees related in one way or another to this demarcated space, which is the underlying assumption of the paper. Starting from this premise, my major claim is that amid an ongoing sense of strangulation, and the reality of living in a circumscribed space, choosing one’s place of residence is seen by many women as empowering, as an expression of control over their fate. The analysis below presents the range of interpretations that emerged from the interviews. I have attempted to remain as faithful as possible to the language of the women, who offer us an insight into their interpretive world. The Place Where I Grew Up is the Place I Have Chosen According to traditional Palestinian norms, unmarried women do not really have a choice whether or not to stay in their communities of origin. They are expected to remain in the home of their parents until marriage. Some of the interviewees however felt a need to justify remaining in their native communities, thus indicating that they see themselves as having other options, even if these are not normatively encouraged. Women explained their decision to remain in a variety of ways, and in some cases one interviewee would offer different reasons. But the central factor was the presence of a conscious choice. An unmarried, educated interviewee working in the computer field chose to remain in the home of her parents in Jaffa. She comes from a family of six children, four of whom were sent concurrently to private schools to ensure that they received a good education. But when the family encountered financial difficulties, it was decided to send her, the eldest, to a Jewish high school. She studied under an assumed (Jewish)

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name. The experience was one of crossing national lines. Her social ties were with young people from her class and not from her neighborhood in Jaffa. These were not easy years. She experienced discrimination on the part of her Jewish teachers, but her academic achievements made it possible for her to pursue higher studies. These were formative years for her, placing her in the midst of Jewish society in her own eyes and those of her neighbors: “The people in my neighborhood barely recognize me. Only ‘hello,’ ‘hello,’ despite the fact that the norm for us is close ties in the neighborhood. They hardly know me or my family. They know about my activities [as a professional and a political activist – H.H] and don’t think much of them. They say: ‘It’s a nice, intelligent family, but they’re like Jews.’” The interviewee emphasized that she and her sisters dress like all the girls in Jaffa, but only they are scrutinized. Only in their case do people say: “They don’t have any father or mother who looks out for them and tells them when to come home and what is allowed and what is forbidden.” The brother is the one who demands of the mother that his sister be supervised (see (Sa’ar 2001, Hasan, 2002, Joseph, 1999; Shokeid 1980). The interviewee is employed at a Jewish workplace and has many Jewish girlfriends. She has no friends in Jaffa: “It’s not the same style. They’re not interested in social issues. I can’t say what’s on my mind. I hate idle gossip, and they’re not interested in politics.” Despite her estrangement from local society, she remains in the family home in Jaffa since, according to her, if she wished to live elsewhere, she would have to fight with her brother and perhaps her father as well. “This would be looked upon badly in our society,” and would reduce her chances of finding a husband. She has already paid a price for spending time with Jews since “this limits the possibility of meeting an Arab boy.” The decision to remain in Jaffa, despite the estrangement and isolation she is experiencing, stems from personal considerations. Her choice reflects the limitations on women’s power (Sa’ar, 2001). It is a choice among very few options, but it is made consciously. It should be emphasized that this interviewee takes part in numerous political forums of the Left as well as local political bodies in Jaffa – social settings that allow her to maintain ties with Jews but at the same time to identify herself as an Arab/Palestinian. An unmarried interviewee recounted that she was born in Lod, where her family settled after being forced to leave Jaffa in 1948. She continues to live there, in her family’s tiny Amidar (government housing company) rental apartment in the neighborhood next to the train tracks: “To this day, I live [there]. Note that I don’t leave. [As a child,] it was so painful. It hurts, what they say about the neighborhood. They would ask me if I lived in the ghetto. And then I would come [home] and ask: ‘What do they mean by ghetto? What’s a ghetto?’” As an adult, she answers this question with a painful description of estrangement and segregation, neglect, lack of public transportation in the neighborhood, lack of investment in education and in public spaces. Poverty, violence, and apathy are rampant in the neighborhood. And all this “in the mixed cities, which I think are the most advanced. I’m not in one of the villages. I’m in a mixed town. I see all the hardship, all the time.” Note that the speaker is simultaneously setting up two

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dichotomies: between the Palestinian neighborhood and the Jewish one, and between the Palestinians urbanites and villagers. Due to the poor educational conditions in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Lod, her parents decided to send her to a missionary school in Jaffa. She earned her degree at Bar-Ilan University, pursued additional studies at Beit Berl (a community college), and returned to Lod to work. This interviewee was involved in organizing educational activities for residents of Lod, and has recently begun working in Ramle. Caught between the conflicting demands of her employers (most of whom are Jewish) and her clients living in Lod, she decided to transfer to Ramle. Moreover, she felt that in Lod the boundaries between the public and private spheres had become totally blurred. The interview with her was one long indictment of the Jewish state and its government, but also of her own society, which is not doing enough for itself, in her view. From this standpoint of disapproval, which places her simultaneously within and outside of both societies, she repeatedly justified her decision to continue to live in Lod and devote herself to its development: “It’s obvious that we [women] can get out and live in Haifa and work in Haifa, or anywhere else, but I see myself here. I was born here, and here in these cities [Lod and Ramle], I will stay…I might even get to Jerusalem, but it would be for the sake of Lod and Ramle and Jaffa…And it’s not only me who feels this way. Because I hear it also from…other girls, other friends. All of us ‘haves’ who’ve achieved something…I don’t want to say that we have it good, but we feel responsible, out of a sense of belonging, connection, obligation, …commitment.”2 The element of choice also comes into play among married women who remained in their native communities in mixed towns. An interviewee who was raised in Haifa and remained their described the changing face of the neighborhood where she was born and where she now chooses to live. As a child, she grew up in Hadar Hacarmel, a section of Haifa, in a neighborhood where her family was the only Palestinian family. “We were isolated, just like a ghetto…The (Jewish) children didn’t talk to us Arab kids. [They said:] ‘Dirty Arabs, Arab shit.’ Father always told me: ‘Don’t respond.’ There’s an expression in Arabic that says: ‘Walk along the wall and say: Allah will shield us from harm.’” In the mid-’60s, many Jews who could afford to moved from the neighborhood in Hadar Hacarmel to neighborhoods on Mount Carmel. Oriental Jews replaced them, but they too moved on when their financial situation improved, many of them to Neve Sha’anan. This time the replacements were Palestinian families. In the 1990s, a new wave of Jewish families settled in the neighborhood: newly arrived Russian immigrants. But they too leave the moment their situation improves. In her words:

2 The creation of a social category of “all of us ‘haves’ who’ve achieved something” relates primarily to higher education, which itself creates intermediate spaces; but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.

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Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities Now there are lots of Russians there. Russians and Arabs and the longtime [Jewish] population. But hardly any younger Jews. Only the old-timers, who remain out of inertia. Listen, it’s near everything, the health fund, the marketplace. I understand their mentality. At such an age, you don’t leave anymore.

This is undoubtedly a case of Jews and Arabs existing alongside one another but without any aspirations to coexistence. National and class boundaries are constantly being redrawn. After her marriage, an interviewee lived in a Jewish neighborhood for several years. But then: after the two children were born, I said: ‘I’m not willing to let my children grow up the way I did.’ People were very nice to us. They invited us to birthday parties, but from a distance, you know. I said, I want my children to grow up in a mixed neighborhood.”

The family then moved to a mixed neighborhood that was in the process of being developed: Here the neighborhood is really mixed, and very pleasant…The old Jews, they have some money. It’s problematic, because they don’t want to invest anything [in improving the neighborhood]. There are people who are really difficult. Until we get some money out of them…They don’t want to pay for the park. They don’t allow their children to play downstairs…It’s a pity.”

Her description suggests a strong class element that impacts interactions across the ethno-national divide, as poorer Jewish folk remain behind in the mixed neighborhoods (cf. Torstrick 2000). But the neighborhood also attracts Jews and Palestinians who are searching for new opportunities. In the same interviewee’s words: There’s a family here living next to us. He’s an architect and she’s a graphic artist. They came after us, seven years ago. They took an Arab house and renovated it, really a gorgeous house. And with them, there’s a nice relationship. Because they have the same mindset, they’re more or less the same age [as us]. My husband is an engineer and he also works in that field. There’s another Jewish family who could afford to move to Carmel but aren’t moving. The father grew up here, and the children too…Their daughter learned to speak Arabic, but my children speak to her in Hebrew.

The interviewee is aware that the neighborhood in which she has chosen to live is a “bubble” – but one that eases her day-to-day existence: Here, in Haifa…you can speak Arabic, it’s accepted. But in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, either you’re a laborer or you can’t be who you are. In Haifa, it’s different…There’s a lot to improve, but it’s really on the way to [become a place where] everyone has his own uniqueness. And everyone is making money and getting richer. So I gain something from the fact that there’s a festival of children’s plays, and they get something from the fact that the Wadi is around. I hope that they get something from other things as well, from [my] culture, and that each side will take something from the other….”

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The Arabic language (and culture), which in other towns and perhaps even elsewhere in Haifa tends to be seen by Jewish Israelis as signifiers of a lower status, assumes a different meaning in the context of the neighborhood in question and the world of the interviewee. The choice of a mixed place of residence allows her to negotiate her class, as well as her national, identity. The Place I Chose The decision to leave the town or village of birth and to move to a mixed town was perceived by some of the interviewees as a choice in favor of building an independent life. It is a decision to free oneself from the close, intrusive relations within the community of origin. In Palestinian society in Israel, as in many other Middle Eastern societies, women as well as men are encouraged to build their self through their relations with others, primarily family members. This relational self, as it is referred to by Joseph (1993), when combined with the surrounding patriarchy, creates a “patriarchal relationality.” The patriarchal family simultaneously supports and oppresses women. Women, more than men, are expected to give priority to the needs of others over their own, to yield to the demands of their family, and to behave in the manner expected of women in their society. Moreover, in the Middle Eastern tradition, patrilocality is a central principle in the structuring of the patriarchy (Joseph and Slyomovics 2001). A woman generally moves into the home of her husband’s family. Palestinian families’ mobility between different communities is very low compared to that of other societies. This lack of mobility is related to sumud, the determination to cling to the land – a principle that has only grown stronger with the years in response to state expropriation of land; a development policy that hampers the expansion of existing Arab communities; and land administration procedures that make it impossible for Palestinian citizens of Israel to purchase land outside existing villages. All of these factors combined reduce the opportunities for mobility and the frequency of moves from one place of residence to another. The primary form of mobility is to and between urban areas (see Zreik, this volume). In some cases the move is from one mixed town to another. In the Palestinian community, which maintains a relatively tight network of family ties even within towns, the move to a new place of residence means cutting oneself off from a supportive, albeit intrusive, social framework. The decision to leave the place of residence of the family is accompanied by many uncertainties, conflicts and confrontations; in the case of an unmarried woman these clashes can sometimes be life-threatening. An interviewee who engaged in numerous battles with her family to obtain her independence, decided to marry solely so that her desire to move to Haifa gains legitimization: The truth is that in Haifa I can go out unrestricted to any activity in a way that one could only dream of in the village. Sometimes I feel that I do have one restriction…and

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Her many activities, she said, require her to leave the home frequently, sometimes in the evening. On the one hand, her husband is cooperative, while on the other, he wants to fight with me […] He wants us to live in Acre […] There he has back-up[…] He has brothers/sisters, a mother[…] He is not opposed to his wife continuing her studies for a master’s degree[…] and being famous, active, and so on[…] But on some level, he’s still a man[…] It’s true that he cooks along with me[…] does the dishes[…] washes the floor[…] I go to conferences for 3 or 4 days and he takes care of our daughter[…] but it’s precisely because of this that he wants us to go back to living in Acre[…] not in Shfar’am or any other place, but next to his mother and his family.

For this interviewee, the issue is non-negotiable. She is unwilling to give up her freedom from the prying eyes of either her family or his.3 At times, the choice of residence represents a compromise between spouses. One interviewee said: I didn’t want to go live in my husband’s village, and he didn’t want to live in Jaffa. He doesn’t want the children to grow up in Jaffa because of all the social problems there. So Haifa became the sort of neutral place in the middle. It’s a half hour from his parents’ village, and I’m an hour and a half from Jaffa […] Haifa is actually more highly thought of in terms of education[…], [it’s] the most educated mixed city in the Arab sector[…]. That is, specifically as intellectuals, as an educated couple, we’re supposed to feel more at home in Haifa than in Jaffa. But it’s not happening.”

An interviewee who was raised in Acre and studied in Jerusalem, returned to Acre after a lengthy period of studies. After five years in her home town, she decided to return to Jerusalem, explaining her choice as a statement of independence and personal autonomy. More than once, she referred to Acre (a towny of over 40,000 inhabitants) as “the village.” It should be noted that several interviewees used the term “village” when describing a mixed town other than their own. Their reference was more to lifestyle than to strict municipal or geographical designations. As the same interviewee said: Acre is actually like every other village. It’s just [a set of] ‘frameworks’ – marriage frameworks – and if you’re not in such a framework, you walk around all the time searching, and you always feel uncomfortable[…] At a certain point, it leads you, even unknowingly, to a situation where you want to get married in order to fit in with your surroundings, even if you’re not so totally convinced of the idea, or if you haven’t even come close to finding a mate who suits your spirit or your taste[…] For a year, I fought a war. A fight to the death 3 For a vivid description of how a young Palestinian lawyer and her mother, a professional as well, negotiated the daughter’s freedom to live away from her husband’s affluent patrilocal village compound, persuading the husband’s family to allow the couple to settle in Acre, a mixed town, see Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker 2005:125–130.

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with everyone, everyone who didn’t agree with me. A year later[…] I began to withdraw more into myself. Later, I began to handle them the way they wanted. You simply become like them, really like them[…] I began to talk like them. There was a time when I couldn’t adjust, couldn’t talk to older people. And later, I began to talk and to relate to the topics that they bring up in conversation. I began to behave in the accepted pattern, began to dress in the accepted style, began simply to do all the little things that are kind of stupid, meaningless things, sort of worthless and insignificant. But these things are actually very important when you put them all together. It becomes a mass, that is, you start to give in on things here and there, one step after another. In the end, you realize that you’re actually giving up yourself, your personality – and that’s what happened to me. Towards the end of those five years, I just gave in on almost everything to do with me and my personality, until all that was left was visiting and having fun with friends and acquaintances outside of Acre[…] Little by little, I became like them[…] actually very very ‘normal,’ just like all of them. In fact, not just ‘normal’ but even ‘backward’[…] I went back to Jerusalem, not really because I’m ambitious or anything like that, but because I just want to choose my own personal private lifestyle [emphasis added, H.H].

The difficulty that she describes revolved primarily around her inner struggle over leaving her parents and ostensibly “abandoning” them. She continues: Let’s say that I didn’t separate from my society on an emotional level; I separated from my society because of feelings as a human being, the fact that I’m a person, an individual. And that’s actually the most accurate description of me – that I want to check out the life choices facing me and see what suits me. This won’t turn me into a European, and I won’t suddenly become an American…I will always remain a Palestinian.

Palestinian Women obviously use the city as a means of constructing an intermediate space for themselves between patriarchal relationality and what they see as individualism and separation from their former society. One woman said: I don’t want to play that game, of the woman who sacrifices herself for her husband, her children, her family. And I don’t see it in the feminist sense. I’m not speaking at all on that level, of feminism, but on a more simple level, without complexes and theories. I just see and think of myself as a person who knows how to think, to create, to read a book, to work at a computer, to hike, to have fun. And I love my family. They can come and visit. I really like having a social life, going out and getting together with friends to enjoy ourselves[…] At the same time, I don’t want to place myself too much in situations that I won’t know how to get out of afterward[…] These days I’m here in Haifa[…] All those things about what’s allowed and what’s not allowed[…] it’s no longer relevant to me. I’m already past that.

An attorney originally from Shfar’am, whose husband is from Haifa, talks about the move to Tel Aviv/Jaffa: I’m very happy. I tell my husband, ‘I’m lucky that I moved to Tel Aviv,’ because there are still a lot more options [here]. It’s another world, really totally different. I’m also far from the family, the pressures from my family and my husband’s, both of ours (laughing). I have no mother nagging me: Why are you not, let’s say, staying at home more with

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Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities your little girls? Why are you getting home at midnight?[…] There’s no one to make any comments to me. I do what I want, and no one pokes his nose into my personal business. It’s not that my mother-in-law interfered, but this way I feel more, uh, free. If I lived in Shfar’am or in Haifa, I think I’d be more dependent on the immediate society, on the people around me.”

This lack of dependence stands out especially in light of the many difficulties that this interviewee, and others, described in the absence of a family support network, particularly in the context of childcare and assistance with everyday problems. The choice of a mixed town provides options for women; however, these options derive not only from the fact that these are mixed towns but also from the fact that they are places where neither member of the couple has any close relatives. The emphasis, as one interviewee put it, is on the choice: You choose here. You came here [to Jaffa] and you can choose who you want. People who suit your way of thinking, your opinions, your ideology, so it’s already a matter of choice and not coercion. It’s not like real family. There’s no decision (giggling) when it comes to family. Here, you can decide which friends to choose, which neighbors to visit or not to visit. I know that when I go to Shfar’am, all the neighbors come in and out. All of them. From one end of the street to the other. And everyone knows what everyone else is doing, even what she’s cooking. So in my home, for example, it can happen that I don’t cook for a few days. Either I manage with schnitzel or I end up buying hamburgers (laughing). If only my mother knew…

It should be emphasized that this sense of freedom from social supervision does not translate into estrangement from the family or the Palestinian collective. Even when the move to a new location involves bitter struggles with the family, the reference group continues to be the village and the family. Most of the interviewees refer to it in terms of a price. The severing of one’s ties with the family support network is the price they have to pay for their choice. They maintain contact with their family, but it is a connection redefined from a position of independence rather than a patriarchal perspective. The interviewees consist of attorneys, social workers, teachers and employees at a range of public institutions. Though the overwhelming majority of them work in the Palestinian sectors of their towns, or in neighboring Palestinian villages, most of them have intensive work relationships with Jewish colleagues. The women place a great deal of emphasis on their national identity. Concern for their community, coupled with frustration at the lack of investment of state and municipal budgets in Palestinian institutes and individuals, plays a major role in their worldview and their identity. Significantly, many of them stated that working with Jews actually strengthened their identity.

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The City as a Personal Challenge One of the interviewees is a woman from a Druze village in northern Israel. Married at a young age, she soon moved to Jaffa where her physician husband found work. She describes the move, as well as her life since, as an ongoing series of challenges and a journey of self-discovery: It was a radical switch, a major change from the point of view of my framework, of the mentality, as a young Druze girl who had been raised in a village with the whole village mentality – although I had already tried to break out of that framework while I was still in the village. I had ambitions to study, to grow, to develop an independent career, not necessarily to sit at home, to marry and raise a lot of kids.

The city fascinated her: I didn’t want to miss out on life in the city. I saw that it suits me and it’s pretty worthwhile; in fact, it actually adds a lot. It’s really a good idea to live in the city[…] to know and learn as much as possible, to be up to date on everything.

Obviously not all is perfect in her life. She spoke in detail of her difficulties with teachers, students, and of other hurdles which she faces. The overriding message of her words however is pride in her ability to overcome the difficulties, to move forward, to achieve: The truth is that I want to accumulate as much experience as possible, to enrich [my knowledge] as much as possible, to know as much as I can[…] in the field of education, in every area of teaching, in education, in professional advancement. Really, my dream is to bring this to my village, to my society, to go back there, to fit in with them, to belong there – that’s my dream.

The Mixed Town as a Place to Build a New Society A woman from Nazareth joined her husband (who comes from a Galilee village) in the city six years after they were married. She said: My husband has been living in Haifa now for 18 years, and I’ve been here 12 years, meaning that I’ve spent the most important years of my life in Haifa. I love this town, that is, geographically. The atmosphere here in terms of Arabs and Jews is very comfortable; I don’t feel estranged here – I feel a sense of belonging because I decided to be here, and now I’m here. Now I have a support group here, of couples who live in Haifa, and we as a group see our future as being here. We will carry on our future in Haifa.

She compares herself (and her friends) to many Haifa residents, including the older population, who travel to their parents and family members in the villages every weekend and holiday. In her view, this indicates that they don’t feel as if they belong

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to Haifa, unlike her and her husband, who have a sense of commitment to the town and feel tied to it. Life in Haifa allowed this interviewee to develop a different lifestyle, by choice: Sometimes it happens that at 10:00 o’clock at night, my girlfriends get bored and call me. I have a few good friends here, and we decide to go out and spend the evening at a pub or something. But if I were in Nazareth[…] there’s no question it would lead to gossip like ‘she’s a slut’ and things like that[…] Here, everyone lives his own life. I have neighbors here with whom I have cordial relations but nothing more, and I have neighbors who are always at my place or I’m at theirs. But as a rule, everyone sets the boundaries of his relationships, determines his own lifestyle. I don’t allow anyone to interfere in my life. Here, I’ve build a connection to the people and the place.

The company of women is an integral part of Middle Eastern tradition, with conversations between women neighbors playing a major role , as Rabinowitz and Abu Baker’s (2005:46) description of the therapeutic efficacy of such informal gatherings in the aftermath of 1948 vividly illustrates. As the numerous quotes above attest, a recurring theme among the interviewees was that the city offers them options and choices: of friends, of whom and where and when they see people and so on. The distance from the social environment of the community of origin and the family makes it possible to maintain an egalitarian marriage. Many women related that their spouse played an equal role in childrearing and in the running of the home. But the parents of the couple are generally displeased with this arrangement.4 In most cases, when the couple visits the home of either set of parents, the husband permits himself to act “like a man,” in keeping with village norms. In the absence of a family support network, women derive assistance from their girlfriends, spouse, or group initiatives; for example, by setting up a daycare center or kindergarten in their neighborhood, often for Arabs only. Or as one interviewee from Haifa stated: “We founded a group called Parents for Their Children as a parenting support group. We give a lot to each other, boosting, helping, developing one another. One more little group, woman to woman. These are support groups not just to let off a little steam but for self-development. I help and am helped in these groups.” The same interviewee describes herself as a person who constantly seeks social change: I’m engaged in a struggle with everyone and everything around me[…] I’m still struggling with my family. I’m struggling with my husband. I’m struggling to set up an alternative educational system for the sake of my daughter. I’m struggling with my friends over social norms and with the norms themselves; over the political situation[…] and the politics of Arab-Jewish existence in the state. All the time, really all the time, I’m struggling[…] and 4 This displeasure is frequently expressed by the parents of the wife, since her noncompliance with accepted social norms hurts their good name and, along with it, the chances of finding a suitable match for her unmarried siblings.

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paying a price. I’m building an alternative here, an alternative life, and such a thing is possible[…] [There are] couples and friends in my situation – a gang of fellow ‘uproots,’ who went through more or less the same thing as I did. We understand each other[…] We all have the same mindset, we understand what the other is talking about, and I get support from this environment that we have here in Haifa. As friends, I feel that we’re growing together[…] We talk on the same level[…] and the goal is to get by, to survive.

In a similar vein, another interviewee spoke of her friendships with unmarried women living in Jerusalem. They meet regularly, and constitute a support group of sorts, or as one them defined it: “We’re the Jerusalem girls’ commune.” Palestinian women also use mixed towns as arenas for social experimentation with new modes of life.5 Conclusions Palestinian women live in a racist, gender-based society marked by ongoing inequality and an asymmetrical balance of power (Herzog, 2004). In the context of the loss of city spaces after 1948, the ruralization of the population, and policy constraints that limit geographical, sociocultural and political spaces, mixed towns constitute the main urban spaces open to Palestinians. For women, living in a mixed town is, first and foremost, a choice. While the reasons given for this choice vary, the feeling of self empowerment is common. However, this is not an easy choice. Women find themselves in constant conflict with their environment, their family and themselves. In challenging themselves and their societies, they sacrificed the support network of the extended family and community. Consequently, it is not surprising that coupled with a strong feeling of independence, many women noted a sense of weariness as well. They are weary of struggling, of seeking. They feel as if they are engaged in a constant war of attrition. As one of them summarized: What wears me down in this whole system[…] is actually the difference, that is, the feeling[…] that you’re different in the way you chose your partner, different in the number of children you have, when you have them, in the profession you studied, in the work you do, in the lifestyle you lead, in the community you chose to live in[…] Always different, different[…] It requires a major effort; it’s not easy[…] You’re always working on yourself in order to survive in a system in which you’re different. And it takes a lot of energy[…] Then you have the nostalgia for your village[…] Maybe the village represents a sort of haven for me[…] a sanctuary[…] that I go back to, to draw strength – spiritual, emotional strength – so that I can keep on going.”

5 The rise in the percentage of unmarried Palestinian women, their increased presence in mixed cities, and the latter as a setting for social experimentation are phenomena worthy of separate study. Unfortunately, they are beyond the scope of this paper. On the topic of single women in Palestinian society in Israel, see Amalia Sa’ar (2001).

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References Cited Afshar, Haleh (ed.). 1996. Women and politics in the Third World. London, New York: Routledge. Falah, Ghazi. 1996. “Living Together Apart: Residential Segregation in Mixed