Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power 9781685859589

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POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN O T T O M A N PALESTINE

POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN OTTOMAN PALESTINE The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power • D O N N A R O B I N S O N DIVINE

LYNN E RIENNER PUBLISHERS

B O U L D E R L O N D O N

The map of Palestine under Ottoman rule was first published in Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a People (New York: The Free Press, 1993), and is reprinted in this book with permission.

Published in the United States of America in 1994 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU ©1994 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Divine, Donna Robinson, 1941— Politics and society in Ottoman Palestine : the Arab struggle for survival and power / by Donna Robinson Divine, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-55587-473-8 (alk. paper ) 1. Palestine—History—1799-1917. 2. Palestine—Social conditions. 3. Turkey—History—Tanzimat, 1839-1876. I. Title. DS125.D59 1994 956.94'04—dc20 93-40820 CIP British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America @

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Map of Palestine

vii viii

Under Ottoman Rule

Introduction: A Century of Change

1

1

Arab Society and Economy in Palestine, 1800-1831

13

2

Invasion and Occupation: Egyptian Rule, 1831-1840

47

3

Restoration and Early Reforms, 1840-1875

77

4

The Impact of Ottoman Reforms and Western Economic Expansion, 1875-1908

107

5

The Young Turk Revolution, 1908 -1914

143

6

Palestine in World War I

169

Conclusion: Reflections on British Rule

191

Index About the Book and Author

217 227

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many debts are incurred in a project such as this and it is a great pleasure to a c k n o w l e d g e them. C o l l e a g u e s at Smith C o l l e g e , particularly those associated with the Project on Women and Social C h a n g e — M a r t h a A . A c k e l s b e r g , Susan C. Bourque, and Sue J . M . F r e e m a n — h a v e created an ideal intellectual community and have served as a source of great intellectual stimulation and warm companionship. Fred L a w s o n of Mills C o l l e g e and Bernard Wasserstein of Brandeis University provided invaluable criticism of parts of this book in their formative stages. It is also a pleasure to thank Y o s e f y Taslizky, Sigalit Cohen, and Gilad L i v n e of the Israel State A r c h i v e s as well as G . F. M i l e s , archivist of B a r c l a y s B a n k . T h e librarians at Smith C o l l e g e were unstinting in their efforts to borrow books f o r me from every corner of the globe, and I am happy to have the opportunity to express my gratitude to them. Over the last several years, I have received grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and Smith College. These funds enabled me to launch and sustain research on several continents, and I am grateful for the generosity of these foundations and institutions. I am indebted, of course, to Martha L . Peacock, not only for bringing this book to the attention of Lynne Rienner but also for her persistence. Finally, I thank my children, Elana and Jonas, for their patience and consideration. This book is dedicated to my husband, T o m Divine, for his encouragement and sense of humor.

D.R.D.

vii

Palestine Under Ottoman Rule

POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN O T T O M A N PALESTINE

INTRODUCTION: A CENTURY OF CHANGE

The nineteenth century witnessed the creation of the modern Arab. In the wake of military reforms and expanded trade with Europe, Arabs sought integration into positions of power in the Ottoman Empire. They seized opportunities. They advised sultans. They implemented reforms in the farflung corners of the imperial domain. They bolstered international trade. In the empire's very last decades, some members of the elite began to reconceive their history and redefine their political future, preparing to renegotiate their relationship to imperial institutions. Some Arabs even quietly entertained the prospect of political independence. Although we know a great deal about the turmoil triggered by this century of change, we know much less about the goals pursued by ordinary men and women and about how a succession of their decisions eventually constituted a transformation. Historians have focused more intently on outcomes than on processes and more intently still on the actions and reflections of the elite in urban centers than on the lives of the masses. This important focus has yielded significant insights, particularly about the heterogeneity in political outlook within a single social class. Although comparisons among towns and regions in the Ottoman Empire reveal the unreliability of mechanical explanations of change, they effectively dispel the notion that any region lay totally untouched by the forces of change. This understanding has great benefit for the study of Palestinian Arab society. For many scholars, Palestinian Arab history represents a special intellectual enterprise. The search for a past springs from a natural fascination with the present. Thus, the history of Palestinian Arabs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has customarily been turned into a prologue to political failure and a standard for calibrating communal shortcomings. A broad spectrum of scholars—from Yehoshua Porath to Salim Tamari— regard the constituent elements of family and tribal unity as sources of crippling political divisions. Consider Porath's reflection on what he calls the social realities of life in Palestine, which essentially amounts to a list of prominent families in Palestine's major cities. 1 Or Tamari's 1

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observation that "in retrospect, what is most striking about factionalism in Palestine prior to 1948 was its political consequences. These were, primarily, the incapacity of the organised A r a b c o m m u n i t y in P a l e s t i n e to c o u n t e r s u c c e s s f u l l y the challenges posed by Jewish settlement to its independent survival." 2 Control over land and/or peasant labor presumably preserved such intense kinship alliances as to block the creation of unifying and effective political organizations. A m o n g observers is the overall impression that Palestinian A r a b society s o m e h o w constituted an obstacle to political d e v e l o p m e n t and prevented not only the establishment of a state but also the resolute pursuit of this goal. This perspective on contemporary issues has promoted a skewed analysis of Palestine's past. T h e lion's share of scholarly attention has been bestowed on e f f o r t s to locate in Ottoman Palestine the roots of social cohesion and, coincidentally, of political fragmentation. Scholars have scarcely searched for signs of political d e v e l o p m e n t in O t t o m a n Palestine and h a v e instead a f f i r m e d the i m p o r t a n c e of P a l e s t i n e ' s limited productive capacity and the s e e m i n g l y e x c e s s i v e conflicts a m o n g local political factions. W i t h their attention directed to explaining the loss of a Palestinian state in 1948, they have failed to appreciate Palestine's nineteenth-century history as a period of significant development. For Ottoman rulers as well as for European and Arab entrepreneurs, ninet e e n t h - c e n t u r y P a l e s t i n e p r e s e n t e d q u i t e a d i f f e r e n t p i c t u r e ; for t h e m , ironically, it was a land of opportunity. Ottoman rulers as well as intrepid m e r c h a n t s and bankers were attuned to Palestine's increasingly productive e c o n o m y . S o was the local population w h o s e behavior was motivated by the d e s i r e to a c c u m u l a t e profit, p o w e r , and prestige. M a r k e t c h a n g e s created the need for new f o r m s of political organization even as they pressed hard on traditional c o m m u n a l and family structures. Although Palestine's Arab social structure seemed static and continued to revolve around families, the arrangem e n t s supporting it necessarily b e c a m e more complex and increasingly bore the imprint of changing political conditions. P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s had to m e e t their basic needs in the context of a century of r e f o r m s in law and administration. These reforms left their stamp on f a m i l y patterns and relationships. B u t Palestinian A r a b s also p l a y e d a crucial part in i n f l u e n c i n g both the timing and the m a n n e r of e x e c u t i n g imperial reforms. This b o o k is the story of the labyrinthine interactions between e m p i r e and p e o p l e , b e t w e e n imperial state and Palestinian A r a b society. It is important to stress, at the outset, that the evolution in political p o w e r of the O t t o m a n i m p e r i a l state did not c o m e entirely at the e x p e n s e of local a u t o n o m y and initiative. A n imperial infrastructure was not an alien graft on the Palestinian A r a b body politic. Imperial institutions sometimes imposed

Introduction

3

new modes of organization and behavior upon Palestinian Arabs, but not always. The actions o f ordinary people also shaped the way in which governmental institutions were structured and operated. But during the span of years covered in this book, the rules by which people gained access to resources were increasingly defined through the offices of the imperial state. In Palestine, the Ottoman imperial state increased its capacity to mobilize resources and maintain peace. To be sure, there were setbacks in this progression, but the trend was clear. To note this trend is to develop neither an exceptional nor a particularly original thesis. But to demonstrate how state building both reflected social change and advanced is to promise the possibility o f questioning well-entrenched assumptions about Palestinian Arab society. Scholars who have examined Arab society in Palestine in terms of dichotomies between government and society, and who have posited contradictory pulls between center and periphery, misrepresent the structure of society and polity. There has not always been a clear and recognizable boundary between central and local structures o f power. The imperial provincial administration had to rely on local elites who exercised and appropriated a certain measure of authority. The division of power could vary with personality and circumstance. Measurement of political development exclusively by the growth o f imperial institutions thus misses an essential point. Political institutions were molded by pressures from within Palestinian Arab society as well as by policies from without. At the outset of the nineteenth century, imperial authority could be calibrated almost totally in terms of tax revenues and military discipline. B y the end of the century, a more complex legal system and a larger bureaucracy had rendered government both less remote and more relevant: Government increasingly made a difference in the lives of the ordinary people. Familiarity with officials and procedures became necessary for more and more people. An elaborate machinery of state created new channels for the flow of goods and services involving increasing numbers of the empire's subjects. A widening and increasingly productive society changed the nature of patronage and simultaneously generated new kinds of family dependencies and tensions. Social connections could not be radically separated from their imperial political context, and social structure did not (indeed, could not) oppose political development. In short, the history of Palestinian Arab society must be studied in the context o f Ottoman political developments. This book probes the connections between imperial center and local Palestinian Arab society during a critical juncture for both. Palestine was steadily acquiring increasing importance in the empire. Shifts were occurring in the international and regional balance of power. And the emergence o f new technologies and the appearance of new ideologies could be discerned. I am intrigued by these changes, which, in turn, produced new considerations

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of P a l e s t i n e ' s g e o g r a p h y and material potential. This was a t i m e w h e n Palestinian Arabs confronted new possibilities but also faced new problems. T h e r e was no symmetry in the unfolding of these changes, nor were all Palestinian A r a b s exposed to t h e m to the same degree. Let me return to my central a r g u m e n t concerning the relationship of imperial center to Palestinian p e r i p h e r y and my o w n m o d i f i c a t i o n of the c o n v e n t i o n a l use of t h e s e categories. I h a v e contended that the perspective of the so-called imperial center embodied deference to local interests and demands. Alternatively, I have s u g g e s t e d that even if the O t t o m a n E m p i r e did not constitute a highly centralized polity, it did provide the dominant f r a m e w o r k for concentrating resources and organizing space. C h a n g e s in the f r a m e w o r k nourished new s e n s i t i v i t i e s a m o n g P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s and s o m e t i m e s g e n e r a t e d n e w interpretations of their own c o m m u n i t y . At the c e n t u r y ' s start, imperial institutions within s o m e areas in Palestine managed to produce capital that s u p p o r t e d t r a d e but could not maintain order; in other areas, imperial institutions struggled to keep order and social peace but could not mobilize capital. By the c e n t u r y ' s end, the e m p i r e had established institutions that effectively controlled the deployment of both capital and coercion. This study, then, e m p h a s i z e s not destruction but creative survival. In choosing topics to discuss, I have concentrated on points of pressure affecting political and social structures. My aim is to explain h o w Palestinian A r a b s of various classes and f r o m a variety of cities and towns coped with changing circumstances: how geography served as a barrier to s o m e groups and created an o p p o r t u n i t y f o r o t h e r s . S i m i l a r l y , p o l i t i c a l i n s t i t u t i o n s o p e n e d possibilities for s o m e while d e n y i n g access to others. M y purpose is not to f o c u s on an aborted political agenda or to j u x t a p o s e traditional and modern s o c i e t i e s but, rather, to attend to the interplay b e t w e e n old and n e w economies, marriage patterns, family relationships, and values. T h a t m o r e of the history of Palestinian A r a b e c o n o m i c and social structures needs to be known goes without saying, if only because so little has been said about them. Herein lies one extraordinary irony. Of all the A r a b c o m m u n i t i e s in Palestine, it is J e r u s a l e m ' s that is best k n o w n — e v e n though Jerusalem lacks an appreciable commercial or agricultural base. In a sense, the e m p h a s i s on this city has not been fortuitous. J e r u s a l e m o c c u p i e d a special status in the empire. Its religious and administrative officials sought to influence imperial policies and left a written record of their activities. By contrast, it is m o r e difficult to discover the views of Arabs in Palestine w h o may not have pursued a self-disclosed political agenda and who left no formal inscriptions of their sentiments. For purposes of introducing the slow but steady process of social change set in motion by the dynamics of political reform, I propose to sketch here, rather broadly, the series of developments that will be examined in detail in subsequent chapters. Palestinian Arabs lived not in o n e world but in several.

Introduction

5

They resided in cities or villages on the coastal plain or in the mountainous hinterland. They felt bound to a people sharing a common language and literature. M o s t were Muslims and identified with the cultural context supported and symbolized by the empire. Palestinian Arabs who lived in the city established different kinds of alliances and institutions from those who worked the land in the countryside. S o m e groups climbed rapidly; others slowly spiraled downward. All had to find strategies of survival and, often, new resources to preserve status and position. Material conditions could draw together some merchants in certain areas of Palestine while separating them in others. Enlarging trade could widen the networks for some Palestinian Arabs who controlled prized resources while narrowing social relationships for those trying to withstand the disruptive impact of international market forces. Palestinian Arabs had to change their outlooks, their behaviors, and their relationships to make their way in increasingly changing circumstances. This was the situation of most Palestinian Arabs. They lived their lives without embracing a distinct political doctrine, without fighting overtly for a particular division of political power or labor. Their lives were preoccupied with the facts o f nature, which could suddenly alter the landscape and create great disorder. Disastrous harvests often meant cascading financial troubles; prosperity did not necessarily afford them financial security. Not only class differences but also dramatic regional disparities divided the Palestinan Arabs. For the upper classes in Nablus and their counterparts in J a f f a , lifestyles were not identical. Peasants in different parts of the country had different standards of living. T h e rhythm of world capitalist market forces fed one kind o f expansion in those sectors o f Palestine's economy within easy access to Europe's Mediterranean ports and quite another sort in remoter areas. Some parts o f Palestine were more quickly caught in the flow of European market exchange than others. S o m e Palestinian Arabs purchased clothes manufactured in Europe and sustained themselves and their families by exporting raw materials. But most people wore homespun clothing on their backs. In some homes, European furniture could be found; but most villagers, like many city dwellers, drank their beverages from cups made locally. At the same time that labor power and land were becoming freely alienable in some markets, communal obligation and personal dominion were being reinforced in others. In some areas, authority belonged to the self-made individual who seized power and o f f i c e ; in others, it resided in such institutions as municipal councils or religious courts. S o m e villages experienced bitter feuds and even prolonged periods of war; others were quite peaceful. A s a high proportion o f Palestine's population found shelter in the mountains, a remarkably stable pattern o f settlements characterized the countryside surrounding Nablus and Jerusalem. T h e coastal plains were

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sparsely p o p u l a t e d and u n e v e n l y d e v e l o p e d in the early d e c a d e s of the nineteenth century, and it was only as security improved and trade expanded that peasants c a m e in significant n u m b e r s to work the land and, ultimately, to f o u n d new villages. In s o m e regions marked by s w a m p s , the population was subjected to periodic outbreaks of malaria. In others, scattered settlement patterns thrust peasants into a crossfire of pressure f r o m the Bedouin as well as f r o m rapacious Ottoman officials. T h e r e w a s never a s i m p l e division in Palestine b e t w e e n those with p o w e r and those without. W h a t pertained, rather, w a s a series of shaded rankings. T h e c o n t i n u u m began at one end with the landless peasants, who also lacked extensive family ties. Their lives depended not only upon the will of a relatively prosperous master but also on the e c o n o m i c cycle. Next on the c o n t i n u u m might have been those peasants w h o possessed a sharecropping agreement covering such a small amount of land that their actual agricultural returns needed to be supplemented through other services performed for the economically and politically powerful. A l s o on this c o n t i n u u m of d e p e n d e n c e w e r e sons w h o had r e a c h e d maturity but did not p o s s e s s a c r a f t or land s u f f i c i e n t to r e n d e r t h e m independent of their fathers' support. T h e undulating cycles of population g r o w t h a f f e c t e d the lives of those y o u n g men in t w o contrasting w a y s . Population growth could provide the m a n p o w e r necessary to work additional land. Or p o p u l a t i o n p r e s s u r e could c r e a t e a scarcity of land w h e r e b y opportunities for expansion were limited. Which o u t c o m e obtained depended upon a n u m b e r of factors, a m o n g them the balance of world e c o n o m i c and political power. Villages were by no means totally isolated. N o i n f e r e n c e can be d r a w n about the position of w o m e n f r o m the situation of their m a l e c o u n t e r p a r t s . A m a j o r r e a s o n w a s the lack of c o r r e s p o n d e n c e between e c o n o m i c position and social status—a breach that m a y have proved devastating for w o m e n . Wives of prominent notables were often under relentless p r e s s u r e to entertain; peasant w o m e n , who a w o k e in the m i d d l e of the night to grind flour, were compelled to provide bread. A higher standard of living might have been attained by peasant families w h o could cultivate vegetables on their land, but even this prospect of material e n r i c h m e n t c o i n c i d e d with an o n e r o u s w o r k l o a d c u s t o m a r i l y b o r n e by women. A cursory review of economic trends captures the range of heterogeneous f o r c e s c o n f r o n t i n g P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s and i m p i n g i n g on their lives. R i c h citrus traders in J a f f a associated with E u r o p e a n b a n k e r s and b u s i n e s s m e n , whereas Nablus merchants often occupied religious offices and held honorific titles. O r i g i n a l l y , the f a m i l y served as the m a j o r s o u r c e for m o b i l i z i n g capital. By c e n t u r y ' s end, h o w e v e r , alternatives to the family had e m e r g e d . T h e pursuit of e c o n o m i c interests was an experience that had entered social and cultural life as well, thus mandating increasingly incongruous impulses.

Introduction

1

Altered economic and political circumstances encumbered marriage arrangements with new expectations and demands. During the first half o f the nineteenth century, Jerusalem's urban notables were inclined to intermarry with other notable families or with high-ranking Ottoman provincial administrators. In these circumstances, marriage strengthened political power. B y contrast, Nablus notables married families still residing on their village homesteads, which presumably yielded their own inventory o f political, economic, and/or military advantages. S o m e marriage ties resulted in an expansion of agricultural holdings. Others contributed to the enhancement of a family's status. Here the differences were a matter not so much of form as of frequency o f attachments. Families trying to increase their power and land often created multiple intermarriages, thereby intensifying their relationships with appropriately placed families. Even when natal villages were no longer vital as the locus of control over the cultivation process, urban absentee landowners sometimes continued to maintain marriage ties to village residents. O f all Palestine's economic sectors, those dominated by agrarian capitalism fostered the most troubling and painful social relationships. Marriage between urban notable families from distant centers—Jaffa, Haifa, Beirut, Damascus, Istanbul—became more common. On the one hand, the loneliness of women brought to live in cities far from their parents' homes could be overwhelming. On the other, the new mobility helped women of the upper classes awake to a new awareness of themselves and of their world. Until the advent o f British rule in Palestine, the family was the most important unit of production and consumption. The household served as the locus of work and residence. Family members fulfilled the labor requirements of the household, but changes in the distribution of power had an enormous impact on livelihood if not on life itself. How these struggles were engaged and what weapons were deployed differed depending on the stakes and contending forces involved. Many seemingly disparate developments in Palestine in the last century of Ottoman rule can be understood as part of an ongoing series of political struggles over both labor power and official posts. Family-provided services multiplied, particularly in the villages. With increased mobility the household defined residence, not necessarily work. The fulfillment o f traditional social responsibilities began to induce serious stress. For example, the practice of linking families of landowners with those of merchants, or families of official administrators with those of commercial agents, was not at all remarkable. But in the latter years of Ottoman rule and particularly during the British Mandate ( 1 9 2 2 - 1 9 4 8 ) , even as these marriages strengthened the material base of the extended family, they generated opposition and hostility by bringing together within the family unit dramatically different cultural values. The gradual expansion of educational opportunities encompassed a wide

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range of learning experiences, f r o m theological academies and public schools to E u r o p e a n missions and private tutorials. O f t e n within the s a m e f a m i l y , radically different educational levels and orientations informed quite distinct attitudes and d i f f e r e n t hierarchies of h u m a n relations, values, and expectations. In Palestine, the spread of education, technical c o m p e t e n c e , and secularism were neither exclusively urban nor necessarily unifying phenomena. Political d e v e l o p m e n t s created the need for constant shifts in the terms upon which relationships and values were affirmed. Legal and administrative r e f o r m s did not so m u c h e l i m i n a t e p a t r o n a g e as accelerate and m a g n i f y d e m a n d s , altering ties b e t w e e n patrons and clients as well as their mutual expectations. R e f o r m s introduced political ideologies that, in turn, engendered not only new hopes but also quite novel fears. Heightened awareness of a larger identity had been d e v e l o p i n g slowly a m o n g the educated elite during the final decades of Ottoman rule. Whatever the measure of their loyalties, however, Palestinian Arabs defined themselves in relation to the Ottoman Empire. And out of this process of self-definition, m a n y A r a b s in Palestine began to e x a m i n e the benefits and d r a w b a c k s of particular O t t o m a n policies. By and large, they did not question Ottoman institutions. In this context, c o n s i d e r M u h a m m a d M u s l i h ' s study of the origins of Palestinian A r a b nationalism, which begins with the observation that " O t t o m a n i s m remained the d o m i n a n t ideology in the A r a b territories until the d e f e a t of the O t t o m a n E m p i r e in 1918," if only b e c a u s e imperial unity was c o n s i d e r e d "the best way to d e f e n d Islam against the steady political, economic, and cultural penetration of Europe." 3 T h e p r e s e n t study has b e e n g u i d e d by a n u m b e r of d i s c i p l i n a r y approaches, including social history and historical geography. I have tried to build a new interpretative f r a m e w o r k of nineteenth-century Palestinian Arab society by squeezing out information f r o m previously inert sources and by e x a m i n i n g accessible material with new questions in mind. Yet this study uncovers m o r e puzzles than solutions. Ultimately, the struggle for survival and success w a g e d by Palestinian Arabs within the O t t o m a n E m p i r e forged both a political order and a political culture. Palestine constituted neither a single territorial unit nor a discrete political entity b e f o r e the institution of British rule in 1918. A s Muslih has noted, "Palestine was . . . referred to as S u r y a a l - J a n u b i y y a ( S o u t h e r n S y r i a ) , " 4 a n a m e that pointed out only o n e a m o n g m a n y links b e t w e e n b o u n d a r i e s and identity. In 1918 the British conquest incorporated Palestinian A r a b s into a new geography and political system. Their experience during the next decade suggests that it took them some time to discover the differences. A c c o r d i n g l y , I a r g u e that the social structure of P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s evolved not as a natural p h e n o m e n o n but, rather, as an artifice, shaped to an important degree by an Ottoman political dynamic. M y argument develops in stages. Starting with C h a p t e r 1, I f o c u s on the main productive regions in

Introduction

9

Palestine and detail their functions, both economical and social. Here I emphasize the role played by imperial and local powers played in shaping economic ties and orientations. The bonds of loyalty to the Ottoman Empire were often strengthened by the flow of goods. The objective underlying the Ottoman conquest of this territory—to shore up the empire's Muslim legitimacy—produced policies at odds with the interests of the local population. Certainly, the grounds of attachment in this period became the basis for prolonged political struggles, which resulted in new linkages between religious institutions and economic interests. In Chapter 2 , 1 describe how the Egyptian conquest in 1831 transformed government into an agency of economic change without altering entrenched social elites. Political and economic developments reinforced the attachment of elite families to political institutions, a grip so firm that it survived the Ottoman reconquest in 1840. The Ottoman restoration converged around a program of political reform and economic development. It coincided with increased European economic activity in Palestine. The initial impact of changes in the political and economic structure of Palestine forms the subject of Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I explore how Palestinian Arab society was altered after several decades of Western economic expansion and governmental reforms. Social, economic, and political relations between Palestinian Arabs and their Ottoman rulers were affected, sometimes profoundly, by events that took place in foreign lands. The availability of credit supplies and the creation of rapid systems of transportation triggered a dynamic development in many areas of Palestine. Imperial and local powers constrained the range of activities of Western merchants. The focus in Chapter 5 is on the Young Turk Revolution. I discuss how revolutionary politics and new cultural goals affected the lives of Palestinian Arabs. Palestinian Arabs benefited from the restoration of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876, the holding of elections, and the publication of newspapers. New political arenas were created, and many Palestinian Arabs entered them inspired by the patriotic symbols and appeals of that era. Here I emphasize the positive impact of this revolutionary decade on Palestinian Arabs. My perspective differs from the more conventionally accepted view, which stresses the brutal effects of the policy of Turkification. Although many Young Turk leaders espoused an ideology of cultural assmiliation that theoretically threatened the attachment of Arabs to their language and culture, the policies actually implemented had quite different consequences. Chapter 6 characterizes the nature of the pressures placed upon Palestinian Arab society during World War I. The war's impact was intensified by the cumulative effects of a significant growth in the population that had occurred over the previous century, involving not only more people but also a different age structure. Younger men and women now seemed more

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Politics & Society in Ottoman

Palestine

open to n e w political ideas. T h e surge in n u m b e r s of n e w s p a p e r s a n d periodicals in the decade b e f o r e the w a r ' s outbreak was but one index of the burgeoning interest in political affairs. Within less than a generation during that w a r , P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s s a w the d e s t r u c t i o n of a f r a m e w o r k of g o v e r n m e n t supportive of sanctified and binding norms, signaling to s o m e (but by no m e a n s all) the c r u m b l i n g of a venerable social order. T h e worst kind of military and f i n a n c i a l pressures, c o m b i n e d with e m p t y w a r t i m e p r o m i s e s , d r a i n e d m a n y f a m i l i e s of both material and inner r e s o u r c e s . Palestinian A r a b s were caught in a crossfire of visions between the sense of impending disaster and the need for greater attachment. I c o n c l u d e this study with an analysis of the legacy of political and e c o n o m i c resources that Palestinian Arabs had at their disposal at the end of World W a r I and the onset of British rule—resources that, indeed, shaped their critical s t r u g g l e s with Z i o n i s m . T h e e c o n o m i c and social p r e s s u r e s on P a l e s t i n i a n A r a b s w e r e a c u t e . D u r i n g B r i t i s h rule, e c o n o m i c p o l i c i e s encouraged the importation of goods on such a vast scale that unprecedented tensions were provoked. T h e British afforded less protection f r o m the volatile international e c o n o m y than had the Ottomans. Palestinian Arabs were forced to think of political loyalties in terms defined by Europeans. At a time when British politics was disrupting e c o n o m i c and social bonds, Zionist activities m a d e it m o r e pressing than ever to think about political relationships. E v e n decisions about consumption could not be separated from political decisions. Boycotts of Jewish g o o d s were urged during a period when the Palestinian A r a b e c o n o m y was actually g r o w i n g more dependent upon the Jewish and E u r o p e a n e c o n o m i e s . T h e E u r o p e a n o r g a n i z a t i o n of state and territory strained to the breaking point those ties that had held Palestinian (and other) Arabs together in the Ottoman Empire. E a c h of these chapters, then, addresses a single theme: the Palestinian A r a b c o n f r o n t a t i o n with c h a n g e . In c o n t e n d i n g with c h a n g e , Palestinian Arabs responded as m u c h to material incentives that beckoned f r o m without as to internal need that pressed them f r o m within. This interpretive s c h e m e also gives priority to politics not as mandating developments but, rather, as o p e n i n g or f o r e c l o s i n g o p t i o n s . Political s t r u g g l e s o f t e n p r o v i d e d a foundation for c o m m u n i t y and established a means of communication across social boundaries. In the early nineteenth century, shifts in the global b a l a n c e of p o w e r w e a k e n e d the O t t o m a n Empire, often imposing hardships but also sometimes stimulating n e w possibilities for local a u t o n o m y and creativity. Palestinian Arabs could survive the d a n g e r s inherent in so unstable a world only with strong f a m i l y s u p p o r t , a c c e s s to land, and control of v a l u a b l e political resources, including religious and administrative offices. T h e e n e r g e t i c p r o g r a m of r e f o r m u n d e r t a k e n in the latter part of the nineteenth c e n t u r y , by O t t o m a n rulers, set n e w standards that Palestinian

Introduction

Arabs helped mold and had to meet. The expansion of the European market economy simultaneously intruded, sometimes resulting in brutal exploitation and suffering. Ottoman efforts to avoid total subordination to the stronger Western European market and military forces, however, often mitigated exposure and, at times, brought enrichment and prosperity. World War I introduced dislocations that were unprecedented in duration, thereby intensifying political, social, and economic conflicts that until then had not been sharply defined. Policies abruptly promulgated and harshly i m p l e m e n t e d threw many Palestinian Arabs into turmoil but did not necessarily alter their political loyalties. For some, wartime exigencies served as a backdrop against which to think more self-consciously about themselves and their community. For others, the war became an occasion to reinforce traditional commitments and patterns of behavior. The Ottoman defeat in 1918 and the establishment of a British Mandate in 1922 not only challenged the understandings that Palestinian Arabs held of their community but also threatened them with complete absorption into an alien economy and culture. As events forced Palestinian Arabs to form political associations based on a geography of European design, the struggle for individual and communal survival was transformed. The adjustments they had to make were painful and costly. The adjustment process itself was painfully, but understandably, slow. To assess how well Palestinian Arabs managed during their century's e x p o s u r e to p o w e r f u l new forces is to examine the m e c h a n i s m s they developed to sustain them in good times and those they created to weather the hardships.

Notes 1. Y e h o s h u a P o r a t h , The Emergence

of the Palestinian-Arab

National

Movement 1918-1929 (London, 1974), pp. 13-16. 2. Salim Tamari, "Factionalism and Class Formation in Recent Palestinian H i s t o r y , " in Studies

in the Economic

Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1982), p. 179. 3.

and Social

History

of Palestine

M u h a m m a d Y. Muslih, The Origins

of Palestinain

Nationalism

York, 1988), pp. 1-2. 4.

Muslih, The Origins

in the

edited by Roger Owen (Carbondale, 111.,

of Palestinian

Nationalism,

p. 11.

(New

1 ARAB SOCIETY AND ECONOMY IN PALESTINE, 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 3 1

The picture of Arab society in Palestine is ordinarily drawn as a still life. The overwhelming number of Palestinian Arabs are said to have produced food primarily f o r their o w n c o n s u m p t i o n . T o p o g r a p h y and the natural, nonmanipulated availability of water and manpower are thought to have dictated crops. Nature and fortune have determined whether or not subsistence requirements would be met. 1 Palestinian Arab society has been depicted as so totally moribund and static as to be hopelessly immune to domestically inspired change. If the familiar portrait contains elements of truth, it is also limited. T h e years between 1800 and 1831 were volatile, but sufficient agricultural surplus was generated to convince both Ottoman rulers and the local population that tighter control over this area was worth high-stakes conflict. The Palestinian Arab population produced and exchanged its goods and services in many different ways. 2 Diversity characterized not only the patterns of development but also the forces of production that structured these developments. Pitted against one another were local, regional, and imperial interests fighting for control over agricultural products and the process of production. For Ottoman rulers, the beginning of the nineteenth century was charged with tensions resulting from the devastating impact of monetary trends, the shifting of European interests, internal disruptions, administrative abuses, and loss of control over tax revenues. The center of imperial power resided in the sultan, but authority was dispersed among a number of appointed officials. Framed by territorial divisions into provinces (vilayet) and once again into districts (sanjaks), the empire's administrative structure conveyed a sense of consistency. But a map depicting the distribution of political power would have shown clusters of varying dimensions battling against one another and often against the sultan's representatives. Cities and towns constituted centers of provincial authority, but imperial control over the centers and the surrounding countryside was highly variable.

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Politics