Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine

Preface

Preface This book has been in the making for quite a few years, but never in a vacuum. No writing of history takes place in a vacuum, and certainly not in Israel/Palestine. New questions have emerged, new perspectives , new insights, as circumstances have constantly changed. Even the words have taken on different meanings. I began this study at the height of the Intifada, and continued it as the peace accord between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization was signed in 1993. It was a period of hope and expectation for far-reaching, though probably not immediate, change. My study of the past, of the pre-state Mandatory period, increased my awareness of the radical change taking place. For the first time in the long Arab-Jewish / Israeli conflict, the recognized Jewish / Israeli leadership negotiated directly and openly with the Palestinian leadership, chosen and recognized by its people. The complex of rejection-recognition-cooptation-manipulation, which was woven into the relations I studied, appeared to be changing, and a tentative, precarious move toward mutual acceptance could be felt. But not for long. Yitzhak Rabin, who symbolized both the shift and its precariousness , was murdered. Negotiations continued, but lost so much of their deeper significance. During this long and complex period we, Israeli Jews, have been faced with questions, doubts, and dilemmas. We questioned the legitimacy of our present position in Israel/Palestine as a land, and toward the Palestinians as a people, thus leading to our questioning and querying the legitimacy of our past. Were new alternatives being offered? Had there been alternatives in the formative past? Were there courses that could have been taken? These questions instructed much of my work. At times, as I "roamed" through the past among the archive files, attempting to hear-decipher-reconstruct voices of the various actors, I sensed an uncanny familiarity. And in turn, much around me appeared to reproduce patterns and relations of the past. The construction of boundaries, which I study in this book, left a deep legacy, riveted with xvi PREFACE tension and contradiction, that, ideally, we will be able to face in the coming years. Friends and colleagues followed my work with interest and encouragement . Many of my colleagues read chapters of the manuscript at various stages of writing. I would especially like to thank Nurit BirdDavid , Yoram Carmeli, Gad Gilbar, Gustavo Mesch, Uri Ram, Paul Ritterband , Henry Rosenfeld, Yossi Shavit, Zvi Sobel, Michael Saltman, Han Talmud, and Yuval Yonay. I benefited from their comments and insight . The Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Haifa offered much support and help when necessary, as did the Faculty of Social Science and the Research Authority of the University of Haifa. I would also like to thank the students who assisted me, most especially Nehama Offir, Fadi Nahas, Nuha Rouhana, and Dana Weiss. I would like to extend thanks to the workers of the many archives where I carried out my research, and especially to Yael Tadmor and Han Gal-Peer of the Labor Archive of the Lavon Institute in Tel Aviv. I would also like to thank Judy Hill for her careful, caring, and conscientious editing of the manuscript. And finally, I would like to thank the Israel Foundation Trustees for the grant that enabled the research for this book, and the Research Authority of the University of Haifa for the additional financial support. Figure 1. View of Haifa from Mount Carmel, circa 1930. Constructing Boundaries ...