Reactions to Dowty’s “The Arab Story” and “The Jewish Story”
1. What are the conceptions that Dowty says many assume to be true about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but he identifies as myths?
Myth
The conflict between the Palestinians and Jews is an “age old” conflict.
Reality
People think that because the land itself has such a long history, that the conflict also much have a long history. Although some of the roots or underlying causes of the conflict can be said to go back thousands of year (the claim of the Jews that the land was given to their forefather Abraham and promised to his descendants), the actual conflict as we know it today only goes back to the end of the 1800s when Jews started to immigrate to Palestine as a result of the Zionist movement.
Myth
The conflict is based on ethnic hatreds.
Reality
Dowty claims (and this claim is disputed by Palestinians) that the Palestinians didn’t have a strong identity as Palestinians or even as Arabs in the late 19th century. In fact, the Zionist claim is that the Palestinians gained their identity as Palestinians and even as Arabs as a result of the conflict with the Jews and not before. The idea that Judaism is an ethnicity and not only a religion was also new at the time that the conflict started and was necessary to claim the land. Jews historically have been treated will in Arab countries.
Myth
The conflict is based on a “clash of religions”.
Reality
Both Judaism and Islam are very tolerant toward the other. Jews in Islam are considered “People of the Book” along with Christians and Judaism accepts Islam as another monotheistic faith. The counter point to this could be that Muhammad expelled three Jewish tribes from Medina and changed the direction of the Qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca soon after his arrival.
Myth
The conflict is an unceasing cycle of violence and cannot be solved.
Reality
Dowty’s main point here is that there have been periods of violence and periods of calm throughout the time of the conflict. He also mentions that there has been economic interaction from the beginning until present day. The fact that violence has not been continuous suggests that a solution is within the realm of possibility.
2. How does Dowty, (in contrast to what he describes as myths) define the conflict? Be specific.
Dowty describes the conflict in three ways: as a territorial conflict where two peoples want the same piece of land, as an ethnic conflict where the objectivity of the territorial conflict is replaced by subjective feelings on both sides toward the other, and a settler conflict where a native population resists the colonizers.
As a territorial conflict, it is objective. Simply put, both sides want the exact same piece of land and for either one to possess it, that means that the other cannot possess it. Neither side can get all of what they want. The source of conflict is tangible, a piece of land.
Although objective reasons are given as the major causes of friction, there are also subjective causes given to the conflict. Whether it was because of the conflict or concurrent with the conflict, both the Palestinians and the Jews have become ethnic groups. For the last 130 years, each side has built up thoughts, feelings, ideas, misperceptions, and dislikes toward the other ethnic group. They are often taught things about the other that are not true or taught to treat the other simply based on their ethnicity. In other words, what started off as an objective issue over land has blossomed into a subjective clash where members of each side are often to simply hate the other just because they are “the enemy”.
The third definition of the conflict is that of a native population resisting a colonizing power. This conflict fits that description because even though the Jews did not come from their own land, they came as a nation and referred to themselves as colonists. The Jews also held beliefs common to other colonizers that their occupation would improve the situation of the native population.
3. In what ways does Dowty says both Palestinian and Israeli nationalist movements were atypical, anomalous, didn’t fit the usual molds of categories?
Israelis
1. They were atypical in their nationalistic movement because they did not have a territorial base. Most other movements of the time were based on an ethnic group striving for recognition as a state. The Jews were minorities in all of the European states and were not located near each other in any way.
2. There was no place in Europe, where most of the Jews lived, that could be considered their homeland even thought they lived in all these places.
Palestinians
3. It is unclear as to whether the national movement in question here is the Palestinian national movement or other Arab national movements. The main enemy of Israel had varied between the Arabs and the Palestinians thoughout their history.
4. Also, according to Dowty, the identity of the Palestinians was only developing during this period of nataionalisation, they did not have the long history of being a political entity that many of the groups seeking nationhood had. Palestine was an area long before it was a political group.
4.What are some of the ways Dowty describes the state of affairs, conditions, in the 19th century Ottoman Empire, that sets the stage or creates circumstances ripe for the conflict in Palestine to emerge (between the two emerging nationalist movements)?
The Ottoman empire was in a state of decline. Dowty states that at the start of Zionist movement the Ottoman empire had lost half of its territory to Russia, France, and Great Britain. Many of its former territories gained or won their independence. Also, the French invasion of Egypt brought a lot of western thought and technology to the region. The European powers were claiming guardianship over their people in the Ottoman lands. This guardianship was called Capitulations. Although they wanted to end these practices, the were unable to do so. The Ottomans didn’t want like the European Jews who came and settled in mass and who could possibly be able to claim guardianship from the European nations in which they came. The Ottoman empire was weak, and had to be rescued during the Crimean War by Britain and France. Since the Ottomans didn’t want another European minority settling in Palestine, which had become a contentious area, and since they were sufficiently weakened, they had little choice but to support their fellow Muslims.
5. What are the broad outlines of “The Jewish Story” that Dowty presents, that trace Jewish self/group identification with the “Land of Israel”? What is the narrative that Dowty presents of how Zionism emerges from within the broader context of Jewish history?
Think about and elaborate of the themes of:
Location/Placement/Displacement
Issue of Sovereign/Minority Status
Persecution
Nationalism
Dowty talks about how the Jews have one of the longest histories as a people, going back to Abraham around 4000 years ago. Abraham settled in the land of Canaan, present day Palestine, and therefore they consider this land their homeland. Although there have always been a small amount of Jews in Palestine, they were mainly scattered historically. What would be considered the center of Jewish culture moved from Babylon to Spain to the Ottoman Empire to Eastern Europe and others. Jews were continually expelled from the places that they lived, even though they may have been originally welcomed into these places and often times held high positions in society. Although they were a nation, they never had a national home. They held minority status in every single country in which they lived and often became scapegoats when things in the society went poorly. Each time they were expelled, they found new places to live, only to be persecuted in the new countries.
Eventually it started to become clear that unless something was done, the Jewish nation would continue to be a persecuted minority in whichever country they lived, exposed to the whims of the government. Assimilation into society because less attractive as time after time, assimilated Jews became persecuted as the nature of the society changed. Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was prompted to seek a national homeland for Jews in the aftermath of just such an event, a fully assimilated French Jew was wrongly accused of treason as a result of anti-semitism.
While being continually persecuted, the Jews also saw how many ethnic groups were gaining independence as nationalistic feelings swept over Europe. The Jews felt the right to their own nation as well, especially since their heritage went back much farther then many of the other groups that were becoming nations. At the same time, they realized that it would be harder and harder to be minorities in these newly formed nations. Jews were continuing to suffer at the hands of European nations and more and more, Jews were realizing that assimilation was not the answer.
This is the stage where Jews start to move back to Palestine. Before the official Zionist movement, there are several movements to start settling Jews in Palestine to create a national homeland. These movements are a reflection of the disillusionment with attempts to live as minorities in other countries where sooner or later, anti-semitism always seems to come to the surface.
6. What are the broad outlines of “The Arab Story” that Dowty traces in his account of how Arabs and then a collective group that self-identifies as Palestinians come to be in Palestine, with connection to and claims for the land, for nationhood?
Think about and elaborate on:
Arab/Islamic expansion
Grandeur
Ottoman Empire – state of affairs, shift of collective identity paradigms
Nationalism/s – different forms of collective identities that emerge
The Arabs, the original inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula transformed themselves from a conglomeration of non-affiliated tribes to a major empire in a matter of only about 15 years. Their rise was unparalleled in world history. Not only did Islam rise to become an empire, but for hundreds of years it was the world leader in culture and civilization. From the Muslim lands came world changing innovation in the fields of literature, language, education, philosophy, theology, math, science, medicine, art, and geography. It was a civilization of which anyone would be proud to be a part. The Muslim traders saw worlds that the Europeans at the time only dreamed of. Their cities were the jewels of the world, the first universities were established, innovations in math that are fundamental to mathematics come from this time. They drew on the achievements of the Greeks, Aramics, Byzantines, Persians, and Indians and then continued to creatively push forward their civilization. At this time, European culture paled in comparison.
The power of the Ottoman Empire at this time was waning considerably. By the time the French conquered Egypt in 1798, it was a foregone conclusion that the Ottoman Empire was not the powerhouse that it had once been. They attempted to reform but it was too late. As a response to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, people began to consider where their identities lay. Pan Islam, which is a call to unite the Islamic world to face the new challenges was considered. Some people thought that the solution to these foreign challenges was more local. It is at this time that the residents of this area began to think of themselves as “Arabs” or as “Palestinians”. The term “Arab” came to be used not just for inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, but for all Arabic speakers. This is Pan Arabism. This was threatening to the Sultan, who was the Caliph. This nationalistic Arab movement even talked about overthrowing the Sultan and eventually help in this cause during WWI. Their identity became Arab instead of Ottoman.
The Palestinians began to feel their identities as Palestinians at about the same time that other Arab countries began their nationalistic movements. Dowty is careful to state though that the Palestinian identity did not develop as a result of Zionism even though it was in its early stages at about the time that Zionism was starting. The nationalistic feelings of the Palestinians started before that.
The fact that the nationalism of the Palestinians and the nationalism of the Jews occurs at roughly the same time is partly bad timing but partly based on the fact that the factors that brought them about are the same. The late 1800s was a time when nations in Europe as well as in the Middle East were wrestling with their identities.