Dan Rabinowitz

RECONFIGURING THE “MIXED TOWN”: URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF ETHNONATIONAL RELATIONS IN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL

Studies of Middle Eastern urbanism have traditionally been guided by a limited repertoire of tropes, many of which emphasize antiquity, confinement, and religiosity. Notions of the old city, the walled city, the casbah, the native quarter, and the medina, sometimes subsumed in the quintessential “Islamic city,” have all been part of Western scholarships long-standing fascination with the region. Etched in emblematic “holy cities” like Jerusalem, Mecca, or Najaf, Middle Eastern urban space is heavily associated with the “sacred,” complete with mystical visions and assumptions of violent eschatologies and redemption.

Postnational Palestine/Israel? Globalization, Diaspora, Transnationalism, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The early part of the 1990s saw considerable euphoric hope amongst mainstream Israelis and Palestinians for an arrangement that would bring the conflict to an end. While much of this was obviously linked to the spirit of reconciliation that was apparent in the 1993 Oslo accord, the latter part of the decade exposed some fundamental structural flaws in the negotiating process that emerged following that accord. In this essay I look at these flaws, as well as at alternative solutions, from a critical theoretical perspective informed by globalization theory and the discourse of transnationalism in anthropology. First I examine critically the national order of things-the modernist nation-state logic that guides the Oslo-Wye process towards the solution of two separate states. This trajectory, I argue, is not viable on both theoretical and opera-

Strife in Nazareth Struggles Over the Religious Meaning of Place

This article is an ethnographic account of the two-year siege by Muslim activists of the plot adjoining a shrine in Nazareth, and the ensuing efforts by a variety of local, regional and national players to bring the crisis to a peaceful resolution before the historic visit of Pope John Paul II in March 2000. It documents the efficacy of the consecration of space by personal sacrifice and collective passion, and demonstrates the roles played by local history, demography, class and politics in struggles over the meaning of place.

Race from the Bottom of the Tribe That Never Was: Segmentary Narratives Amongst the Ghawarna of Galilee

Members of a low-status Arab group in Galilee, said to be of Bedouin origins and known by neighboring Palestinians as Ghawarna (sing. Ghorani), recently tend to play down this affiliation, some to the extent of denying that a group called Ghawarna ever existed. This phenomenon is evaluated against the better-known tendency in Arab cultures to embellish, glorify, and sometimes invent a unified past. A distinction is made between competition at the top of the social scale--which tends to stress noble descent--and struggle to escape the bottom, which may hinge on undoing pejorative associations. The article suggests that the ideology of blood ties and the social hierarchy that it engenders within and between groups and tribes in Arab culture are perhaps less uniform and constant than hitherto assumed. Finally, the case of the Ghwarna and their (denied) genealogy is contextualized within the political predicament of Palestinian citizens of Israel, particularly those who were displaced in 1948.

The Right to Refuse: Abject Theory and the Return of Palestinian Refugees

The Palestinian claim for the right of refugees to return to places from which they were displaced in 1948 and the notion that return, if implemented, might bring them back to areas now part of Israel within the Green Line touch raw nerves for Palestinians and Israelis alike.1 Measures to redress the tragedy of Palestinian refugees, once implemented, could have far-reaching practical consequences for many and could redefine the

Belated Occupation, Advanced Militarization: Edward Said’s Critique of the Oslo Process Revisited

The late 1980s and the 1990s stand out as one of the most fateful phases in the history of the conflict over Israel/Palestine. It is also the one least properly understood. Starting in late 1987 with the intifada, the first significant Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, it was initially shaped by the resolution of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Algiers (1988) to adopt a formula for a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine. EdwardW.Said,whowasa close adviser to Yasir Arafat at that stage, played a crucial role in bringing the PNC to make this historic leap. Inmany ways this resolution represents the zenith of Said’s power to influence major political processes as they unfolded. The first GulfWar and the international conference inMadrid that came in its aftermath in 1991 had Israel, under a right-wing Likud government, negotiating publiclywith Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and, indirectly,withaPalestinian delegation. This signaled the start of a decade that many still associate with hope for lasting peace but that has since become consumed by and (con)fused with the violence that has defined the region since September 2000. Conventional wisdom in Israel and the United States suggests that the phased withdrawals of Israel, agreed to and partly executed as part of the Madrid-Oslo process between 1991 and 1999, as well as the attempts to reach a final settlement at Camp David in 2000, were steps in the right direction woefully subverted by irrational, primordial ethnic hatred and religious extremism. But anyone who was prepared to listen to Said’s views of the process as it began unfolding in the 1990s had to be skeptical. A retrospective, counterfactual revisitation today of Said’s comments on the Oslo process

Community Studies: Anthropological

The term ‘community’ has been used by anthropology in a variety of ways and contexts. On a concrete ethnographic level, ‘community’ and ‘community studies’ have two main denotations. One is generic, echoing the interest anthropology and anthropologists have always had in ordinary, stable, small-scale localized collectives. The other pertains to studies of rural populations (e.g., villages, parishes, counties) and urban enclaves (e.g., neighborhoods and quarters) within industrialized, developed Western countries. Analytically, the term tends to denote a syndrome rather than an accurately defined phenomenon. Used in various periods and within different theoretical orientations in reference to territorially based units, professional circles, solidarity groups and informal sociocultural amalgams, it could imply permanent collections with well-defined boundaries as well as loosely defined and transient formations. The efficacy of the term ‘community’ as an interpretative tool was rather limited prior to the 1970s. New anthropological and ethnographic vistas since, however, have imbued it with more theoretical currency. It became, for example, a significant element in new anthropological tool-boxes developed for the analysis of rural groups in the northern, southern, and western margins of Europe. Later it found new uses as anthropologists began grappling with the need to conceptualize and historicize transnational social formations in a globalizing world.

Beyond Recognition: Staggered Limited Return of Palestinians Into Israel

A comprehensive, just and viable settlement of the tragedy of Palestinian refugees that will enjoy wide support within the Palestinian and the Israeli publics is a sine qua non for a sustainable peace settlement. Most on both sides, however, perceive the issue as an existential zero sum game in which the losing side might have its entire national project in jeopardy. Involving tangible matters such as territorial rights, demographic majority and political control, the notion of Palestinian return also raises fundamental aspects of identity on both sides. A sensible solution will thus have to take on board a host of symbolic elements, including notions of justice, guilt, responsibility, redress and forgiveness.