The Palestinian People: A History by Baruch Kimmerling (PDF)

Description

In a timely reminder of how the past informs the present, Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal offer an authoritative account of the history of the Palestinian people from their modern origins to the Oslo peace process and beyond.Palestinians struggled to create themselves as a people from the first revolt of the Arabs in Palestine in 1834 through the British Mandate to the impact of Zionism and the founding of Israel. Their relationship with the Jewish people and the State of Israel has been fundamental in shaping that identity, and today Palestinians find themselves again at a critical juncture. In the 1990s cornerstones for peace were laid for eventual Palestinian-Israeli coexistence, including mutual acceptance, the renunciation of violence as a permanent strategy, and the establishment for the first time of Palestinian self-government. But the dawn of the twenty-first century saw a reversion to unmitigated hatred and mutual demonization. By mid-2002 the brutal violence of the Intifada had crippled Palestine’s fledgling political institutions and threatened the fragile social cohesion painstakingly constructed after 1967. Kimmerling and Migdal unravel what went right–and what went wrong–in the Oslo peace process, and what lessons we can draw about the forces that help to shape a people. The authors present a balanced, insightful, and sobering look at the realities of creating peace in the Middle East.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “This remarkable book recounts how the Palestinians came to be constituted as a people. The authors offer perceptive observations on the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the successes and failures of the Oslo process, and the prospects for both Palestinians and Israelis of achieving a peaceful future together. A dispassionate and balanced analysis that provides essential background for understanding the complexities of the Middle East.”―Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago“A fine general history of the Palestinians now usefully updated with a history of the decade after Oslo.”―L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs“This new history updates [Baruch Kimmerling’s and Joel S. Midgdal’s] 1993 book, Palestinians: The Making of a People, with two new analyses, one judging the effect of the Oslo peace talks and another focusing on the difficult situation of the Palestinians in Israel…In their preface, the authors immediate reject both the common claim by Palestinians that their history as a “singular people” reaches back to ancient times and the Israeli denial of any such entity before it was created by Zionist successes. Instead a “self-identified Palestinian people” evolved only in the last two centuries, as a result of European economic and political pressures and of Jewish settlement…An excellent chronology and full notes enhance a book that deserves the widest possible readership.”―Frank Day, Magill’s Literary Annual About the Author Baruch Kimmerling was George S. Wise Professor of Sociology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto.Joel S. Migdal is Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies, University of Washington.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This book is a very detailed and comprehensive history of the Palestinian people. The most comprehensive I have yet to come across. The authors have written a very objective history of these people from the early 19th century to the beginnings of the 21st century. It is this objectivity that makes this book such an important read.The authors begin in the early 19th century detailing these people’s story from their encounters under the Ottoman Empire to their encounter with the Egyptian forces of Muhammad Ali into their first encounters with Zionism. The authors begin at this time to show readers that, while these people were still subjects of other powers, they still had a separate identity from those who ruled from far away. While the Palestinian identity was not solidified by any means, the identity of the people from this area was distinct.One of the fascinating things that this book really brought to light for me was just how instrumental the contact with Zionism was in forging and melding these people into a people. While there was a distinct culture, the people were varied and disparate depending on the differing locales. It took an encounter with a sophisticated philosophy backed by a highly motivated people to shake the Palestinians from there complacency and internecine fighting. Of course it is usually through such trials and tribulations that an identity is truly formed.Even more this book really helped me tie together much of the histories I have been reading. The bookstores are filled with histories of Zionism and the state of Israel, but it is somewhat difficult to find well written histories of the Palestinians. So I found this book to be a welcome respite from the Israeli or Western perspective. In writing solely from the Palestinian perspective this book has helped to balance my own perspective.This book has a very good break down of the accomplishments and failures of Oslo, and show the reader the how and why for the eventual breakdown of these negotiations. It is an objective account showing the reader that there is more than enough blame to go around.The authors also do a good job detailing the gaps between the two peoples. Whether it be Israel’s need for security and lack of faith in the Palestinians desire or their leaders ability to give them that peace, or whether it is the Palestinians inability to trust Israel to be an honest broker and deliver on promises while they continue to build settlements and increase their hold on disputed territories, the basic, fundamental problem is lack of trust and transparency. Unfortunately both side’s societies are now fractured, and lacking of a much needed trusted leadership. Whether it is Israel’s inability to keep a government for more than a couple of years or the continued infighting, and near civil war, neither side seems poised to take the very hard steps to move forward for peace. Unfortunately if this book tells us anything it is the likelihood of much more violence and bloodshed.If you are looking to understand this conflict then this book is an essential part of that understanding. I highly recommend this powerful book.

⭐I am very pro-Israel and tend to have a negative view of the Palestinians, but this book went a long way toward arousing my sympathy for this admittedly oppressed and dispossessed people. Nevertheless, I still maintain that most of the Palestinians’ problems are self-inflicted, caused by their adamant refusal to accept peaceful coexistence with Israel. It is startling and much to the authors’ credit that such a sympathetic book was written by two Jews; I can’t help wondering if a Palestinian author would be capable of the same even-handed treatment toward Israel. I also think that if Muslims complain loudly of Western imperialism, it is only because Western imperialism has proven stronger than Islamic imperialism. My sympathy only goes so far, even after reading this book.

⭐Interesting, detailed, somewhat slanted but an important read, especially for those of us who support Zionism. There is another side to the conflict, which we need to hear and take into account. Our national selfishness is challenged boy this book.

⭐If only had I read the preface before buying the book. They wrote that “We have relied largely on published material” and “Only in a few instances did we fill in gaps by collecting new statistics or using unpublished documents.” Their premise that “…the construction of a people or of a nation is an ongoing process that lacks defining, ‘founding’ moments in history’ excuses the historical sources and events in their book that demonstrate a people divided among themselves without the core of unity demanded to form a nation-state.

⭐Used the book for educational purposes..

⭐Very clever

⭐This book is an attempted history of the national consciousness of the Palestinians. Its focus is on what Palestinians felt about what was happening to them and how they saw themselves. For this reason, it deals rather little with events. The reader is assumed to know already the historical facts. The authors’ effort involves certain assumptions which in the end cripple their work.Chapter 1 sets out the initial premise: (implicitly) the Palestinians are a people seeking national liberation, and their history from about 1800 is about the attempt to gain freedom. The history of Arab consciousness in the region, the authors contend, is defined by three revolts: in 1834, a revolt of the hill peasantry against the Egyptian government, which had seized Palestine from the Ottomans; from 1936 to 1939, a revolt against the Mandatory government; and beginning in 1987, the First and Second Intifada, still in progress at the time of writing in 2002.But the revolt of 1834 was really anti-modern, concerning only military conscription and taxes, and resulted from the intrusive government of the Egyptians. At this time, both Ottomans and Egyptians sought to modernize. The revolt was crushed in a few months. The return of Palestine to the Ottoman Empire in 1840 was facilitated by Great Britain, which had its own reasons for assisting the Ottomans. It is hard to see in the revolt the significance the authors see.The rest of Chapter 1 is a synoptic presentation of modernization in Palestine, as a consequence of this atavistic revolt. The authors describe economic growth: agricultural products found foreign markets, peasants left their land and migrated west to the coastal plain in search of greater economic opportunities, new land-ownership regulations appeared, and Zionist settlement began. The authors concede reluctantly that there is little evidence that peasants were being dispossessed in any significant numbers by Jewish land purchases, although their presentation is not very clear. Overall economic changes made it much more difficult to make a living as a peasant, but there were new jobs for factory workers.Chapter 2 deals with economic and social changes but in more detail than Chapter 1 and in the context of a growing nationalism. Again the authors suggest that Jewish economic activity displaced that of Arabs, but the economy was expanding rapidly anyway. Even if Jews were getting more of the pie, a bigger pie was being baked all the time. There is a discussion of emerging nationalism as expressed in literature and in the agitation of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the nationalist who led a brief peasant revolt just before the Arab Revolt of 1939-1939.The following chapters are more like a conventional history but with an extremely slanted viewpoint, occasionally qualified by clauses indicating that additional facts are relevant but that that was not how the Palestinians saw it. This is the natural result of writing the history of a national consciousness. An example: the chapter “The Meaning of Disaster” (on the war of 1947-49) does not mention that the war was initiated by Palestinians. In fact, most of the violent disturbances from the Mandatory period and later were initiated by Palestinians: Tel Hai (1920), Nebi Musa (1921), the Western Wall (1929), the Arab Revolt (1936). One of the authors (Kimmerling) is a sociologist, so I should think this tendency to violence would be of some interest.This ambivalence about violence comes out in connection with the terrorist acts of the 70s. I quote:” … the [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] initiated a series of “external operations”. The most spectacular by far were the airplane hjackings. These and other acts … made the Palestinian issue a media event, pushing it to the top of the world political agenda ….Within Palestinian society, they offered new heroes and a sense of power. … Among Palestinians everywhere, there was a renewed sense of pride and autonomy …” (p. 257)If that’s how “Palestinians everywhere” saw hijackings endangering innocent people, why should anyone care about them?The last two chapters, written in 2002, on what went right and what went wrong at Oslo often show the same pro-Palestinian bias. The authors state (in agreement with Edward Said) that the Accords gave too much away to Israel at the start. But Israel can’t be expected to begin a negotiation by immediately giving up the West Bank.A “Conclusion” chapter at the end concedes that the Palestinians are still uncertain of their wants, even how big their state should be — one state or two? “Beyond the question of territorial scope is that of the sort of authority and power a new Palestinian state should have.” (p. 405) The refugees have not given up the hope of retuning to their homes, even though nearly all of them have been demolished. Even the virtues of democracy itself are in doubt. Like eternal adolescents, the Palestinians still don’t know what they want to be.

⭐This is the best one-volume history of the Palestinians I’m aware of.It was written by an American and an Israeli,and it is refreshingly objective and accurate,rare qualities in a field dominated by distortion,emotion and propaganda.The book starts in the 19th century,with a Palestinian uprising against the Ottoman Empire and it’s subsequent defeat,The main theme of the book is that Palestinian self-awareness and nationalism has emerged through more or less forced encounters with the outside world-the anti-Ottoman uprising,the First World War,the 1936-39 revolt,the Second World War,”The Catastrophe” (as the Palestinians refer to the founding of Israel and the expulsion of many of the Palestinians from Mandate Palestine)and on into the modern era-the 1967 war,the first and second intifadas,the rise and fall of the PLO and Fatah.Over all of this is the confrontation between Zionist settlement,both before and after 1948,and Palestinian society.The authors make it clear that in many ways,Palestinian nationalism came about as a reaction to Zionism,it was very fuzzy and ill-defined prior to this.Even more ironic,just as Zionism emerged from the experience of Jewish exile,so Palestian nationalism is a product of exile since 1948.The last chapter tries to focus on Oslo and after (1993-2004)and how and why the fabled peace process and the second intifada interacted with each other to produce deadlock,even though a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians,at least according to opinion polls)would prefer a negotiated settlement.Great book.I read the original edition,I don’t know if there’s been a revised or updated edition.

⭐Good!

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