Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Hardcover

Marcus, Amy Dockser

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670038369 ISBN 13: 9780670038367

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2007

Synopsis

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist author of The View from Nebo examines the formation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, demonstrating that it began earlier than popularly believed while discussing the role played by Zionism, Arab nationalism, and World War I.

About this title

About the Author

Amy Dockser Marcus is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who from 1991 to 1998 was based in Israel as the paperÂ’s Middle East correspondent. She was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

Reviews

In Ottoman Jerusalem, families of different religions picnicked together at popular shrines and vouched for each other at the bank; Muslims and Jews were business partners and neighbors; and Arab children dressed in costumes for the Jewish holiday of Purim. How then did this city of ethnic diversity become a crucible of sectarian conflict? Marcus (The View from Nebo), a Pulitzer-winning former Wall Street Journal correspondent, focuses on the year 1913 as a turning point, when leaders at the Zionist Congress argued for both cultural and demographic domination of Palestine, while at the same time Jews and Arabs were negotiating a possible peace. Marcus also highlights three men who helped shape the destiny of the future Israeli capital. Albert Antebi was a non-Zionist Syrian Jew who advocated for Jewish economic solvency and strong relationships with Muslims; ardent Zionist Arthur Ruppin directed the establishment of Jewish settlements; and Ruhi Khalidi, a prominent Muslim , although not an Arab nationalist, actively opposed Jewish immigration and land purchases. Marcus masterfully brings a Jerusalem of almost a century ago to pungent life, and her political dissection of the era is lucid and well-meaning although she never explains the gulf between moderate Muslims of 1913 and today's Islamist and radical movements. (Apr. 23)
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Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, veteran Middle East correspondent Marcus highlights 1913 as a year when neighborly relations in Jerusalem took a serious turn for the worse. That was the year of the eleventh Zionist congress in Vienna, at which strategies for purchasing land in Palestine transformed into a massive international fund-raising effort and a muscular Jewish nationalism; it was the year Ottoman parliamentarian Ruhi Khalidi wrote Zionism or the Zionist Question, which anticipated nationalistic strife and urged Arabs to hold onto their land. That was also the year a dispute over stolen grapes descended into armed conflict in Rehovot, a Jewish settlement near Jaffa. Although touted as a challenge to the conventional historical narrative of the conflict, which tends to focus on the British Mandate of 1920-48, Marcus' book is ultimately more concerned with bringing to life Khalidi and other key personalities and reminding us that there was a time in this century when shared traditions and communal space trumped ideological partisanship in Jerusalem. Both tasks are done with the same perceptive analysis and graceful prose that won her a Pulitzer in 2005 for her reportage on cancer survivors. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670038369
• ISBN 13: 9780670038367
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240