Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

by Amy Dockser Marcus Narrated by Joyce Bean

Overview

Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, historians for years focused on the British Mandate period (1920-1948). Amy Dockser Marcus, however, demonstrates that the bloody struggle for power actually started much earlier, when Jerusalem was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism laid the groundwork for the battles that would continue to rage nearly a century later.



Nineteen thirteen was the crucial year for these conflicts-the year that the Palestinians held the First Arab Congress and the first time that secret peace talks were held between Zionists and Palestinians. World War I, however, interrupted these peace efforts.



Dockser Marcus traces these dramatic times through the lives of a handful of the city's leading citizens as they struggle to survive. A current events must read in our ongoing efforts to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Editorial Reviews

San Francisco Chronicle

A richly insightful, highly readable, and acutely felt offering, one that is also critical and even handed . . . a page-turning, heartbreaking narrative.

Publishers Weekly

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 Journalcorrespondent, 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)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A searching contribution to the history of the troubles in Palestine by Wall Street Journal reporter and former Middle East correspondent Marcus. Many Western historians locate the birth of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the British Mandate, which governed Palestine from 1920 to 1948. Marcus pushes the date back to 1913, when the Zionist movement had established itself in Palestine and begun to enlist European settlers, mostly from Russia. One recruiting device, a film by Russian Zionist Noah Sokolovsky of the Jewish enterprise, conveyed "a pulsing nationalism that did not need words or sound to vividly express itself." Arab leaders, naturally, were wary of such expressions of nationalism, and as the Zionist presence grew and with it Arab resentment, the previously broadly agreed upon "notion of a country made up of various peoples united by a common identity seemed to be receding." To the credit of both, the Zionist and Arab leadership made efforts at detente, or perhaps even entente, during an international conference devoted to dismantling the Ottoman Empire. However, the growing numbers of Jews in the Arab land spawned violence and terrorist actions; the infamous "Rehovot incident" sharply divided the two camps, and with that came an end to the idea that a multiethnic secular state might emerge once the Ottomans left. Leaders such as the German-born attorney Arthur Ruppin foresaw that the problem would only grow, and he encouraged the development of the kibbutz system and Jewish settlements that were located close to one another for easier defense, quickening the pace of land acquisition and with it Jewish immigration. Interestingly, Marcus notes, the Turkish government recentlyreleased some 14,000 pages of documents related to land sales in and around Jerusalem. "It wasn't clear yet what the archive would reveal," she writes, "but the shadow cast by 1913 seemed to loom ever larger over the city's future."A thoughtful, well-written addition to the literature on a bitterly debated subject.

From the Publisher

"A richly insightful, highly readable, and acutely felt offering, one that is also critical and even handed . . . a page-turning, heartbreaking narrative."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"Marcus masterfully brings a Jerusalem of almost a century ago to pungent life, and her political dissection of the era is lucid."
-Publishers Weekly

OCT/NOV 07 - AudioFile

The year 1913 marks the approximate time the conflict between the Jews and Palestinians began, as Zionists moved to their ancient Holy Land before WWI. The polemic subject and its history have become vital to understanding today’s clashes in the Middle East. Joyce Bean takes the author’s lead by making it a story about people, and her inflections make the principals seem human without giving them theatrical characters. Her motherly voice disarms a subject so controversial it has caused unending war. Because the author is a woman, one can feel Bean speaks for Marcus in a story she has worked hard to research, some from personal experience. Since much of the Jewish State’s beginnings aren’t current wisdom, listeners will feel better informed. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170821594
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	03/15/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

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