The peoples of Sinkiang

This article gives a comprehensive overview of the genesis of the current crisis in Yemen, from the pre-1990 situation to the March 2015 airstrikes on Yemen by Saudi Arabia. The author dissects the country's party politics, the Yemen Spring, the north-south divide, and the development of Huthi power from a regional insurgency in the early 2000s to being able to launch a full coup in February 2015. He also discusses the long-term impact of the crisis, including economic collapse, the impact on oil production, the terrorist threat, and the prospects for foreign intervention.     

A Convergence of Political Interests: Isi Leibler,the Communist Party of Australia and Soviet Anti‐Semitism, 1964‐66

During the period from 1964 to 1966, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) moved from a position of denying the existence of anti‐Semitism in the Soviet Union to voicing open public criticisms of Soviet policies towards its Jewish minority. These criticisms were unprecedented for an official Communist Party, and had considerable influence on the international communist movement. This paper explores the negotiations between Jewish community leader Isi Leibler and the CPA which induced these criticisms. It is argued that Leibler negotiated with the CPA on two fronts: official dialogue with the elected Sydney‐based CPA leadership, and unofficial private discussions — which can arguably be termed secret collusion — with other senior CPA officials in Melbourne. These unofficial discussions seem to have been crucial in shifting the CPA from its traditional position.     

FROM CHAOS TO CHAOS: SOUTH YEMEN 50 YEARS AFTER THE BRITISH DEPARTURE

Fifty years after the British departure the future of South Arabia or South Yemen is just as uncertain as it was on 30 November 1967, when the People's Republic of South Yemen (PRSY) came into existence. The old order was swept away in the revolutionary tide of the mid- 20^th century to be replaced by a Marxist state. Yet, within less than 23 years the new order was undermined by unresolved issues inherited from South Arabia and led to an ill-prepared union with the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in 1990. Today, after over two and half years of war, Yemen is fragmenting and one outcome might be the return of a southern state which will have to confront the same unresolved issues. Are southerners Yemenis or South Yemenis? Can institutions be created to overcome tribal and regional differences with the South? Can a viable economy be created in a country with so few natural resources? This article provides a history of the region and the conflicts of the last 50 years, along with a consideration of the present situation and a discussion of the enduring issues.     

David Ben-Gurion and the ‘Demographic Threat’: His Dualistic Approach to Natalism, 1936–63

This article illuminates one of the many facet of Ben-Gurion's leadership that had an impact on his public image – his stance on fertility and childbirth, during the years 1936–63. The article outlining Ben-Gurion's thoughts on the birthrate in Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel, analyse the developments in his views over the years and the reasons for it. His perception of the Jewish national importance of boosting the birthrate grew over time in keeping with historical developments and the soaring natural increase of the Arabs. In the first stage, births were important to him due to the need to create a Jewish majority that would pave the way for a Jewish state. In the second stage, once this goal had been achieved, it was out of concern for the security and stability of the state – in this stage, however, he built his leadership as a prime minister of all Israel citizens, including the Arabs. The analysis demonstrates, therefore, that Ben-Gurion's approach was characterized by dualism. The reasons for this dualism as well as Ben-Gurion's image as a ‘godfather of fertility’ are the focal point of this article.     

The arithmetic of rights: Zionist intellectuals imagining the Arab minority May–July 1938

ABSTRACT

This article examines Zionist debates regarding the status of the Arab minority in the Jewish State following the Royal Commission's recommendation to partition Palestine. Three conclusions arise from the debates: first, that the Zionist leadership regarded the civil and political rights of the Arab minority to be dependent on the power equilibrium between Jews and Arabs in all of Palestine. Second, the Zionist leaders imagined the Jewish State as a parliamentary democracy, but argued that a democratic regime should be created only after a Jewish majority had been achieved. Finally, because democracy in the Jewish State – including minority rights – was dependent on the creation of a Jewish majority, Zionist plans to transfer Arabs out of the Jewish State were not considered by them to be undemocratic, but rather a precondition to the creation of a Jewish and democratic state.     

美国基督教锡安主义及其对美以关系的影响

基督教锡安主义的发展适时地弥补了冷战后期及后冷战时期犹太院外集团对美国的以色列政策乃至整个中东政策游说能力的弱化。美国犹太群体对基督教锡安主义的态度经历了从排斥到逐渐接受的过程,这与美国犹太群体内部的分化及日渐保守化的趋向密不可分。基督教锡安主义者对美国的以色列政策的影响在小布什政府时期表现得最为突出。随着小布什政府后期新保守主义者的失势,基督教锡安主义对这一领域的影响也有所减弱。     

A tribe and its states: Yemen’s 1972 Bayḥan massacre revisited

Across the Middle East, tribes and states have entered into different relationships. In many countries, tribes were confronted with massive attempts at interference by their respective states. The northern Yemeni Republic, in contrast, remained a weak state with little coercive instruments at its disposal. Its rule was rather based on indirect means: the politics of patronage, the politicization of development efforts, and the exploitation of tribal conflict. This article aims to look closer into state-tribe relations in Yemen by reviewing the power struggle between the Khawlan al-Tiyal tribe and the republican government. In 1972, the regional ramifications of this struggle culminated in the so-called ‘Bayhan massacre’ whose legacy continues to resonate across tribal Yemen today. The Khawlan case gives evidence of how power and legitimacy in republican Yemen remained, and still remain, largely contingent on the politics of co-optation and patronage, an endemic feature that comes at the expense of real institution building.     

East sees east: the image of Jews from Islamic countries in the Jewish discourse of interwar Poland

This article explores travel pieces on Jews in Islamic countries published in the Jewish press (in Yiddish and Polish) in interwar Poland. It argues that many of the strategies of representation that Polish–Jewish journalists employed to describe the Jews of Islamic countries during this time borrow from the way the Jews of Eastern Europe were perceived. Turning the Western gaze on the Orient served Eastern European Jewish intellectuals as an act of multiple redemption. Finding themselves in between modern and traditional identification, Polish–Jewish journalists decided to ensure their belonging to the world which they saw as civilised by transposing concepts they knew from home.     

A letter from Iraq: the writing of Iraqi correspondents in al-ʿAlam al-ʾIsraʾili and Israʾil

The most extensive participation of Jews in the literary Arabic revival (The Nahda) was in monarchial Iraq. Jewish Intellectuals had contributed to the development of national Iraqi culture. These intellectuals have been studied in the context of the non-Jewish Iraqi intellectuals, focusing on their national and cultural integration in the new Iraqi state. This article observes the participation of those intellectuals in two non-Iraqi Jewish journals which were published in literary Arabic, Isra?il, published in Cairo, and al-?Alam al-Isra?ili, published in Beirut. By changing the point of view from Iraqi Jews in the non-Jewish Iraqi cultural sphere to Iraqi Jews in a non-Iraqi Jewish cultural sphere, the article examines their relation between Iraqi identity and the national Jewish identity.     

The Jewish neighbourhoods of Jaffa and the question of annexation to Tel Aviv at the end of the British Mandate

One of the most complex issues facing British rule on the local municipal level towards the end of the Mandate period was the problem of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods. This question, which emerged with the outbreak of the 1936 disturbances, engaged the government thereafter until the end of the Mandate. The demand by the residents of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods for annexation to Tel Aviv – actually for municipal detachment from Jaffa – constituted the root of the problem. In this setting of the sharpening of relations between the authorities and the Jews and Arabs in 1945–1947, all three involved parties found themselves deeply immersed in it in the attempt to bring about its resolution. The annexation problem ceaselessly preoccupied the institutions of the Jewish Yishuv as a Zionist–Yishuv struggle of the highest order. This period gave rise to a series of unprecedented moves by the Jewish side, which were intended to influence the British government toward solving the problem. The article examines its development of the problem from the viewpoint of the three sides concerned in the years 1945–1947, with the focus on the policy line adopted by the Jewish side, its implications and its results.     

Bedouin-Jewish Relations in the Negev 1943–1948

On the foundation of the first Jewish settlements in the Negev, at the start of the 1940s, the Bedouins welcomed the Jewish settlers. The local personal connections and mutual acquaintance between them created a feeling of closeness. The symbiosis of daily life and mutual help in the fields of personal needs, from medicine to transport, replaced their mutual fears.

However, two factors quickly changed this attitude. The first was a severe drought, which struck the Negev in the winter of 1947, and brought with it a difficult economic situation, followed by several robberies and disputes, and damage to property. The second factor was the incessant encouragement given by the leaders of the Palestinian National Movement to the Bedouins to join the struggle against the Jewish population, especially after the UN decision in November 1947, that is, after the partition of Palestine and the inclusion of the Negev within the borders of the Jewish state.

Most of the Bedouins joined the Palestinian National Struggle. Friends of yesterday became today's enemies. The years 1947–1949 were a period of anarchy, which continued well into the 1950s. In this period the State of Israel was established. Consequently, the Jewish population in the Negev was no longer the party responsible for the relationship with the Bedouins, as the Israeli government took its place. Also contact between neighbors was reduced after the Bedouins were evacuated toward the ‘fence’ region, in the Beer-Sheva Valley. The freedom the Bedouins enjoyed before the war did not exist anymore.     

Tel Aviv and the question of separation from Jaffa 1921–1936

The ordinance granting Tel Aviv the status of local council was given in 1921. Immediately thereafter, the municipal council acted to amend the terms of the ordinance so as to free Tel Aviv entirely from the supervision of Jaffa municipality. Tel Aviv aimed for the status of an independent municipality, but still wished to safeguard its interests in Jaffa. Detachment from Jaffa was for long a central issue for Tel Aviv municipality. The article analyses the Jewish side's stance on Jaffa from 1921 until the outbreak of the disturbances in 1936, when Tel Aviv detached itself almost entirely from Jaffa. In the 1920s, the importance of Jaffa for the Jews was mainly economic, but in the 1930s, the addition of the demographic dimension reflected the growing status of the Jaffa Jewish community and was decisive in increasing the Jewish influence in Jaffa.     

The Possibility of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought

While the vast scholarly fields of modern Jewish thought and modern Jewish intellectual history effectively include no texts by Jews who are of non-European origin, the domain of modern Middle Eastern intellectual history includes no writings by native Middle Eastern Jews. Aiming to help remedy this dual void, this article presents the core premises and argumentation of several pre-1936 Middle Eastern Jewish intellectuals. In filling in some of the contours and details of this rich—but significantly underexplored—history, it posits that a distinct Jewish intellectual school that unambiguously understood itself to be quintessentially Middle Eastern has been present since the beginning of European Zionism in the late nineteenth century. What contemporary scholars commonly recognise as post-1970s Mizrahi (Eastern) thought is thus better understood as an outgrowth of a Middle Eastern Jewish intellectual formation predating 1948.     

A New Language of Equality: Jews and the State in Nineteenth-Century Morocco

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the Moroccan government’s concern for its image abroad ushered in a new approach to understanding Jews’ rights. Although the sultans never abandoned the dhimma contract in favour of religious egalitarianism, government officials increasingly adopted a new language of equality to describe how Jewish subjects should be treated. This language of equality borrowed vocabulary from Western notions of tolerance, but did not fundamentally conflict with Islamic ideals of justice. Mawlāy ?asan (reigned 1873–1894) refused to declare that Jews and Muslims were equal, but he increasingly insisted that Jews and Muslims must be treated equally before the law. Jews trod a similarly fine line, between pushing the envelope of their legal rights as dhimmīs and affirming their status as the personal protégés of the sultan. Through an examination of correspondence among Moroccan government officials, Jews and foreign diplomats, this article locates the shifting relationship between the state and its Jewish subjects in the language which the Makhzan used to define justice.     

Religion,Secularization and Democracy in the Mediterranean Region: Problems and Prospects

Political debates in many Mediterranean countries today are increasingly framed in dichotomous terms, highlighting divisions between religious and secular worldviews. In some countries, for example Israel, the issue is so contentious that it is described as a ‘culture war’. While Israel struggles to balance its commitment to a Jewish state and a democracy, it does not seem to matter if the countries in question are democracies or non-democracies, or what their majority religious faith is. Instead, the role of religion in public life or, put another way, the ‘public return of religion’, is a pertinent and controversial political question everywhere in the Mediterranean region. How do we explain this phenomenon? On the one hand, we can point to both economic and demographic changes, while, on the other, we can trace the impact of continuing secularisation. Together these two sets of developments produce new challenges to existing political arrangements.     

Australia and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry: 1961–1972

The plight of Soviet Jewry emerged as a major issue for World Jewry after the Second World War. Both Israel and Jewish Diaspora communities campaigned to give Soviet Jews either freedom of religion or the right to emigrate. The 1960s saw the promotion of the latter, with the slogan “Let My People Go”. Whilst geographically isolated and only being a medium power, the Australian government played a key role, with Australian politicians at times acting against the advice of the public service. The politicians were swayed by idealism, whereas department officials pursued a pragmatic, realist approach, being only concerned with what they saw as Australia's core foreign policy interests.     

The Jewish community in nineteenth century Palestine: evidence from the Montefiore censuses

Initial findings from five recently transcribed censuses of the Jewish community in nineteenth century Palestine, commissioned by Sir Moses Montefiore. This article discusses each census and presents uncorrected population figures. It describes how the Jewish community was rapidly changing: the population increased almost fourfold between 1839 and 1875, primarily due to immigration from Ashkenazi countries. The Jewish community was majority Ashkenazi by 1875. Analysis of the census data gives us detailed information about the community, such as the fact that Ashkenazim were significantly more likely than Sephardim to be engaged in full-time Torah study, whereas individuals who had immigrated to the land of Israel were slightly less likely. It also suggests that immigrations occurred at all ages, although the average age of an immigrant when they came to Palestine was 36.     

Hasan Bey Shukri and His Contribution to the Integration of Jews in the Haifa Municipality at the Time of the British Mandate

The relations established between the Jews and the Haifa mayor Hasan Bey Shukri were undoubtedly one of the special and fascinating features in the history of the Jewish–Arab conflict at the time of the Mandate. Shukri's ability to create a common language with the Jews made the Municipality an institution graced with cooperation whose like did not exist in other mixed cities in Mandatory Palestine. It was particularly evident in the setting of the escalation in the Jewish–Arab conflict generally. Shukri believed this conflict could be settled, and that the foundation for Jews and Arabs living together lay in the sides talking to each other as a basis for making peace. Now, for the first time in Palestine, the Jewish side had the opportunity to cooperate in a municipality controlled by Arabs by participating in its management. This situation accorded with the assumption prevalent among some of the leadership of the Jewish Yishuv that understanding could be reached with the other side in mixed municipalities. This article sets out to analyze the relations that formed between Shukri and the Jews. It shows that the cooperation that materialized between them was based on mutual trust, stemming from an identical approach by both sides to municipal activity.     

Bringing the British back in: Sephardim,Ashkenazi anti-Zionist Orthodox and the policy of Jewish unity

This article analyses the British role in establishing and maintaining a Jewish–Arab demarcation line by means of a policy of Jewish unity and by enabling Ashkenazi Zionist control of the Yishuv. In the first part, it analyses British policy towards the local Sephardi as well as the local Ashkenazi anti-Zionist Orthodox communities, both of which for different reasons did not neatly fit into the Jewish/Zionist–Arab binary. I argue that the British followed a policy of Jewish unity at the inception of the Mandate which they upheld repeatedly against Ashkenazi anti-Zionist Orthodox efforts and which by 1936 had created a truism enforcing a binary understanding of the conflict. In the second part, this article analyses the ways in which these communities presented themselves vis-à-vis the British. I argue that despite different strategies of maximizing their influence, both communities foundered on the existing power configurations.     

Anti-Intellectualism and Israeli Politics

Anti-intellectualism is a discrete social phenomenon which eschews spatial or temporal boundaries. While it defies a restrictive definition, it is commonly understood as a populist disdain of individuals who speak of certain universal values and engage in the pursuit of knowledge from reason; conversely, an anti-intellectual is a person who is not a ‘dealer in ideas’ and is not committed to the ‘life of the mind’. This article focuses on anti-intellectualism as a defining characteristic of the Israeli ethos which predates the establishment of the Jewish state. The article begins with a terminological discussion and a brief historical survey of the prevalence of anti-intellectualism in contemporary societies. It then traces the roots of Israeli anti-intellectualism and examines their manifestations in the case of Abba Eban, Israel’s most quintessential diplomat, an orientalist scholar, a Cambridge don, a polyglot and a public intellectual. The article concludes by pointing to the uneasy fit between the political and intellectual spheres in Israeli politics and the challenges posed by the former to the latter.