206 vertsements Mmct Abu-Lughod's anal, “The Demographi Abu-Lughod, The Transformation of Palestine, op. cit To. Welzmann’s statement is reproduced in Herb es 10 de Palestinian Peasant Resistance Zionism Before World War I Rashid Khalidi I jomatic that history is written by the victors. And it is that it is more likely to be written about the strong tha and that the views and exploits of those able to read and -equently recorded by historians than those of th literate Both of these inherent historical biases have bedeviled the nodern historiography of Palestine. This has not always been ntentional. Over the past four decades, much source material fo riting Palestinian history has been lost, destroyed, or inc ated into the state archives of Israel, where it is inaccessibl many Palestinian and Arab historians. The unseitled situation of stinian people, whether under occupation or in the jiaspora, has meant that other existing archives, research tutions and universities have been denied the stabil ganized existence and peace of mind which are the prerequisites 1 proper functioning, iy in consequence of these circumstances, there has been a sound historical scholarship by Palestinians.” Thus most ing about Palestinian history has been done by non tinians, who by and large have lacked an intimate familiar indigenous sources, the individuals concerned, and the altural context of Palestinian politics. Irrespective of n scholars may have had, this situation ha: effect on what has been written, and naturally had a maj 207208 particularly the perspective from which itis written. While a cro: Pattural approach is often extremely valuable, and can provide insights otherwise unavailable, nothing can substve for people serine their own history, and indeed the two processes can and should be complementary ‘Thus, the purview and perspective of much work on Palestine has paid more attention to certain sources and,sudjects than ro rece One example is Yehoshua Ben Arich’s Jesualem in the oe Century: The Old City, much of which treats the city’s Arab opulation (according to Hen Aric, Arabs were a majority of is PoPwlation during mast of the period he covers) using no Arabic PorSetoman sources.® Similarly, Isaiah Friedman's The Question of Galonine 1914-1918, subsiled A Study of Brith-Jewish-Arab Telesima,in practice deals only with the British and jewish sides of aoa engle, again using no Arabic or Ottoman sources.” ‘sunher, when the Arabs have been the primary subject, the urban and literate sectors of the population have pechaps naturally wreted to be the focus of attention, as in the most respected er on Palestinian political history during the 1920s and 30s wo Yehoshua Porath and Ann Mosely Lesch, which depend on bY (bic, Zionist and Western sources." In others, more use has Freie ade of Zionist sources than Arab ones. ‘This is true even bce amples of sound scholarship and great originality focusing With he Palestinians such as Neville Mandel’s The Arabs and Fronism before World War 1, which relies primarily on press reports eoerved in the Central Zionist Archives, rather than on the Preise newspapers themselves, for an analysis of the Arab press.” there are partial justifications for some of ‘hese apparent methodological weaknesses. As has already been pointed out, Tesacl and Western archives contain more material than some Weting Arab ones. In other cases, accessibility and convenience fave perhaps wrongly determined which sources were used. py cdver, itis to be expected that the Arab urban population, Mich was the most vocal, politically active, and most extensively Tepresented in the existing writen record, would be the object of ‘poTtsost intense scholarly scrutiny. Finally, the population of the the Ruyside was poor, iterate and largely inaccessible, and as such left few records of its own. ‘But regarding issues like land sales, peasant dispossession and resistance, and the impact of Zionist settlement on the rural reajorty ofthe Palestinian population, some of these justifications Thay hollow. While the British and Zionist recerds are central Peasant Resistance 10 Zionism 209 sources for any such analysis, and while attention must be paid to the newspapers and activities of the urban Arab notables, what happened at the village level should be the primary focus. This can be followed from non-traditional sources, as did Ya'kov Firestone im his pioneering work using maferil fom ouside (he formal archives,” or through using these archives with special fuention to the rural areas, as did Ylana Miller in her Government ‘and Society in Rural Palestine, 1920-1948.* ‘Such an approach is essential in any work dealing with demography, land and the peasantry in Palestine. It goes without Saying that itis totally absent in a travesty such as Joan Peters's Fom Time Immemorial, which makes sweeping and categorical judgments in all these fields. A book based on the selective and Tadentious use of sources, systematic misquotation, plagiarism, vad ether unscholarly methods would not deserve mention but for the dignitaries who have praised it, the noted scholars whose aid ‘was acknowledged by the author but who have refrained from Uisassociating themselves from it, and the respected publications hich have failed to reveal the dimensions of this scandal.” Such an approach is absent as well in nominally more serious works which reiterate Peters's themes. Thus, Arich Avneri’s The Claim of Dispossesion, subtitled Jewish Land Settlement and the “inubs 1878-1948, purports to show that there was no disposses- ion of Palestinians, in large part because there were no ‘Palestinians’ in the commonly accepted sense of the word. He asserts rather that much of the Arab population of the country ‘inked into it in recent times. Slightly more coherent than Peters, Awneri too treats this subject using Western and Hebrew sources, to the exclusion of Arabic or Ottoman’ ones." In three hundred pages he never dignifies the indigenous population or the Pevereign authority antl 1918 with so much as a single quotation from a source generated by them, In cases such as Peters's and Avnen’s, the society being studied is an object rather than 2 fubject of history. It ean be described by others, but cannot describe itself The assertions of these polemicists have been demolished by scholars such as Porath and Alexander Schdlch, who have crefully studied Palestinian society using Arabic and Turkish Snuterials, together with Western and Zionist sources." Conten- Tons like those of Peters and Avneri are tenable only from verapective which denies credibility to the sources produced by Tae rociety being studied. In the words of Edward Said, for such210 writers the Palestinians do not have ‘permission to nar wite'® from the authors’ perspective is rigorously logical, since they don’t exist! Ate it is impossible at this temporal remove to record in etl wat passed in the countryside of Palestine before 1914, deta lows is an attempt to reconstruct certain key interactions what follarieyy of sources, with the objective of providing perspective which is too offen absent u According to one widely-propagated view, awareness in the Arab aoe regarding Zionism began only during the late Mandate etfod, and since then has been artificially fostered bya succession per otagonsts for a variety of reasons. This view is groundless. In Pe guch awareness goes much further back in time, as is shown Tee Satefal study of Arab society and politics before World War I Pe uring that period, Zionism was the subject of extensive journalistic comment and public controversy throughout the Arab Jowinces of the Otoman Empire and in Egypt and ukimately Pe a major issue in both local and Ottoman politics. ane tent of the opposition within Palestine iself to Zionist immigration before 1914 has received recognition in_ several imijise’” Less attention has been paid to the effect of SKevelopments in Palestine during this period on the thinking of eerratnes of the rest of Syria, Egypt and the other Arab lands xe er Ortoman rule, at a time when Arabism, the forerunner of Wit nationalism, was born and grew into an effective political ‘movement, allowing the re-imposition of the Otioman Constitution in 1908, politcal, intellectual and journalistic activity flourished Throughout the Empire afer decades of the despotism of Sult INeTeiHamid. This relatively liberal era continued until 1914, ‘Iuving which period there was a major expansion of the Arabic~ tduguage press in the entire region, intensive activity of politcal rages and secret societies, and important intellzctual develop Parme, At the same time, following the tum of the century, the Webs of Palestine were dismayed by the impact of increasing Pane colonization, as mounting persecution of Eastern European Faas sent waves of new settlers to Palestine in the second aliya ewe SSpwcomers, moreover, were more deeply imbued with Foteal Zionism than earlier Jewish settlers, and more intent on Peasant Resistance to Zionism 211 ing a new, purely Jewish society in Palestine The Palestinian reaction to this increased Zionist activity during the years from 1908 to 1914 was strong, For the first time, any Arabs realized that Zionism aimed ultimately to create @ Jewigh polity in place of the existing Arab one, while in, the ‘countryside increased land purchases and the replacement of Arab ‘vage-laborers on Jewish estates by Jewish workers angered many fellakin. "The intensity of these reactions helps explain the role played by the Palestine question in Arab politics then and Tierwards, And while it was the response of the literate urban Palestinian upper classes expressed in the press, in the Ottoman Parliament, and elsewhere which most affected thinking in other Arab countries, it is clear that at the root of their fears about Zionism was the experience of those féllahin who were the first to clash with the Zionist settlers. As has been shown by Owen and Issawi, economic and social changes in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean were jncreasingly rapid in the late nineteenth century.'* Simultaneously, the local politeal patterns of the mid-nineteenth century had been significantly transformed by 1908, and even more by 1914 Underlying many of these changes was the tendency towards the privatization of land ownership and its concentration in fewer hands after the promulgation of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858. This law was only put into effect in Syria and Palestine very slowly, over 2 period of decades. It required the registration in the name of individual owners of agricultural land, most of which had never previously been registered and which had formerly been treated according to traditional forms of land tenure, in the hill tireas of Palestine generally masha’a, or communal usufruct. The ew law meant that for the first time a peasant could be deprived vot of title to his land, which he had rarely held before, but rather Sr the right to live on it, cultivate it and pass it on to his hei, \thich had formerly been inalienable if taxes were paid regularly Under the provisions of the 1858 law, communal rights of tenure were often ignored, as many peasants with long-standing traditional rights failed to register out of fear of taxation and other State exactions, notably conscription. Instead, members of the tipper classes, adept at manipulating or circumventing the legal process, registered large areas of land as theirs.'® As far as lands iy Palestine were concerned, the biggest beneficiaries were the merchants of the coastal cities of Beirut, Jaffa and Haifa. Their Rew wealth was a by-product of the incorporation of the region qe the world economy, with the attendant opening up of new