Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide (Perspectives on Israel Studies)

Review\n"None of the other published material on this topic has canvassed and assessed as widely as Alan Dowty has done in this work. This is an original narrative and a compellingly told story."―Donna Robinson Divine, author of Exiled in the Homeland: Zionism and the Return to Mandate Palestine\n"A well-written, well-balanced book that takes account of both Jewish and Arab attitudes toward Jewish settlement in Palestine prior to the First World War."―Anita Shapira, author of Israel: A History\n"Dowty's book will serve as an accessible and important work in the field of the history of the Yishuv during the Ottoman period and the early stages of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The combination of attention to detail and a broad overview means that this work will be useful to scholars and students for years to come, and the author deserves every praise for this."―Tamir Karkason, H-Judaic\n"A seminal work of impeccable and meticulous scholarship, Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide by Professor Alan Dowty must be considered a core addition to community, college and university library Turkish, Palestinian, and Israeli history collections and supplemental studies curriculums."―MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW\n"The rigorous research and scholarly perspective of Alan Dowty's Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine shines a light on issues of the Arab-Israel conflict that others have overlooked."―Jewish Press.com\n"Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine is a study rich with insight and information that is skillfully put into a broader context. You will finish the book with a wealth of knowledge about the past and greater insight into the present."―Dinah Rokach, HaShomer\nWhen did the Arab-Israeli conflict begin? Some discussions focus on the 1967 war, some go back to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and others look to the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922. Alan Dowty, however, traces the earliest roots of the conflict to the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, arguing that this historical approach highlights constant clashes between religious and ethnic groups in Palestine. He demonstrates that existing Arab residents viewed new Jewish settlers as European and shares evidence of overwhelming hostility to foreigners from European lands. He shows that Jewish settlers had tremendous incentive to minimize all obstacles to settlement, including the inconvenient hostility of the existing population. Dowty's thorough research reveals how events that occurred over 125 years ago shaped the implacable conflict that dominates the Middle East today.