Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914

Gershon Shafir challenges the heroic myths about the foundation of the State of Israel by investigating the struggle to control land and labor during the early Zionist enterprise. He argues that it was not the imported Zionist ideas that were responsible for the character of the Israeli state, but the particular conditions of the local conflict between the European "settlers" and the Palestinian Arab population.

Gershon Shafir is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He is author of Immigrants and Nationalists and editor of The Citizenship Debates.

Preface to the paperback edition 
Preface 
Map of Jewish settlements in Palestine, 1878-1918

1 Introduction 
The sociology of Israeli society 
Settlement and nationalism 
Frontier and land 
Frontier and labor 
Settlement and Palestine 

2 The framework of dependent development in the Ottoman Empire 
World economy: dependency and reform 
Agricultural expansion 
Tax reform and land tenure 
New settlement and demographic patterns 
The implications for Jewish settlement 

3 From land to labor: unequal competition and the "conquest of labor" strategy 
The alternative labor forces 
The dynamics of the struggle 
The effects of the "conquest of labor" strategy 
"Conquest of labor" and the foundations of Israeli nationalism 
Appendix: The Ottoman monetary system 90

4 The failed experiment: "natural workers" from Yemen, 1909-1914
The Yavnieli mission 
Agudat Netaim and the planters' interests 
The meeting in the labor market 
The Palestine Office and conflict over access to land 
Demands and identity of Yemenite Jews 
Israeli nation formation 

5 Between trade unions and political parties, 1905-1914 

6 From "conquest of labor" to "conquest of land": the identity of soldier and 
settler, 1907-1914 

7 The unintended means: cooperative settlement, 1910-1914 
The "pure settlement methodology" of the World Zionist Organization 
The origins of the kibbutz 
The predominance of the kibbutz in Israeli state formation 

8 Conclusion: Israeli nationalism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
The shaping of the Israeli state and nation 
The evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
The impact of Israeli state formation on Palestinian society 

Notes 
Glossary 
Bibliography 
Index