Uncovering a history buried by different nationalist narratives (Jewish, Israeli, Arab and Palestinian) this book looks at how the late Ottoman era set the stage for the on-going Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It presents an innovative analysis of the struggle in its first years, when Palestine was still an integral part of the Ottoman Empire. And it argues that in the late Ottoman era, Jews and Palestinians were already locked in conflict: the new freedoms introduced by the Young Turk Constitutional Revolution exacerbated divisions (rather than serving as a unifying factor). Offering an integrative approach, it considers both communities, together and separately, in order to provide a more sophisticated narrative of how the conflict unfolded in its first years.

Uncovering a history buried by different nationalist narratives (Jewish, Israeli, Arab and Palestinian) this book looks at how the late Ottoman era set the stage for the on-going Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It presents an innovative analysis of the struggle in its first years, when Palestine was still an integral part of the Ottoman Empire. And it argues that in the late Ottoman era, Jews and Palestinians were already locked in conflict: the new freedoms introduced by the Young Turk Constitutional Revolution exacerbated divisions (rather than serving as a unifying factor). Offering an integrative approach, it considers both communities, together and separately, in order to provide a more sophisticated narrative of how the conflict unfolded in its first years.

Krämer focuses on patterns of interaction amongst Jews and Arabs (Muslim as well as Christian) in Palestine, an interaction that deeply affected the economic, political, social, and cultural evolution of both communities under Ottoman and British rule.

When 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.

Arabs and Young Turks provides a detailed study of Arab politics in the late Ottoman Empire as viewed from the imperial capital in Istanbul. In an analytical narrative of the Young Turk period (1908-1918) historian Hasan Kayali discusses Arab concerns on the one hand and the policies of the Ottoman government toward the Arabs on the other. Kayali's novel use of documents from the Ottoman archives, as well as Arabic sources and Western and Central European documents, enables him to reassess conventional wisdom on this complex subject and to present an original appraisal of proto-nationalist ideologies as the longest-living Middle Eastern dynasty headed for collapse. He demonstrates the persistence and resilience of the supranational ideology of Islamism which overshadowed Arab and Turkish ethnic nationalism in this crucial transition period. Kayali's study reaches back to the nineteenth century and highlights both continuity and change in Arab-Turkish relations from the reign of Abdulhamid II to the constitutional period ushered in by the revolution of 1908. Arabs and Young Turks is essential for an understanding of contemporary issues such as Islamist politics and the continuing crises of nationalism in the Middle East.

The Palestine Exploration Fund, established in 1865, is the oldest organization created specifically for the study of the Levant. It helped to spur evangelical tourism to the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which in turn generated a huge array of literature that presented Palestine as a 'Holy Land', in which local populations were often portrayed as a simple appendix to well-known Biblical scenarios. In the first book focused on modern and contemporary Palestine to provide a top-down and a bottom-up perspective on the process of simplification of the region and its inhabitants under British influence, Lorenzo Kamel offers a comprehensive outlook based on primary sources from 17 archives that spans a variety of cultural and social boundaries, including local identities, land tenure, toponymy, religious and political charges, institutions and borders. By observing the historical dynamics through which a fluid region composed by different cultures and societies has been simplified, the author explores how perceptions of Palestine have been affected today.WINNER OF THE PALESTINE BOOK AWARD 2016

The book sets out to explore the history of Palestinian nationalism by asking if there were historical antecedents of this identity prior to the twentieth century, and whether this nationalism existed on every social level. It argues that such identity, or a kind of popular nationalism, did exist, aroused by the memory of the Crusades, the Holy Land, and the term Palestine.

Arabs and Young Turks provides a detailed study of Arab politics in the late Ottoman Empire as viewed from the imperial capital in Istanbul. In an analytical narrative of the Young Turk period (1908-1918) historian Hasan Kayali discusses Arab concerns on the one hand and the policies of the Ottoman government toward the Arabs on the other. Kayali's novel use of documents from the Ottoman archives, as well as Arabic sources and Western and Central European documents, enables him to reassess conventional wisdom on this complex subject and to present an original appraisal of proto-nationalist ideologies as the longest-living Middle Eastern dynasty headed for collapse. He demonstrates the persistence and resilience of the supranational ideology of Islamism which overshadowed Arab and Turkish ethnic nationalism in this crucial transition period. Kayali's study reaches back to the nineteenth century and highlights both continuity and change in Arab-Turkish relations from the reign of Abdulhamid II to the constitutional period ushered in by the revolution of 1908. Arabs and Young Turks is essential for an understanding of contemporary issues such as Islamist politics and the continuing crises of nationalism in the Middle East.

Taner Akçam is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and discuss openly the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman-Turkish government in 1915. This book discusses western political policies towards the region generally, and represents the first serious scholarly attempt to understand the Genocide from a perpetrator rather than victim perspective, and to contextualize those events within Turkey's political history. By refusing to acknowledge the fact of genocide, successive Turkish governments not only perpetuate massive historical injustice, but also pose a fundamental obstacle to Turkey's democratization today.

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.