Multiple inventories and divided archaeology in the West Bank: An assessment of databases in the Etzion Bloc

This paper presents and discusses an assessment of the scope, priorities, and coverage of existing archaeological datasets, via database comparison and on-the-ground re-survey of all accessible known sites in one region of the West Bank, the Etzion Bloc. The main goal of this survey was to assess the current inventories listing archaeological sites in the Etzion Bloc, an area that brings together an interesting range of archaeological and geographical issues that result directly from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This database assessment and review of listed archaeological sites included the verification of site existence and the examination of sites’ modern context, accessibility, current condition, potential threats, and the accuracy of their recorded location. The results of this fieldwork demonstrate the importance of keeping data up-do-date, provide suggestions on how to enhance the structure and contents of current inventories, and help prioritize and inform plans for further archaeological fieldwork in this region.     

Place, Culture and Identity: Summer Music in Upper Galilee

The Kfar Blum festival is an annual chamber music festival at a kibbutz in northern Israel involving three public bodies. Soon after its inauguration, it was dominated by audiences of élite groups who gave it a specific character and made it a highly desirable social event. The demand created for participation caused the festival to change in character, and what had been an artistic celebration became a cultural commodity. This challenged the overall purpose of the festival and brought changes in artistic direction, as new audiences were sought through programmes with wider appeal. The Kfar Blum festival is an example of a contested arena reflecting social trends in Israel. Place becomes a metaphor for social trends.     

Oral testimonies,archival sources,and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War: A close look at the occupation of a Galilean village

This article explores the (still) possible and significant contribution oral history can make to the study of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Its purpose is to create a constructive “dialogue” between archival sources and oral testimonies. By weaving the information contained in written documents together with that conveyed through spoken words – the two sources simultaneously support and cast doubt on each other – it bridges a gap between the path generally followed by Israeli historians and that taken by many Palestinian scholars. To illustrate the potential embodied in the proposed “dialogue” to improve our understanding of the war, the article presents a historical close-up of Fassuta, one of the Arab villages occupied by Jewish forces during the war. Cross-checking Israeli documents in Hebrew against Palestinian memories conveyed in Arabic, this article seeks to explain how and why that particular village remained intact while many of the neighboring villages were depopulated and destroyed.     

The Historiography of Deir Yassin

This article describes Israeli and Arab historiography concerning the events in the Arab village of Deir Yassin in April 1948, during the first Israeli–Arab war, of 1948. It begins with the internal, left–right Israeli controversy during 1969–71 about the alleged massacre and then describes and analyses what “really” happened at Deir Yassin on the basis of the Israeli (and, to a smaller extent, British) documentation from 1948 that has been declassified over the last few years. It then concludes by describing the evolution of the Israel and Palestinian histographical narratives on the event.     

Upsetting the Establishment

The Guanlong Bloc has been widely believed to have enjoyed significant advantages in the dynasties founded between the Western Wei and the Tang. Based on an analysis of the sociopolitical framework and geo-strategic factor before the Taiyuan Uprising, this article aims to explain how in order to strike a severe blow against the Sui. Li Yuan, a core member of the Guanlong Bloc, made use of forces alienated by, or simply unrelated to, the establishment. In addition to showing their considerable resentment against the establishment, a substantial number of meritorious officials collaborating with Li Yuan during the Sui were not directly affiliated with the Guanlong Bloc in terms of family and regional backgrounds; some of them were from humble origin or even desperados not tolerated by the establishment. Amongst the desperados, some were originally members of the Guanlong Bloc but committed crimes while the others were local bandits and chivalrous swordsmen. During his time governing Taiyuan and leading the troop to march towards Chang’an, Li Yuan had managed to recruit local bandits and chivalrous swordsmen. During the medieval era, aristocratic elites played a dominant role in shaping both politics and society; class differentiation was considered a major feature characterized by aristocratic preference. This prevailing mindset, however, did not seem to place any restrictions on Li Yuan in his efforts to recruit locals from humble origin. This practice was instrumental in drawing local supports, thus tremendously strengthening his military force to overthrow the establishment. The method adopted by Li Yuan highlights the point that despite his deep connection with the Guanlong Bloc, he adopted a policy of drawing on local human resources rather than relying on the military strength of the Guanlong region in the process of establishing his own authority. Another major point of discussion is the weakening of the Guanlong Bloc during the Sui. Yang Jian and his sons had counted heavily on those who were not the Guanlong Bloc members; some members of the Bloc had even become the target of purges during the reign of Yang Guang. In this sense, the strategy of using forces outside the establishment to overthrow it was not Li Yuan’s creation; instead, Li simply followed what Yang Jian and his sons had been doing in their endeavors to overthrow the existing order. The above historical facts are sufficient to cast doubt on the advantageous position that the Guanlong Bloc was supposed to be enjoying during medieval China. As a whole, similar to all other military and political blocs in history, the Guanlong Bloc passed through the stages of both establishment and transformation before stepping out of the historical arena.     

Powerful State,Powerless Mediator: The United States and the Peace Efforts of the Palestine Conciliation Commission, 1949–51

The Arab–Israeli War of 1948 produced complex questions that needed to be solved to obtain peace. Whereas the Arab states suffered humiliating defeats, Israel was the undisputed winner, expanding and solidifying its power. For the Palestinians, the outcome was catastrophic. Between 600,000 and 760,000 Palestinians fled, becoming refugees on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in surrounding Arab states. Palestinian society collapsed and Palestine became divided between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, leaving the borders undecided. The Palestinians’ dreams of statehood were crushed. After the war, Israel used diplomacy to achieve its goals, defending the post-war status quo to preserve its expanded territory and resisting the return of Palestinian refugees. Through its membership in the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), established by the United Nations (UN) in 1948 to solve these problems, the United States was deeply involved in the negotiations. The United States became the informal, yet undisputed leader of the PCC, thus, it would seem, empowering it with the muscles of a superpower. After three years of struggling for peace the PCC had toadmit failure. Knowledge about these negotiations gives important insights into how mediators approached the conflict and shows that power asymmetry may explain why the belligerents could not obtain peace.     

Former Nazi Officers in the Near East: German Military Advisors in Syria, 1949–56

In the early days of the Cold War, Syria was the first Arab country where former officers of the German Wehrmacht played an active role as military advisors. This was due, in part, to the fact that Germany was not burdened by its past political relations to Arab states for, in contrast to the Western powers, Germany which had never had territorial ambitions in the Near East. Even in the very early stages, German advisors contributed considerably to the development of Syria's armed forces and military intelligence. The advisory activities of German experts became even more intensive as a result of increased trade between the two countries; however, in 1956 the political situation in Syria worsened and the country began moving towards the Eastern Bloc putting an end to the non-official activities of German military advisors.     

Communists and the 1948 War: PCP,Maki, and the National Liberation League

This paper analyzes the way in which Palestine's Jewish and Arab communist parties, the PCP-Maki and the National Liberation League, acted during the 1948 war. Both groups made separate and different efforts to make the two-state solution a reality as originally conceived in the UN partition plan. Ironically, the decisive Jewish victory in the war resulted in an asymmetry between the Jewish Communists the Palestinian Communists when they were unified toward the end of the 1948 war. Despite Maki's labors for an Israeli victory, its standing in the nascent Israeli political system toward the end of the war remained marginal. The concept of Jewish–Arab cooperation under the aegis of the USSR was seen by the Zionist establishment as dangerous and subversive.     

The Palestinian village of Ijzim during the 1948 war: Forming an anthropological history through villagers accounts and army documents

In the summer of 1948, following over six months of clashes, the Palestinian village of Ijzim was captured by Israeli troops and its inhabitants were uprooted and dispersed throughout the Middle East. Ijzim was one of roughly 400 Palestinian villages and towns that were depopulated during the 1948 war in Palestine. The combination of information gathered from Israeli army documents and the refugees' oral accounts, collected in Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, yields a complex picture of the local guerilla fighting and the social conditions that influenced the final consequences. Two main arguments are presented along the historical recounting of the events. The one sets the microcosmos of one village in contrast to the macro picture of the war. The other highlights the uniqueness and contribution of oral histories as sources that reveal facets otherwise missing. 1     

The 1948 war veterans and postwar reconstruction in Israel

This article deals with the characteristics of postwar reconstruction in the State of Israel at the end of the 1948 war and during the early 1950s, focusing on the patterns and priorities of reconstruction of society as a whole and the rehabilitation of veteran soldiers in particular. The article addresses the social impact of the rehabilitation of the 1948 war veterans on the emerging Israeli society, including the creation of a social distinction between different sectors undergoing rehabilitation in terms of employment and housing. The article also discusses the social and political protests that accompanied the rehabilitation of the demobilized soldiers who campaigned for recognition and commemoration.     

The Forces of Homology—Hirohito,Emperor of Japan and the 1928 Rites of Succession

In November 1928, Hirohito became the emperor of Japan through a series of rituals, beginning with the emperor's presentation to the world. Afterwards the emperor soul, transmitted from the sun goddess through the preceding generations of emperors to the current one, is rejuvenated and pacified by attaching different gods (kami) to it. Then, in his full presence as a living-kami, the new emperor enters a finely balanced structure to partake of sacred rice with the kami. Within the Japanese cosmos, the world at large, the domain of humankind, and the realm of the kami are situated along a continuum. In such a world, the forces of homology can, through meticulous ritual, connect between those realms and harness one plane for the improvement and augmentation of another. By means of the rites of succession, the emperor activates the forces of homology, yielding a dynamic yet precarious world, as the kami forces of peace and harmony are harnessed for the well-being of all Japan.     

A Great Electioneer and His Motives Reconsidered: The 4th Duke of Newcastle

The 4th duke of Newcastle (1785–1851) is recognized as one of the most prominent peers with electoral influence in early-19th-century Britain. This essay considers the way in which he deployed that influence and the purposes to which it was turned. The essay explains why Newcastle became a leading symbol of the campaign for parliamentary reform and details the nature of his opposition to the bill which eventually became the ‘Great’ Reform Act of 1832. In some respects, Newcastle was an atypical electioneer, because he was less overtly concerned with the desire for office, patronage, or income. On the other hand, the methods by which that influence was deployed, and the anti-reform purposes to which it was turned, meant that he was inevitably numbered among the reactionary forces opposing political change in this period.     

The failure to formulate a national science policy: Israel's Scientific Council, 1948–1959

This article analyzes the failure to formulate a national science policy in Israel's early years by tracing the administrative genealogy of the Scientific Council (1948–59), which was established to manage and coordinate civil applied scientific research in Israel. The failure of the council is analyzed as part of wider debates concerning the future of the academic and scientific research systems and the implementation of Israeli state ideology (mamlakhtiyut) in this period. The story of the council sheds light on important aspects of the formation of Israeli higher education and scientific research institutions and on the close but complex relations between science and politics in the early years of the state.     

“This is our land”: collective violence,property law,and imagining the geography of Palestine

This study seeks to explain the origins of two types of violence occurring on the Palestinian landscape, the erasure of Palestinian farms and the demolition of Palestinian homes. Such violence has two sources. One source derives from an enduring practice of meaning-making about geographical places that has inspired groups with territorial ambitions to seize control of the landscapes they covet and is referred to by Edward Said as the crafting of “imaginative geographies.” The second source focuses on changes in property rights that follow when groups with territorial ambitions succeed in seizing control of coveted land. It is the imagined geography of Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people, first framed by Zionists of the late 19^th century and absorbed into the practices of Israeli state-building, and the changes in property rights inscribed into the Palestinian landscape following Zionist and Israeli military conquests in 1948 and 1967, that lie at the core of violence directed against the Palestinian farm and home today. This process of imagination, legal transformation, and violence is part of a longstanding lineage of dispossession that includes the English enclosures and the taking of land from Amerindians on the Anglo-American colonial frontier.     

An estimator for bidirectional (naviform) blade productivity in the Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

A method is presented for calculating the blade productivity of bidirectional (naviform) blade cores, a hallmark of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) chipped stone tool assemblages. This approach involves estimating the volume of the core that furnished serial blades, together with the mean volume of a typical targeted blade blank. Simple computation of the volume of a wedge in both instances provides an estimate of the number of targeted blades that were produced in an average single reduction sequence. The method is checked against two replicated bidirectional blade reduction sequences, and a refitted bidirectional blade core from the site of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel. Finally, a case study from Kfar HaHoresh is presented in order to illustrate the application of the method, which may have ramifications concerning the evaluation of incipient craft specialization in the region.     

‘For the Honor and Glory of the Jewish People‘: Arendt’s Ambivalent Jewish Nationhood

Observers of German-Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt often disagree on her politics, yet many view her as a staunch early critic of Zionism. Whereas her criticism of Israel rendered her unpopular in the American-Jewish and Israeli communities for many decades after 1948, commentators more recently have come to see her perspective as a prescient assessment of the ills of Jewish nationalism. This interpretation, however, fails to grasp the complexity of Arendt‘s political views of Zionism in particular and of Jewish nationhood in general, which evolved over time and remained ambivalent from her early to her late works.     

中国关贸总协定创始缔约国地位之考论

1946年至1948年,中国作为第二次世界大战的战胜国和当时世界上的大国,和世界其他国家谋求建立国际贸易组织,积极参加创建关贸总协定的重要会议,和各有关国家进行了艰难的谈判,和其他国家达成协议,并签定了《关贸总协定》等一系列重要文件,同时签署了关贸总协定“临时适用议定书”,从1948年5月21日起,正式成为关贸总协定的缔约方。由此可见,中国确实是和美国、英国等国家一起共同创立了关贸总协定,中国是关贸总协定的创始缔约国。     

论流民与两晋之际的政治格局

西晋永嘉之乱以后,产生了大量的流民,并形成了严重的流民问题。流民的大量产生,以及流民势力的迅速发展,迫使两晋之际的统治设法解决流民问题。流民所引起的震动,使残破的西晋政权能够控制的力量更加弱小,从而加速了西晋政权的灭亡。北方流民的大量南下,使南方的政治、军事力量迅速增强,从而为东晋的建立提供了必要的条件。流民聚集而成的政治、军事性集团如京口集团等,是东晋政权的支撑性力量。东晋政权与流民的关系至为密切,而统治对于流民问题的处理方式与程度,亦直接地影响着当时的政治变迁。     

An Independent Palestine: The Security Dimension

If negotiations produce an end to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict then a sovereign, independent Palestine may emerge. But what is required for it to succeed? Nothing is more important than the security of a Palestinian state–for itself, for Israel, and for the region: security trumps all else. In addition to the problem of dealing effectively with opposition to a peace agreement within Palestine or directed against it from outside, the nature and magnitude of the security challenge will depend in large part on three issues: the drawing of borders between Israel and Palestine–and whether they are porous or marked by a rigid line of barriers; whether Israeli settlements are withdrawn, or in part incorporated into Israel, perhaps through land swaps with Palestine; and what arrangements are made for Jerusalem. One answer is the creation of effective Palestinian military forces (in addition to police), but this course could be divisive; a second is the development of a series of Israeli–Palestinian confidence‐building and share–security measures, including intelligence cooperation; a third is progress towards reducing external threats to Israel–Palestine, including success in Iraq and in defusing other Middle East problems. Most useful, however, would be the creation of an American‐led peace enabling force, ideally modelled on NATO. This force would need to be agreed by both Israel and Palestine; it must be adequately staffed, trained and equipped; its duties and rules of engagement must make sense to all parties; and it must be part of a network of dispute‐resolution and confidence‐building measures in full partnership with Israeli and Palestinian authorities.