Gregory Mahler - Politics and Government in Israel: The Maturation of a Modern State

1. See Ernest Barker, ed. and trans., The Politics of Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. xixix.
   
2. See Gregory Mahler, The Knesset:ParliamentintheIsraeliPoliticalSystem (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981).
   
3. The specific question was, What was the first aspect of politics that you were aware of? See Mahler, TheKnesset , p. 230.
   
4. See Joel S. Migdal, StateinSociety:StudyingHowStatesandSocietiesTransform andConstituteOneAnother (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
   
5. David Easton, AFrameworkforPoliticalAnalysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1965), p. 50.
   
6. In the January 10, 1997, issue of the ChronicleofHigherEducation , Christopher Shea introduced a new version of a long-running debate over the value of area studies as distinct from comparative politics. See Christopher Shea, Political Scientists Clash over Value of Area Studies, ChronicleofHigherEducation (January 10, 1997): A13. Harvard Universitys Robert Bates suggests in this essay that a focus on individual regions leads to work that is mushy and merely descriptive.
   
7. A very good discussion of the concept of Zionism as a nationalist movement can be found in Shlomo Avineri, TheMakingofModernZionism (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
   
8. For discussion of the Palestinian case, see Gregory Mahler, Constitutionalism andPalestinianConstitutionalDevelopment (Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, 1996). See also Khalil Shikaki, The Peace Process, National Reconstruction and the Transition to Democracy in Palestine, JournalofPalestineStudies 25, no. 2 (1996): 627.
   

1 HISTORY AND THE CREATION OF ISRAEL

1. EretzIsrael , literally the state of Israel, will be used to generally refer to the territory roughly corresponding to what we today call Israel.
   
2. See Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, TheWarforPalestine:RewritingtheHistory of1948 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Avi Shlaim, IsraelandPalestine:Reappraisals,Revisions,Refutations (London: Verso, 2009); Benny Morris, ed., MakingIsrael (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), especially the chapter by Benny Morris titled The New Historiography: Israel Confronts Its Critics, pp. 548; Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the MakingoftheJewishState (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Efraim Karsh, FabricatingIsraeliHistory:TheNewHistorians (Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 2000); and Anita Shapira, IsraeliHistoricalRevisionism:FromLefttoRight (Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 2003).
   
3. See Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, ThePalestinianPeople:AHistory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
   
4. See Genesis 15:13 and Exodus 12:40, respectively. Hanoch Reviv, Until the Monarchy, in Historyuntil1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), p. 7. See also H. G. M. Williamson, UnderstandingtheHistoryofAncientIsrael (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), and Richard Gabriel, TheMilitaryHistory ofAncientIsrael (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003).
   
5. Reviv, Until the Monarchy, p. 7; also see Genesis 15:1821.
   
6. See Deuteronomy 1:78, 11:24, and Joshua 1:4.
   
7. A note should be made here regarding the date terminology used in this volume. While the traditional Christian, hence Western, format is to use the initials b . c . and a . d ., both refer to historical events that occurred before or after the birth of Christ. It should be obvious to the student who thinks about it that Jewish history would not be recorded in a way that is oriented around the appearance of Christ. Indeed, a Jewish calendar does exist. Thus the year including January 2010 is the year 5770 on the Jewish calendar. For convenience, however, because many Jews have realized that they cannot expect non-Jews to be familiar with and use their calendar, they also adhere to the Christian, or Gregorian, calendar. However, rather than adopting initials that mean before Christ and Anno Domini (year of our Lord), Jewish annotation uses the initials b . c . e . and c . e . (meaning before the common era and common era, respectively). In this book we shall abide by the standard American practice of using b . c . and a . d . where appropriate.
   
8. The uprising was called the Hasmonean Revolt, involved the Maccabees, and gave rise to the modern Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. See Menachem Stern, Second Temple: The Hellenistic-Roman Period: 332 b . c . e .70 c . e ., in History until 1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), p. 105.
   
9. Shmuel Safrai, Destruction of the Second Temple to the Arab Conquest (70634 c . e .), in Historyuntil1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), p.127.
   
10. Safrai, Destruction of the Second Temple, pp. 14950.
    
11. See Haim Zew Hirschberg, Crusader Period, 10991291, in History until 1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), pp. 185200.
    
12. See, for instance, Mamluk Period (12911516), in History until 1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), p. 206. See also Charles D. Smith, PalestineandtheArab-IsraeliConflict (Boston: St. Martins, 2007); Kimmerling, ThePalestinianPeople ; or Saul Friedman, AHistoryoftheMiddleEast (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 2006).
    
13. See Avigdor Levy, ed., Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth throughtheTwentiethCentury (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002), and Haim Zew Hirschberg, Ottoman Period, in Historyuntil1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1973), pp. 21250. See also Ilan Papp, AHistory ofModernPalestine:OneLand,TwoPeoples (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), and A. I. Dawisha, ArabNationalismintheTwentiethCentury:FromTriumphto Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
    
14. See Mordechai Chertoff, ed., Zionism:ABasicReader (New York: Herzl Press, 1975), and Israel Cohen, AShortHistoryofZionism (London: F. Muller, 1951), as two examples of the huge literature in this area.
    
15. Getzel Kressel, ed., Zionism , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter, 1973), p. 1. See also S. Ilan Troen, ImaginingZion:Dreams,Designs,andRealitiesinaCentury ofJewishSettlement (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003).
    
16. Hirschberg, Ottoman Period, p. 232. By 1880 the total population had grown considerably to 450,000, including 24,000 Jews and 45,000 Christians, p. 237.
    
17. Hirschberg, Ottoman Period, p. 242.
    
18. Hirschberg, Ottoman Period, p. 243. See also the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, PASSIA Diary (Jerusalem: PASSIA, 1996), p. 239.
    
19. Jacob Katz, Forerunners, in Zionism , Israel Pocket History, ed. Getzel Kressel (Jerusalem: Keter, 1973), p. 5.
    
20. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, OriginsoftheIsraeliPolity:Palestineunder theMandate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
    
21. Katz, Forerunners, p. 21.
    
22. Howard Sachar, AHistoryofIsrael:FromtheRiseofZionismtoOurTime (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 15.
    
23. Asher Arian, PoliticsinIsrael:TheSecondGeneration (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1985), p. 13.
    
24. Yehuda Slutsky, Under Ottoman Rule (18801917), in Historyfrom1880 , Israel Pocket History (Jerusalem: Keter, 1973), p. 12.
    
25. One of the best studies of Herzl is Amos Elons Herzl (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1975). See also Irwin Wall, Theodor Herzl (Book Review), Central EuropeanHistory 28, no. 3 (1995): 42022.
    
26. Sachar, History , p. 39. See also Bernard Reich, Arab-IsraeliConflictandConciliation:ADocumentaryHistory (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995).