The Palestinian-Arab middle class under the Mandate may be characterized as bourgeois and educated, similarly to bourgeois classes that have developed in the West in the Modern era. The bourgeois characteristics of the Palestinian-Arab middle class, and their influence on its historical trajectory during the Mandate era, have not been studied in depth yet. This article aims to focus on a local aspect of the rise of the middle class in the region in that period: the rise of the Palestinian-Arab middle class under the Mandate, until the Palestinian-Arab Revolt (1936–9). The main hypothesis is that particular bourgeois social and cultural characteristics prevented the middle class full incorporation into the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, and even led to estrangement between the middle class and the national leadership, as well as members of lower strata, especially the villagers. Members of the middle class, mostly Christians but Muslims as well, espoused in their daily life modern habits, ideas, and customs, as a means to distinguish between themselves and other classes, similarly to their parallels in the West, and like their contemporaries elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, as has demonstrated by Watenpaugh. Those gaps reached their climax during the years of revolt.
A Theory of Forced Labour Migration
This book focuses on labour dislocation and migration of Palestinians between 1967 and 1990. In particular, it highlights the social transformations in the occupied Palestinian territory where Palestinian labour was permitted to work in Israel from 1968 onwards.
The Civilizational Crisis in the Middle East and the Democratic Civilization Solution: Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization, volume IV
The global crisis of civilization is nowhere more visible than in the Middle East. Wars, authoritarian regimes, social fragmentation, and ecological collapse converge into a single, devastating picture. Abdullah Öcalan argues that the solution to this crisis must be found in the same place where centralized civilization first emerged 5,000 years ago. The fourth volume of Öcalan’s Manifesto of Democratic Civilization traces the region’s deep historical crises while highlighting the many traditions of resistance—religious, cultural, communal, and antiauthoritarian—that have survived despite millennia of state domination. These traditions, he argues, provide the building blocks for a future beyond capitalist modernity. Drawing on the theoretical framework laid out in earlier volumes, Öcalan offers a bold rereading of Middle Eastern history, revealing how patriarchy, hierarchy, and empire became entrenched, and how they can be dismantled. He presents democratic confederalism, a moral and political society, and an ecological, women-centered economic order as the essential pillars of a new civilizational model. In this volume, Öcalan emerges not only as a strategist for resolving the Kurdish question but as a visionary for democratizing the entire region. He closes with urgent questions that speak directly to our global moment: How should we live? What must we do? And where do we begin? Praise “Öcalan, from his cell, reminds us that freedom is not a point of arrival, but a living process, a weaving that is remade collectively, an ethical construction that challenges us in every decision, in every word, in every step. His thought, in dialogue with the rebellious spirit of the people, becomes a vital tool for thinking about emancipation beyond classical forms of politics. That is why reading his work is not only an intellectual act, but a profoundly political act.” —Rosario Aquím Chávez, Bolivian activist, poet, and educator “Öcalan’s works have played a key role in inspiring one of the most widespread movements of real-life revolutionary transformation in recent memory.” —David Graeber, author of Debt and The Dawn of Everything “One should conclude that Abdullah Öcalan is nothing less than a Kurdish Nelson Mandela.” —Slavoj Žižek, author of The Courage of Hopelessness “Öcalan’s utopia—as is soon discovered—is extremely concrete; it is embodied in the struggles and the order of the zones liberated by the Kurdish communist militias! A real utopia, the one that Öcalan supports, a precious gem that strongly opposes the rebirth, so common today, of national fascisms. The utopia of the democratic confederation of peoples embodies a real process that will win every battle.” —Antonio Negri “In these times of accelerating climate change and deepening crises, the product of centuries of imperialism and the past few decades of hyper neoliberalism and ecological destruction, your struggle for freedom and peace has become our struggle, and your example a beacon for untold millions who will yet follow.” —Barry Gills, professor of Global Development Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki About the Contributors Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is credited with developing the paradigm of Democratic Modernity. Since his abduction in 1999, he has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali in conditions of extreme isolation. During his time in prison, he has written over ten books that have transformed Kurdish politics. Writing extensively about history, philosophy and politics, he is widely regarded as a key figure in finding a political resolution to the Kurdish question. His writings have made significant contributions to discussions on freedom and outline proposals for non-state political systems in his theories on Democratic Confederalism. His most notable work is the five-volume “Manifesto for a Democratic Civilisation”. His works have been translated into over twenty languages. Leyla Güven is a Kurdish politician, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress and former mayor of the municipality of Viranşehir in the Şanlıurfa Province of Southeast Anatolia of Turkey, where she represented the former Democratic Society Party. Click here for one-page information sheet on this product
US Labor & Imperialism Pt. 2: Zionism w/ Jeff Schuhrke (Palestine Pt. 16)
Men of Capital in Mandate Palestine
This essay examines Palestinian “men of capital” in British-ruled Palestine. It lays out their historical erasure as the product of settler colonialism; the historiographic dominance of the aristoc...
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine | Oneworld
Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe’s groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. ‘Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.’ NEW STATESMAN Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and […]
Les Néo-fascismes européens et les mondes arabo-musulmans
Stéphane François et Nicolas Lebourg, « Le courant nationaliste-révolutionnaire et les mondes arabo-musulmans, de Maurice Bardèche à Christian Bouchet », Bernard Bruneteau et Yves Santamaria dir., …
It Can Be Lonely to Have a Middle-of-the Road Opinion on the Middle East (Published 2024)
Some college students and faculty members are seeking space for nuanced perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war on deeply divided campuses.
Habermas as an ethnic thinker Par Excellence: on critique, Palestine and the role of intellectuals
Taking Habermas’ 2023 statement on Palestinians-Israel as the point of entry, this article examines his concept of critique. Against the dominant view of him as a philosopher of ‘universalism’ and ...
The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate (1937)
Palestinian trade unionist George Mansour (b. 1905 – d. 1963) initially worked as a baker, then as school teacher in Nazareth before his family moved to Jaffa in 1927, where he worked first in tra...
Britain’s Palestine failure and the collapse of the international rules-based order
Britain dithers on the sidelines instead of seizing the opportunity to address a century-old injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people
Israeli Elections to Global Movements: Tariq Ali, Rashid Khalidi on New Book “The Neck and the Sword”
We get analysis of the Israeli elections, the upcoming U.S. midterms, the pro-Palestine movement and more from Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi and Pakistani British writer Tariq Ali. They are co-authors of the new book The Neck and the Sword: Palestine’s Unfinished Struggle. The book, an extended conversation between Khalidi and Ali over two years, offers an overview of Palestinian intellectual and political history, drawing its title from a famous phrase used by the renowned Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani to describe the futility of “peace talks” between occupier and occupied, saying it was akin to a “conversation between the sword and the neck.” Kanafani was assassinated by Israel in 1972, “murdered simply because his words were too dangerous for Israel to tolerate,” says Khalidi. Public opinion about Israel has grown increasingly negative in the United States and across much of the world in the wake of the genocide in Gaza, and it’s “not going to shift back,” says Khalidi. “People have seen something that cannot be unseen. They’ve seen genocide. They’ve seen slaughter. And Israel has no defense.” “Even in countries with no history of a Palestine solidarity movement, suddenly the Palestine flag emerges,” says Ali. “Why? Because their governments are trying to stop dissent on this issue, so they are defying their governments.”
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events ...
Imperialism and Unequal Development - Monthly Review Press
“The societies of the dominated periphery no longer can wait,” said the great Egyptian economist Samir Amin, over half a century ago in the lively and re...
Voting with Their Feet: Democratic Backsliding and Market-Minded Migration - Evidence from Israel and Europe
Using a comparative framework, the study examines how variations in political regimes across Israel and Europe shape patterns of international migration. In both contexts, episodes of democratic backsliding serve as quasi-exogenous shocks that reveal the causal link between institutional erosion and outward mobility. In Israel, the origin of democratic backsliding lies in a corruption shock—the criminal indictment of the prime minister—which escalated into an executive–judicial shock as the government launched an anti-democratic judicial overhaul. This confrontation between the executive and judiciary provides a natural experiment for identifying how institutional breakdowns shape migration decisions. In Europe, the origin of democratic backsliding stems from a “Syrian shock”—a massive refugee inflow that strained administrative capacity, polarized politics, and weakened liberal institutions. The resulting governance erosion triggered emigration responses structurally like those observed in Israel. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimation, the study identifies causal effects of democratic erosion on migration flows. Across both settings, out-migration emerges as a market-minded response to illiberal regime change—a behavioral signal of sensitivity to policies that features nationalizing industries, restrict free speech, and undermine the rule of law. Together, the Israeli and European experiences demonstrate that illiberal governance functions as a systemic push factor for emigration, beyond standard economic explanations.
Modern Day Slavery: the Kafala System in Lebanon
"Two hundred and fifty thousand workers under the Kafala system in Lebanon are currently struggling to survive in an exploitative system."
