CIAO DATE: 07/2008
Volume: 37, Issue: 3
Spring 2008
FROM THE EDITOR (PDF)
ARTICLE: The End of Arab Tiberias: The Arabs of Tiberias and the Battle for the City in 1948
Mustafa Abbasi
Tiberias was unique among Palestinian mixed cities for its unusually harmonious Arab-Jewish relations, even during periods of extreme tension like the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. Yet within hours of a brief battle in mid-April 1948, the town's entire Arab population was removed, mostly across the Transjordanian border, making Tiberias a wholly Jewish town overnight. In exploring how this took place, this article focuses on the Arab community's rigid social structure; the leadership's policy of safeguarding intercommunal relations at all costs, heightening local unpreparedness and isolating the town from the rest of Arab Palestine; the growing involvement of the local Jewish community with the Haganah's plans; and the British authorities' virtual abdication of responsibility as they began withdrawing their troops in the last month of the Mandate and as Plan Dalet was launched, engulfing the country in all-out war.
Mustafa Abbasi is a lecturer at Tel Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, Israel. He is the author of Safad during the Mandate Period: A Social and Political Study (Institute for Palestine Studies, 2005, in Arabic).
SPECIAL FEATURE: The Fall of Haifa Revisited
Walid Khalidi
Almost fifty years ago, Walid Khalidi published "The Fall of Haifa" in the December 1959 issue of the now-defunct Middle East Forum. On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the fall of Haifa on 22 April 1948, a major landmark in the Palestine war, JPS is republishing the article, long unavailable, to which Professor Khalidi has added endnotes and an introduction.
Walid Khalidi, a founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies and its general secretary, has taught at Oxford University, the American University of Beirut, and Harvard University.
INTERVIEW (PART I): Khalid Mishal: The Making of a Palestinian Islamic Leader (PDF)
Mouin Rabbani
Khalid Mishal (Abu Walid), a founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the head of its politbureau since 1996, has been the recognized head of the movement since the assassination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin in spring 2004. Despite his considerable influence within the organization, at least dating back to the early 1990s, Mishal did not attract attention in the West until he survived Israel’s botched assassination attempt in Amman in September 1997, which made headlines when King Hussein (with possible help from U.S. President Bill Clinton) compelled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provide the antidote to the poison with which he had been injected in broad daylight by Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists. Mishal’s prominence has only increased following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories. Despite the U.S.-led campaign to isolate the Islamist movement internationally, Mishal has functioned as the main interlocutor with regional and international actors seeking direct or informal contact with the organization, as well as with the international media.
SPECIAL DOCUMENT FILE: The Annapolis Conference
Tamimi: Hamas: A History from Within; Chehab: Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement; and Lybarger: Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories
Khaled Hroub
Walt and Mearsheimer: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy and Petras: The Power of Israel in the United States
Michael Neumann
Lia: A Police Force without a State: A History of the Palestinian Security Forces in the West Bank and Gaza and Lia: Building Arafat's Police: The Politics of International Police Assistance in the Palestinian Territories after the Oslo Agreement
Sarah Salwen
Hilal: Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution
Ali Abunimah
Sorek: Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave
Grant Farred
Jacoby: Bridging the Barrier: Israeli Unilateral Disengagement
Gil Z. Hochberg
Chiller-Glaus: Tackling the Intractable: Palestinian Refugees and the Search for Middle East Peace
Michael R. Fischbach
Boullata and Engel: We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon
Philip Metres
Kabha: The Palestinian Press as Shaper of Public Opinion, 1929–39: Writing up a Storm
Alex Winder
ARAB VIEWS (cartoons from al-Hayat)
FROM THE HEBREW PRESS
PHOTOS FROM THE QUARTER
QUARTERLY UPDATE ON CONFLICT AND DIPLOMACY
CONGRESSIONAL MONITOR
A1. Monsignor Pietro Sambi, Papal Nuncio to the United States, Remarks on Vatican-Israeli Relations, Washington, DC, 16 November 2007 (excerpts)
A2. World Bank, "Investing in Palestinian Economic Reform and Development," Paris, 17 December 2007 (excerpts)
A3. International Crisis Group, "Inside Gaza: The Challenge of Clans and Families," Amman, 20 December 2007 (excerpts)
A4. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights John Dugard, Comments of the Status of Human Rights in Palestine, Geneva, 21 January 2008 (excerpts)
B. Hamas Political Adviser Ahmed Yousef, Open Letter to U.S. Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice on the Annapolis Conference, 7 December 2007 (excerpts)
C1. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Interview, Jerusalem Post, 3 January 2008 (excerpts)
C2. Winograd Commission, Press Conference on Inquiry into 2006 Lebanon War, 30 January 2008 (excerpts)
C3. Gisha—Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, "Briefing: Israeli High Court Decision Authorizing Fuel and Electricity Cuts to Gaza," Tel Aviv, 31 January 2008 (excerpts)
C4. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Address to Students Participating in Model UN Program in Israel, Jerusalem, 10 February 2008 (excerpts)
D1. Reps. Gary Ackerman and Charles Boustany, Letter to U.S. Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington, DC, 20 November 2007
D2. President George W. Bush, Speech at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 10 January 2008
Chronology: 16 November 2007–15 February 2008
Michele K. Esposito
Bibliography of Periodical Literature