In recent years, scholars have reexamined the history of Palestine between the late nineteenth century and World War II either by using new research methods, such as the history of everyday life and urban studies, or by asking new questions. In addition, the history of Jews in Arab countries has been studied as part of each state's local history rather than solely within the context of Zionism. The Oriental Jewish Enlightenment and Jews acting externally in the Ottoman sphere have also became subjects for new studies.Footnote ¹ Louis Fishman's book cannot be included among these studies, except in his conclusion that Palestinian identity developed prior to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the British Mandate in the early 1920s.

Following the introduction, the book has five chapters and a conclusion. It should be noted that chapter 3 was published in the Journal of Palestine Studies, and the main parts of chapters 4 and 5 were published in edited volumes. Thus, the added value of the book as a whole is limited.

The book focuses on a narrow period of time. It covers only the years between the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The first chapter provides an overview of the history of the land up to 1908. Chapter 2 deals with steps that Palestinians, claiming Palestine as their homeland, took against Zionist settlers. Chapter 3 focuses on the Haram al-Sharif incident in 1911, when Palestinians opposed the Ottoman authorities’ decision to let British archeologists dig within the Haram al-Sharif compound. In chapter 4, the author argues that previous divisions inside the Jewish community, such as between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, began to blur under the impact of Zionism. Chapter 5 shows the support that Jews and Armenians in Istanbul provided the Zionists in order to overcome local Arab opposition. Based on careful study of Ottoman archives and local newspapers, Fishman succeeds in showing that Ottoman authorities, both in Palestine and in Istanbul, actually helped Zionism: “It would be a great mistake to see the Young Turk era as marking a major shift in the Ottoman government's official policy towards Jewish migration and Zionism” (51).

However, the book has serious problems. First, in several places the author argues against “most historians” (4, and alike in 11, 18, 51, 81) without providing detailed references. Second, sometimes the author uses the term “Palestine” as a geographical designation (e.g., “the changes in Palestine's political landscape,” p. 20), whereas in other places, in particular in chapter 2, which deals with the emergence of a collective Palestinian identity, he uses the term to relate to Muslim and Christian Arabs that form the Palestinian nation.

Fishman asks, “When did the Palestinians begin to think of themselves as ‘Palestinians’?” (67), that is, when did they start feeling attached to the land and to its inhabitants? His answer is quite simple: when Zionists came from abroad, purchased land, and established segregated communities. Fishman writes that “the Palestinians came together as a unit, encompassing a feeling of ‘connectedness’ and ‘commonality’ which led them to join together and take action” (16), but he says nothing about how this “commonality” developed and what it included. Accordingly, Palestinian identity was based on negating a few thousand foreign immigrants, not on constructive foundations, such as decades of geographical and social integration, joint holy places and religious festivals, the development of imagined historical origins, or a common culture. Moreover, this approach portrays the Palestinians, perhaps unintentionally, as a conservative society that opposed external influence, including modernization and Westernization. Indeed, the book lacks any discussion of Palestinians—Jews, Muslims, and Christian alike—endorsing Western norms of education and dress codes, encountering tourists, or gaining exposure to new modes of thinking and modern technologies. In other words, Palestinian identity or Palestinian patriotism, like any other collective identity, did not develop just as a negative reaction to colonialism and Zionism.Footnote ²

Fishman sharply divides between the Palestinians, that is, Arab Muslims and Christian living in Palestine, and their Jewish neighbors: “The Jews during the years before World War I, regardless of origin, never saw themselves as comprising a part of Palestinian Arab society” (20). This conclusion contradicts new studies on Jews in Arab countries (Arab Jews) in general and in Palestine in particular. According to those studies, Jews managed common lives with their Arab neighbors well into the twentieth century.Footnote ³

In sum, the book aims “to offer a new interpretation of the first years of the conflict. … This starting point is crucial to understand how the conflict later developed into a full-fledged clash” (204). Fishman offers a teleological-deterministic narrative, but history is about choices, turning points, and nuances.