Resumo de History Of Modern Palestine

With the conflict between Israel
and Palestine looming so large, how can a
history of modern Palestine
avoid the pull of competing nationalist stories? In A History of Modern
Palestine Pappe offers a de-modernized history, taking a critical approach
to some of the assumptions about modernization that underly nationalism. And he
consistently takes the perspective of the underprivileged rather than that of
elites.

Avoiding narratives that foreground Westernization and the development of
national identities, Pappe emphasizes the persistence of indigenous cultures
and traditional customs, and the presence of social and economic links and
trends which cut within and across national and ethnic divides. These are
strongest early on ? Pappe starts his account around 1856 ? but they have
continued despite wars and partitions, perhaps even reviving in new form with
the return of religion as a major force in both Israeli and Palestinian
politics.

Pappe focuses on subaltern society, on the marginalized and dispossessed. As
well as women and the poor, he pays relatively more attention to Mizrahi (Arab)
Jews and Palestinian Israelis than to the Ashkenazi or Zionist elites, and to
Palestinian refugees and farmers than to the Palestinian leadership or the
heads of Arab states. Pappe also covers social and economic history, rather
than politics narrowly: the machinations of political parties or factions and
their leaders are described, but also the sources of their support in the
population.

This approach does pose some problems. While Pappe''s treatment is
chronological, the reduced emphasis on political and military events may leave
newcomers to the subject without a comfortable narrative framework to cling to.
(One nice inclusion for such readers, however, is a twenty page glossary of
names.) And, where a more narrowly political history might have fitted
comfortably into three hundred pages, A History of Modern Palestine
really does seem too short, with brief glances at many aspects of society and
economics leaving one wanting more.

These are minor problems, however. A History of Modern Palestine
offers a novel perspective, and one which may force a rethink of overly simple
ideas about the Israel/Palestine conflict. It is also straightforward and
readable, presented without jargon and with Pappe''s own biases in the open.

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