NOVANEWS
Shofar ♦ An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Purdue University
Vol. 29, No. 1 ♦ 2010 (Fall)
Book Reviews ♦ 159 – 161
State Practices and Zionist Images: Shaping Economic Development in
Arab Towns in Israel , by David A. Wesley.
New York and Oxford :
Berghahn Books, 2008. 256 pp. $34.95.
This is a book of major importance by an Israeli anthropologist. It analyzes
the relations between Jewish and Arab towns in the Galilee during the period
1992–1997 when an industrial area close to Nazareth called Zipporit was
being developed. It also examines the role of central and local government
bureaucracies in the planning process. Israeli bureaucracy is formidable in its
ability to block development, but where the Arab minority is concerned there
are additional factors at work.
The purpose of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in developing the
industrial park was to further its strategic aim of industrializing the region. At
the same time, the government and the Jewish Agency had begun a program to
increase the Jewish population of the region by creating new settlements in the
hills. These new settlements would help prevent Arab towns from spreading
as their population grew.
Wesley shows how these policies were implemented in such a way that
the Jewish population benefited and the Arabs did not. He dwells on the reasons
for this difference: not only current needs but also ingrained biases, the
most important of which was the notion that Israel ’s Arabs had “traditional
values” that held back their economic and social development. The idea that
these traditional (i.e., primitive) values existed was due to the way in which
( Jewish) Israelis viewed the Arabs more than any objective reality.
Despite this, Wesley shows that Arab participation in the development
process has increased from near passivity to a willingness to make demands.
These have not all been rejected, and planners have become much more willing
to involve Arab local authorities in regional development. He explores the
mind-set of Jews and Arabs alike and shows the dangers in the way they think
about each other. Wesley notes that the Arabs of Israel feel under siege especially
with regard to land use and land ownership. It should also be noted that the
Jewish majority feels under siege as a result of regional hostility towards Israel .
The book begins with an analysis of the territorial dimensions of the issue
in the Galilee , providing details of the population by sub-region as well as the
location of settlements and how the region is administered. This is followed by
an examination of urbanization trends, local authority budgets, income levels
by settlement, and economic development patterns. A chapter is devoted to
the history of the Zipporit industrial area and its legal status.
The key issues of land, territory, and jurisdiction are then looked at,
the main one being the loss of Arab land. There is then a chapter on
the image of Arab traditionalism that is of a significance beyond this book.
Wesley suggests that the authorities subscribe to two contradictory ideas about
the Arabs: the first is that they are primitive and thus cannot develop economically
and the second is that they are a threat to the country’s Zionist identity.
They cannot be both, which suggests that both concepts are wrong.
He shows that when conditions permit, Arab landowners seek to develop
their land for industrial development and try to market it. They did not,
and perhaps still do not, operate on a level playing field, and that is why
they manifest what the authorities call traditionalism. There are two chapters
on developments beyond Zipporit, in the Galilee as a whole.
Wesley concludes that “[g]overnment programs and policies, distinguishing
between Jew and Arab even as they proclaim integration, have shaped the
manner in which the Arab locality is connected to industrial activity and local
economic development” (p. 195).
Emmanuel Marx, the leading Israeli anthropologist, who supervised the dissertation
on which this book is based, wrote in his forward to the book that the
author, appalled by the systematic discriminatory results of state practices, takes
a moral stand, but allows the reader to draw his own conclusions. He also suggests
that the possibility for change exists. This is exactly what the book does.
In view of the events of October 2001, when 13 Israeli Arabs were killed
during the most serious riots Israel has ever experienced, it would be of great
interest to see how the issues, policies and attitudes that Wesley analyzed for
the period 1992–97 have changed, if at all: a second edition would be most
welcome.
This could also analyze recent government initiatives to improve
economic conditions in the Arab community, especially the employment of
women. David Wesley would be an excellent judge of whether progress has
been made.
Paul Rivlin
Tel Aviv University
