Drawing on Arabic, English, and Hebrew language sources from the British and Israeli archives, this article seeks to bridge the catastrophic rupture of 1948 to the early 1950s and to trace the changing relationship between ordinary Palestinian olive cultivators in the Galilee and the newly established Israeli state. In contrast with studies that center on the continued expulsion of Palestinians and extension of control over land by the state and state-supported actors in the aftermath of the Nakba, this study examines those Palestinians who stayed on their land and how they responded to Israeli agricultural and food control policies that they saw as discriminatory to the point of being existential threats. Beyond analysis of Israeli state policy toward olive growers and olive oil producers, this article brings in rare Palestinian voices from the time, highlighting examples of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli state's practices of confiscation and discrimination.
Olive Cultivation in the Galilee, 1948–1955: Hegemony and Resistance
Jeffrey D. Reger is a doctoral candidate in Middle East history at Georgetown University. He wishes to acknowledge and thank the staffs of the Israel State Archive and the National Archives of the UK, and to express gratitude for the support of the organizations that funded the archival research that helped make this article possible: the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) dissertation fellowship, the Georgetown University Graduate School dissertation research travel grant, and the Georgetown University History Department Piepho travel and research grant.
Jeffrey D. Reger; Olive Cultivation in the Galilee, 1948–1955: Hegemony and Resistance. Journal of Palestine Studies 1 August 2017; 46 (4): 28–45. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2017.46.4.28
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