Author Description

Palestine/Israel and South Africa are sites of two of the most persistent conflicts on earth. By comparing their historical formation from the earliest stages of settlement through the critical political changes of 1948, Ran Greenstein shows that while the two share remarkably similar patterns of colonization, they nonetheless have developed nearly opposite approaches to relations between their indigenous peoples and immigrant settlers. Focusing on collective identity formation and the capacity of indigenous peoples to organize, sustain an independent existence, and develop outside the control of dominant forces, Greenstein explains how the development of exclusionary policies in Palestine/Israel were an outcome of the formation of two national groups with their own distinct institutions. At the same time, however, South Africa's policies of incorporation reflected growing awareness that the social and political interpenetration among different groups created a unified though highly inegalitarian society.