This is the last issue of the International Journal of Middle East Studies under my editorship. I want to express my thanks to the Middle East Studies Association for having entrusted me with its flagship for these past five years. It has been a great pleasure to work with the editorial board and book review editors, with authors and referees, to pursue the best academic writing on the region. I am especially grateful to editorial assistant Alissa Surges and to the graduate students who helped over the years with the journal in Ann Arbor—Josh Greenbaum, Najeeb Jan, Rob Haug, and Wesley Williams, among others. The International Institute, the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and other departments and institutions at the University of Michigan supported the enterprise.

Historians of the Ottoman legal system agree that the basic precepts of Islamic law (the sharia) were, as a matter of principle, to apply fully to the Muslim inhabitants of the empire on all matters civil, personal, and marital. Customary law (örf or adet) was, in personal and civil matters, always subordinate to it. Public law imposed by the Ottoman political authority (kanun and örf-i sultani) was promulgated on the authority of the state and reflected, first and foremost, the priorities and values of the imperial system. Penal law was one other particular area where the Ottoman peculiarity in the implementation of the sharia found expression. The powers of the religious judge, the kadı, were extended to include some supervisory duties, such as the policing of guilds and the regulation and control of markets. Urban security was also placed under his authority, with officers to help implement his decisions. In penal or commercial matters, the law that was effectively put into practice might have been an amalgam of sharia, imperial fiat, and custom, the particular outcome being the result of the interplay of political and social forces.

In studies of resistance against European penetration prior to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the Urabi movement takes the focus of attention. This may be warranted, given the scale, duration, and consequences of that movement. In the leading Western historiography of that period, however, the focus on the Urabi movement dominates historians' perspectives of another important movement, if shorter and less eventful, that took place in 1879. Unlike Urabi's case, the 1879 movement was dominated by groups of economic and political elites whose interests as large landholders and as partners in state administration were traditionally or customarily perpetuated by the existing social system. I will use the term “traditional elites” to distinguish those elites from other elite groups in Egypt who did not hold such a combined stake in the existing system. The traditional elites' movement aimed to defend material interests that were threatened by European encroachment on Egypt, as well as to negotiate a new distribution of power with both the khedive and European-dominated bodies that came to play a crucial role in the financial and political administration of Egypt after it entered a state of bankruptcy in 1876. In this article, I will refer to those bodies collectively as “European control.”

In July 1830, a French expeditionary force landed west of Algiers and rapidly captured the city using artillery bombardment. Although the eventual outcome of this event—the French colonization of Algeria—was not immediately evident, the force's arrival swiftly introduced a new dynamic to the political configurations and conflicts that subsequently developed: the encounter with modern Europe. As in the Islamic East, this manifested itself first in the military sphere, where reform appeared necessary to consolidate unstable domestic political structures and provide a measure of protection against European territorial expansion. Changing military practices then became part of a larger context of reform, engagement with Europe, and resistance to colonialism. This process first affected Algeria but rapidly spread into the neighboring Alawi sultanate of Morocco, where it defined relations between the state and society until the imposition of the French and Spanish protectorates in 1912.

Historians have long recognized post-war Palestine as a society in a state of destabilization. Increasing tension between the population and the Palestine Mandatory government was reflected in political opposition and violence. This was accompanied by the growing role of the United States in the intensive debate on the future of relations between Arabs and Jews, as reflected in the decision in late 1945 to convene the Anglo-American Committee. The transition from a war economy to a period of reconstruction produced immense economic and social problems that added to increasing British debts, which was partly reflected in difficulties in absorbing former servicemen in to Palestine's economy and increasing unemployment of both Arabs and Jews. Destabilization was also made evident by increasing industrial unrest, focusing significantly on the state sector of the economy—the government bureaucracy, the railways, and the military camps. This post-war militancy was part of the economic and social impact of the war, the associated cycle of wartime labor strikes, and the increasing cooperation between Arab and Jewish workers in labor protest against the government.

This article aims to explore the development of what we define as “middle-ground” politics among the Palestinians in Israel. By middle ground, we mean the linkage between Palestine as an abstract notion and the concrete daily concerns of the Palestinians. The activities at demolished Palestinian villages and towns are one of the most salient manifestations of this middle ground. We argue that these activities create a new sense of group identity for many Palestinians and can be termed a re-Palestinization of places in Israel.

The two main issues in Israel's foreign policy are relations with the Arab world and relations with the Great Powers, and there is extensive literature on both. But whereas the literature on relations with the Great Powers is marked by a broad consensus, the literature on relations with the Arab world is dominated by a deep and often acrimonious debate. A major landmark in the evolution of this debate was the emergence in the late 1980s of a school of “new,” or revisionist, Israeli historians. Among the members of this group were Simha Flapan, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, and the present author. We were called the “new historians” because we challenged the traditional Zionist narrative of the birth of Israel and of the first Arab–Israeli war. The momentous events that unfolded in 1948 were the main focus of the debate. Subsequent books by some of these authors extended the critique of Israel's policy in the conflict to the post-independence period. The debate between the “old” and the “new” historians has been going on for nearly two decades, and it is still going strong.