Prof. Menachem Klein, a Middle East history professor at Bar-Ilan University, talks to host Gilad Halpern about his recent book Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jersualem, Jaffa and Hebron.
Jews and Arabs in Palestine once shared a common identity that was later subsumed by mutually opposing national identities. It’s not too late to change that.
This is a segment from The Tel Aviv Review: Listen to the full show.
Professor Klein obfuscates the causes of division between the two communities. The violence came from one side only – the Arab Palestinians. Tel Aviv began as a Jewish city because Jews were being attacked in Jaffa. It was the Arabs who started the riots in the 20s against the Jews. Klein touches on one of the causes : that the Jews had begun to throw off the yoke of dhimmitude . This is a massive factor in the conflict, but it is not politically-correct to talk about it.