From Urban Cosmopolitanism to “Mixed Cities” to Ethnic Purity Joel Beinin* Urban Coexistence/Urban Conflict

The trajectory of the Zionist settlement project shifted from urban coexistence and rural violence in the late Ottoman era toward increasing urban violence as the frontier shifted from the countryside to the cities, especially during the Nakba, and even more so after 1967. [...] The only ones who really aroused the Arabs’ anger were the…students of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who came to redeem lands in the Holy Land and established a community in Hebron (Livneh, 2000). [...] But by the end of 1925 most of the Arabs left the URPTW because the Histadrut demanded that only Jews should be hired in vacant positions. [...] Still, in 1944-45 the URPTW and the Palestine Arab Workers Society conducted joint strikes and a three-day occupation of the railway workshops. [...] In early April 1948 the leadership of the 6,000 Arab residents, almost half the population, refused to allow the Arab Liberation Army into the city.