14 • InTROduCTIOn
of others— neighboring and often competing groups— played an abso-
lutely pivotal role. By reexamining the sources in which Zionists and
Arabs of the Late Ottoman period depicted or addressed one another,
the book not only reinflects their history of identity formation with the
categories of religion and race; it also illuminates the often counterin-
tuitive role of each of these categories in blurring perceived differences
between members of the two groups.