LOcATING THe ZIONIST-ARAB eNcOUNTeR • 17international (especially european) significance of Jerusalem and the
interests of powers beyond the empire in the holy Land, the Ottoman
central authorities in Istanbul, seeking to maintain a closer grip on the
region, finally separated the sanjak of Jerusalem from the vilayet of
Syria in 1874.^7 the Jerusalem region was given the special status of a
mutasarriflik, a district whose administrators answered directly to the
Ottoman sultan in Istanbul rather than to the governor of a province. In
1887 the remaining two sanjaks of Palestine— Acre and Nablus— were
also separated from the vilayet of Syria, though they were joined not
to the mutasarriflik of Jerusalem but rather to the newly established
vilayet of Beirut.^8
Thus when we think of al- Khalidi and Ben- Yehuda’s Jerusalem as
having been located in Late Ottoman palestine, in Ottoman administra-
tive terms we mean the mutasarriflik of Jerusalem as well as the san-
jaks of Nablus and acre. that palestine was not a single administrative
unit is important for our purposes because recognizing that it was part
of several provinces and the way in which it was integrated into a vast
empire highlights the extent to which this region must be understood
in its broader Ottoman context. Considering wider events and changes
in the Ottoman empire is critical for fully comprehending phenomena
in these three small Ottoman districts.
“Late Ottoman Palestine,” though, is more than a convenient but
inaccurate shorthand for the distinct regions of Jerusalem, Nablus, and
acre. For the primary subjects of this book, namely, the residents of
these Ottoman regions and their contemporaries in the Middle east
and europe, palestine (or the Land of Israel) as such was indeed a
meaningful unit. In other words, to acknowledge the lack of political
boundaries around a land called palestine is not to imply that such
boundaries, however imprecise and flexible, did not exist in people’s
minds. Moreover, noting the absence of official borders should not be
(^7) Scholars differ on what motivated the Ottomans to make this change. Haim Gerber
argues that the change was due to external factors, particularly “the impact of the West.”
Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890– 1914 , 6– 7. Cf. abu- Manneh, “the rise of the
Sanjak of Jerusalem in the Late Nineteenth century,” 41– 42. Abu- Manneh highlights
the internal Ottoman factors that, he argues, were at least as important as the european
in accounting for Jerusalem’s rise in status in the nineteenth century. Porath points to
“the internal interest in Jerusalem and the dispute between various Christian sects over
the rights to the Holy Places.” See Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian- Arab National
Movement 1918– 1929 , 15– 16. David Kushner highlights the importance of egypt’s “re-
cord of expansionism in the nineteenth century,” which “made Palestine a vulnerable
border region and enhanced the importance of its internal and external security.” Kush-
ner, To Be Governor of Jerusalem, 23.
(^8) Schölch, Palestine in Transformation, 1856– 1882 , 12. See also hanssen, Fin de siècle
Beirut.