The collapse of the Palestinian-Arab Middle Class in 1948: The case of Qatamon. Middle Eastern Studies, 2007 (original) (raw)

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Palestinian-Arab middle class in the three larger cities – Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa – was among the first groups to leave the country, in the initial stage of the war. As yet, no in-depth study has been made of the place and function of this group as a civil society during the intercommunal war between the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine (December 1947 - May 1948). This essay refers to the Qatamon neighbourhood in Jerusalem as a test case for the processes that were undergone by the Arab middle class in this period, focusing on the social and cultural background of the neighbourhood’s residents.