Holy Lands. Nicolas Pelham
Holy Lands:
Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East
Copyright © 2016 by Nicolas Pelham
All rights reserved
Published by Columbia Global Reports
91 Claremont Avenue, Suite 515
New York, NY 10027
facebook.com/columbiaglobalreports
Library of Congress Control Number:
2015949787
ISBN: 978-09909763-5-6
Book design by Strick&Williams
Map design by Jeffrey L. Ward
Author photograph by Lipika Pelham
CONTENTS
Cast of Characters
Preface
PART 1—THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Chapter One
The Origin of Milleticide
Chapter Two
Old Ottoman Pluralism
Chapter Three
The Sectarianism of Secular Nationalism
Chapter Four
Millet Wars
Chapter Five
The Triumph of Sectarian Nationalism
PART 2—CREATING A JEWISH STATE
Chapter Six
“Come Back, Sons”
Chapter Seven
“Redeeming the Land”
Chapter Eight
The Politics of Memory
PART 3—THE RESURGENCE OF SUNNISTAN
Chapter Nine
The Palestinian Origins of Sunni Milletism
Chapter Ten
The Islamic State
PART 4—THE CREATION OF SHIASTAN
Chapter Eleven
Hashad
PART 5—MODERN MILLETICIDE
Chapter Twelve
The Spread of Sunni Revanchism
Chapter Thirteen
Communal Rupture
PART 6—HOLY LANDS TO HOLY COMMUNITIES
Chapter Fourteen
The Way Back: An Armenian Perspective
Chapter Fifteen
The Way Back: Shia Perspectives
Chapter Sixteen
The Way Back: Sunni Perspectives
Chapter Seventeen
The Way Back: Jewish Perspectives
Chapter Eighteen
Milletocracy
Acknowledgments
Further Readings
Endnotes
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
First president of Turkey, 1923–38
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
President of Turkey, 2014–current
Ara Sarafian
British-Armenian historian of the Armenian genocide
David Ben-Gurion
First prime minister of Israel, 1955–63
Benjamin Netanyahu
Current prime minister of Israel
Ilan Shohat
Mayor of Safed
Yona Yahav
Mayor of Haifa
Shimon Gafsou
Mayor of Nazareth Illit
Haviva Aranyi
Holocaust survivor
Yehuda Bauer
Israeli historian of the Holocaust
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
Arabian founder of Wahhabism/Salafism
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Syrian cleric and an architect of modern Sunni jihadism
Abdullah Azzam
Palestinian cleric and founding member of al-Qaeda
Osama bin Laden
Arabian founder of al-Qaeda
Abu Qatada al-Filistini
Jordanian leader of Palestinian jihadism
Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi
Jordanian-Palestinian spiritual mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Jordanian founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq/the Islamic State
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Iraqi leader of the Islamic State
Muqtada al-Sadr
Iraqi leader of the Sadrist Movement
Saddam Hussein
President of Iraq, 1979–2003
Nouri al-Maliki
Prime minister of Iraq, 2006–14
Haider al-Abadi
Prime minister of Iraq, 2014–current
Ali Sistani
Leading grand ayatollah in Najaf
Abu Jaafar al-Darraji
Senior commander of the Badr Organization
Mohammed Dahlan
Palestinian politician, security advisor to Abu Dhabi crown prince
Mansour Malik
Founder, Islamic Law Chambers
Sayyid Abu Musameh
Former leader of Hamas in Gaza
Like many before me, my career in the Middle East was born of the thrill of the