Search results

This study focuses primarily on two strands of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel: the Zionist nationalist 'messianic' camp and the ultra-orthodox rabbis and non-Zionist religious parties. It explores the doctrinal differences between these two concerning the 'messianic doctrine', their attitudes towards Palestinian Christians, and their impact on Israeli foreign and domestic policies. The two currents invoke the interpretation of the Jewish Law of Moses Maimonides to justify their respective attitudes towards the Palestinians. The essay explores the 'reinvention' of Maimonides by Jewish religious fundamentalists, who metamorphose him from being a rationalist and universalist philosopher—the most illustrious example of the Golden Age of Arabo–Islamic–Judaic symbiosis—into an anti-Arab religious zealot.

Iranian agriculture and rural society have undergone profound socioeconomic and political changes over the past four decades. While recognizing the significant impact of urbanization, economic development, and integration of the rural economy in the market, this paper contends that the land-reform program of the 1960s and the 1979 revolution represent the primary turning points in the rural transformation. Land reform, through intense state intervention, dramatically changed the traditional landlord-sharecropping system (nizam-i arbab-rayati). Peasant uprisings, the forcible occupation of large estates, and the agrarian policies of the postrevolutionary regime have led to the demise of the urban agricultural bourgeoisie and the empowerment of the peasants. There has been a disintegration of large-scale public and private agricultural production systems, including agribusinesses, farm corporations, and the agricultural production cooperatives developed under the shah's regime.