Late Ottoman Gaza

An Eastern Mediterranean Hub in Transformation

By: Yuval Ben-Bassat, Johann Buessow

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

In contemporary public discourse, Gaza tends to be characterized solely as a theater of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. However, little is known about Gaza's society, politics, economy, and culture during the Ottoman era. Drawing on a range of previously untapped local and imperial sources, Yuval Ben-Bassat and Johann Buessow explore the city's history from the mid-nineteenth century through WWI. They show that Gaza's historical importance extends far beyond the territory of the 'strip' since the city was an important hub for people, goods, and ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean from Antiquity until the twentieth century. Using new digital methodologies, Ben-Bassat and Buessow introduce listeners to the world of Gazans from various walks of life, from the traditional Muslim elites to the commoners and minority communities of Christians and Jews. In so doing, they tell the lively story of this significant but frequently misunderstood city.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Yuval Ben-Bassat and Johann Buessow (P)2025 Tantor Media

Academic, Relatively Neutral Study, with Important Insighte

Don’t make this one of the first books you read about Palestine or Gaza. It is too specific to a relatively brief historical period. And it is academic, if comprehensible material. But if you know Gaza well, or you are writing on Palestine, there are some real insights here.

For instance, Gaza has been in economic decline ever since the Suez Canal was built in the late nineteenth century, and then railroads were built in the early twentieth. For Gaza was a stop off on a trade route across the Arabian Dessert and down to Mecca. However, there was never a real port at Gaza, because the water is too shallow and rough. So, its prospects for development were always limited. It was largely an oasis, and it was isolated by deserts, But now that the aquifer has been destroyed by Israel, it is just a desert city. Finally, as a result of its isolation, Gaza was always more conservative and traditional. So, that isn’t the result of Hamas. Other studies inform readers that Israel deliberately isolated Gaza from the moment they stole it from Egypt in 1967. The 16 year siege was just an extreme phase of that isolation. But this book never strays from neutrality. You will have to think your own positions into it. And you will have to decide for yourself how all of this history pertaining to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is relevant to the mass murder of its inhabitants today.