Comrades And Enemies: The Relational Paradigm

The “relational paradigm” that Zachary Lockman also addresses in his introduction to his book “Comrades and Enemies,” is the historical framework that he chooses to use. This relational paradigm attempts to mend the inaccuracies that are found within the dual society paradigm. For this reason, the relational paradigm takes into consideration economic, political, social, and cultural interactions between the Arab and Jewish communities. It acknowledges the existence of both societies and attempts to recognize the influence that the groups had on each other. The employment of this paradigm is progress, because it establishes that the two communities indeed were mutually formative. There are however severe weakness in this theory. It does not,
Due to this, there is a tendency amongst scholars to show a disproportionate amount of attention to the Jewish historical context, such has the Yishuv and Zionism. The majority of information that has been accumulated has been pieced together post 1948 and 1967, after the forced dispersions of Arabs from their lands. The forced removal of Arabs resulted in the destruction of important historical documents from archives, libraries, and personal property that would have contained important information regarding Palestinian ways of life. Consequently, while the relational paradigm is more suitable for accuracy in depicting how Jews and Arabs interacted with one another than the dual society paradigm, it does not provide scholars and historians with all the answers they need to fill in all the blank spaces in Arab life; economics, politics, culture, and social norms. According to Lockman, the most important factor that led towards the relational paradigm came into existence because once the state of Israel was “established,” they were no longer able to completely deny the presence of the Arab population living within their midst. The Jewish scholars wanted to know more about them and to what extent they were effecting Jewish
Even once it was virtually impossible Arab merchants to sell their produce within Tel Aviv city markets, Jewish consumers would travel to Jaffa in order to do business. By recognizing that Jews and Arabs engaged in economic, political, social fraternization, the dual society paradigm becomes entirely obsolete. Accepting history through the lens of the dual society paradigm would erase all of these very real and impactful interactions that occurred between the Jews and the