ABSTRACT
Jewish 'Exclusivism' in Palestine Before the outbreak of the First World War, the Jews in Palestine had already provided themselves with a relatively sophisticated structure of regional and local associations and organisations, with social services and with an arbitration tribunal.l Most of those who arrived after 1882 (the 'New Yishuv') had immigrated with the conscious purpose of creating a new, self-contained Jewish society. Even Arthur Ruppin, a man known for his repeated warnings of the need to improve relations with the Arabs, insisted that the pattern of Jewish settlement had to avoid scattering Jews at random throughout the country, but had to concentrate on a few points. 'It is only in this fashion' , he lectured the XIth Zionist Congress in 1913,
Notwithstanding the occasional apologetics to the contrary, the Jews had not come to Palestine in order to combine with their 'semitic cousins' to form any sort of hybrid cultural, social or political unity.
