ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the shifting conception of marginality in the Middle East. It reviews which identifies some of the major trends in the Middle East during the past century. The chapter focuses on the Levant countries and proposes the discussion is largely economic. It examines the intra-national shifts in the core-periphery relationship and discusses them by identifying the dominant concepts prevailing in each period since 1882, and by attempting to identify the typical marginal spaces during each of the periods. The chapter demonstrates that the official concept of marginality was based primarily on the potential for expanding the settlement frontier. Marginality was associated with the desert fringe, and with the 'struggle between the desert and the sown. The conception of marginality in Israel differs from that of the neighbouring countries in a number of respects. The Israeli perception of the marginal zones reflects the transition which the country has experienced since the onset of Jewish rural settlement in 1882.
