4 - Gaza-Style Politics and the Emergence of Spatialized Factionalism

Summary

This chapter delves into the politics of factionalism in Gaza, its causes, development, the impact of external factors, and its effects. It surveys the main bones of contention within the Gazan elite, presents portraits of elite families and political personalities, and discusses the relationships between the Gazan elite and outside forces. It focuses on the rise of the Shawwa family and its allies the Busaysus, erstwhile supporters of the Husaynis, who at some point in the mid-1890s turned against them for unknown reasons and eventually were able to oust them from control over the city’s politics in 1898, when the leadership of the Husayni family was exiled by the Ottoman government to Ankara. The rise of the Shawwa–Busaysu coalition, whose source of power was the newly created municipality, was accompanied by a spatial divide of the city between the neighborhood of Daraj where most of the elite families, including the Husaynis, resided, and the relatively poor neighborhood of Shajaʿiyya, the stronghold of the opposition. This led to what here is termed “spatialized factionalism,” a new concept that is discussed at length. Gaza’s factionalism is then analyzed in comparison to late Ottoman cities in Bilad al-Sham.