Diamonds and War

The mining of diamonds, their trading mechanisms, their financial institutions, and, not least, their cultural expressions as luxury items have engaged the work of historians, economists, social scientists, and international relations experts. Based on previously unexamined historical documents found in archives in Belgium, England, Israel, the Netherlands, and the United States, this book is the first in English to tell the story of the formation of one of the world’s main strongholds of diamond production and trade in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. The history of the diamond-cutting industry, characterized by a long-standing Jewish presence, is discussed as a social history embedded in the international political economy of its times; the genesis of the industry in Palestine is placed on a broad continuum within the geographic and economic dislocations of Dutch, Belgian, and German diamond-cutting centers. In providing a micro-historical and interdisciplinary perspective, the story of the diamond industry in Mandate Palestine proposes a more nuanced picture of the uncritical approach to the strict boundaries of ethnic-based occupational communities. This book unravels the Middle-eastern pattern of state intervention in the empowerment of private capital and recasts this craft culture’s inseparability from international politics during a period of war and transformation of empire.

List of Figures and Tables
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Map

Introduction
Global and National: War, Diamonds and the Colonial State

Chapter 1. Palestine as an Alternative
Preconditions
Local Initiatives
The Pressure of the War
The Logic of Limited Expansion

Chapter 2. The Making of a Monopoly
Effects of the Occupation
Organizing Capital
Power and Contestation

Chapter 3. Diamond Work and Zionist Time
The Reign of the Small Stone
Gain and Discipline
Facing the 'Triangular Thread'
Splintering Labor's Voice
Zionist Legitimacy

Chapter 4. The Challenge and its Constraints
In Antwerp's Absence
The Politics of Supply
Adamant London
Accountability and Vindication

Chapter 5. Labor Unrest
Actors and Issues
The First General Strike
Labor-Capital
Rapprochement
Propensity to Strike
The Long Showdown

Chapter 6. Liberation and Liberalization
Contrasts at War's End
Incipient De-Control
Deregulation

Chapter 7. Crisis and Restructuring
Reversal of Fortunes
National Intervention
Labor's Moment

Chapter 8. Reproducing the Pact
State of Transition
The Pact
Epilogue

Appendices

Table A.1 Explanation of Names of Diamond Factories in 1930-1950 Palestine
Table A.2 Establishment of Diamond Factories in Palestine, 1937-1941
Table A.3 Origins of Main Owners of Diamond Factories in Palestine, November 1941
Table A.4 Diamond Factories (PDMA Membership), Palestine November 1944
Table A.5 Diamond Factories (PDMA Membership), Palestine November 1946
Table A.6 Diamond Cooperatives in Palestine/Israel, 1946-1949

Bibliography
Index