"In the Den of Abū Ǧilda, the Lion": A Literary Reportage on Social Banditry in British Mandate Palestine

The attention of journalists and writers from different countries has often been attracted by what Eric Hobsbawm terms "social banditry,"the phenomenon of individuals from rural communities who, for reasons that local conventions do not classify as criminal, clash with the official authorities of their territory. Serialized in a Palestinian newspaper in 1934, the reportage "Fī arīn al-asad Abī ilda"(In the Den of Abū ilda, the Lion) deals with one such bandit who practiced highway robbery in the Nablus area, eluding the police for long. Establishing a new sphere of confidentiality opposed to police censorship, this text interprets Abū ilda's criminal exploits in terms of the so far unarticulated, political aspirations of Palestine's rural classes. The bandit thus becomes a symbol of the failure of the British Mandate over the country and of the consequent political struggle of its Arab population.