Maps, as argued in the previous chapter, influence one's way of grasping the landscape and one's imaginable social affiliations. Yet, beyond their more abstract role, they are also an important means for registering and transferring information, especially within a bureaucratized system. In this chapter I look into the practicalities of map use in Palestine during the late 1930s and the 1940s. The ways maps were used represent the divergence in social organization and bureaucratization between the Arab and Jewish communities on the eve of 1948.

The majority of Palestine's Arabs were rural, semiliterate, and did not identify with an umbrella national institution. Many Arab bodies were involved in the evolving national struggle, but there was much suspicion and little cooperation between them (Khalaf 1991, 1997; Sela 1996; Budeiri 1997). In contrast, the yishuv was literate, bureaucratized, and organized within a tight net of national networks (providing health services, education, agricultural expertise, funding agencies, and so on) (Horowitz and Lissak 1978). The differences in the scale and spectrum of institutionalization between the Arabs and the Jews had a decisive effect on the two sides' preparation for the war and on its outcomes (see Chapter 1, pp. 15–25). Although the British Mandate had its independent agenda, the unintended consequence was more of a convergence, even if temporary, with Zionist bureaucratized conduct than with the Arab community.

This chapter begins with the awakening concern with maps among members of the Jewish yishuv.