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Well Earned Respect: Strongmen [Zuʿama] Ethics in Mandatory Palestine Roy Marom, Tel Aviv University Paper presented in: Honor in a Changing Society, Research Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation, College of Law and Business, Ramat Gan, Israel on June 19th 2016. ‮ During the British Mandate period in Palestine, local Palestinian communities experienced rapid social transformations through their interaction with British Colonial Authorities and Zionist Immigrants. The British Mandate ushered substantial demographic growth, the broadening of education, economic and political modernization, urbanization, alterations in the systems of law and its enforcement, and the uprooting of nomads and villagers in search for subsistence. The Sharon region in the central part of Palestine's coastal plain was in the foregrounds for these changes. The varying economic, social and political circumstances gave rise to a new group of local Strongman [Zuʿama, singular Zaʿim], an informal leadership that vied fiercely for influence and resources both with existing elites and within itself. The established Ottoman notable elites had to adapt and take advantage of new social and political opportunities in order to retain part of their influence. Both groups, and their clients, operated within a well-defined system of etiquette, with related multifaceted semantic conceptualizations of respect, dignity and honor. It is possible to perceive the actions of the Zuʿama and Notables as a pursuit of honor (Karama), which equates with Bourdieu's Status (ʿIrd). Status is socially reflected in displays of respect and disrespect between opposing parties of different standing. In this context, one may speak about strongman ethics, as a hybrid product of differing traditional and modern conceptions of status. In my lecture, I wish to explore the shifting conceptions in those systems of meaning and practice. My presentation is based on a wide range of newly discovered archival documents, and on ethnographic fieldwork in the remaining Arab villages of the region.