## Antisemitism Muslim and Christian Arabs alike were unfavourable towards Europeans as well as Jews. Europeans were not only foreigners but also nationals of powers which were rivals to the Empire. Furthermore, they also enjoyed a range of privileges through the Capitulations, particularly in areas such as trade and taxation which advantaged them over Ottoman subjects. Being Jewish only increased the disdain which had deep roots in Islam and Eastern Christianity. #### Islamic anti-Semitism - Muhammad initially saw Jews as monotheists who could potentially be converted. He even adopted certain aspects of Judaism e.g. originally facing Jerusalem during prayer - Muhammad's attitude shifted when Jews did not mass convert - Direction of prayer changed towards Mecca - References to Jews in the Quran became hostile - Jews in the Quran - Said to hate Muslims, to have broken their Covenant with God and to have falsified scriptures - God will bring about great retribution upon them on the Day of Judgement - *ahl al-kitab* - possessors of a divine book - Jews were still allowed to live and practice their religion under Islam - As *dhimmi* (protected persons), they were inferior and subjected to a special tax, whilst being expected to live in areas and in a way that was deemed appropriate by the true believers #### Christian anti-Semitism - Christian Arabs were divided among numerous, often mutually hostile, denominations, but they held a common religious prejudice against Jews - "Blood libel" - A baseless charge - which most likely originated in Europe - that Jews used Christian blood to perform rituals - Damascus Affair in 1840 was one of at least nine blood libel cases against Jews in the 19th century - Christians - also *dhimmis* - tended to view Jews as competition within the Empire. This was exacerbated in the mid-late 19th century when Muslims were more antagonistic towards Christians, whom they suspected of sympathising with European powers ## Jews in the settlements - Very few Jews living in the rural colonies before WWI - mid-1880s: 500-1000 - 1893: ~2000 settlers living in 9 colonies - 1898: 4000+ settlers in 18 colonies - 1908: 10,000+ settlers in 26 colonies - Early settler presence wouldn't have been directly felt by many Arabs - Jewish settlers often viewed by the fellahin with curiosity - Apparently their work ethic was surprising to local peasants, as was their more modern machinery - At other times, their inexperience was viewed with amusement, e.g. when settlers at Rishon leZion tried to get camels to pull carts like horses - Causes of friction - Settlers couldn't speak Arabic and were ignorant of local customs - e.g. The fellahin would share pasture lands on the grounds that they were God-given, whereas Jews viewed incursions as trespassing and used force to remove Arab shepherds from their land. Even trespassing animals were rounded up and their owners were fined - Some Arabs attempted to rob settlements, whilst other altercations broke out as a result of accidents, misunderstandings and disputes over often trivial matters - Incidents like this were also commonplace among locals - Underlying causes: - Land of Petah Tiqva was once owned by al-Yahudiyya villagers - Part of the land was forfeited to two Arab moneylenders in Jaffa after defaulting on debts - The other part was handed to the local authorities after 5 years of missed tax payments - The moneylenders, who had sold the land to the Jews, had given more than was theirs - It was a faux pas to buy land that had been seized by local authorities, since it was likely that the former owners would have tried to regain it - Settlers initially rented out some land to the farmers, but then consolidated the rest in 1884 - Local custom was that whoever prepared a for the summer harvest automatically held the right to the land for the winter one - 1883: Nes Ziyyona - 2,000 dunams purchased by a settler while still in Russia - A quarter of the land was lost on arrival in a court case with peasants - 1884: Gedera - Settlers harassed for years by peasants from Qatra who had lost land to an Arab moneylender - 1886: Collision at Petah Tiqva - Oldest Jewish colony, founded in 1878, then abandoned and resettled in 1882 - Muslim village of al-Yahudiyya four miles north didn't have enough pasture of its own and swould send animals to graze on Petah Tiqva's land - settlers offended local custom by trying to stop them - 28th March: Fellahin ploughed up a road to the north and demanded settlers use other routes to reach their fields; when one settler rode down the old road, the fellahin took his horse - On the same day Jews responded by rounding up 10 mules grazing on their land - 29th March: Most colonists went to Jaffa for the day due to heavy rain; 50-60 villagers saw the colony almost empty and attacked it, causing considerable damage - 5 settlers injured, including a woman who later died of her wounds - The attackers led the cattle and mules on the colony to Jaffa, alleging that they had been found on their land and demanded compensation - 30th March: 31 Arabs from al-Yahudiyya arrested - 1894: Rehovot (founded 1892) - Raided by ~100 fellahin from Zarnuqa - 1891: Hadera - Finally solved the demarcation of its boundaries in 1902 - Fellahin would generally improve relations with Jewish colonies once they realised the settlers couldn't be dislodged - Most colonies employed 5-10 times as many Arabs as Jews and paid them relatively well - Settlers bought Arab produce, sometimes hosting Arab markets within the colony - Discarded manure outside Arab villages were purchased by Jews and used as fertiliser - In larger colonies, local Arabs would get full time jobs guarding them - Fellahin became attracted to areas near the colonies - 40 Jewish families at Rishon le-Zion in 1889 and over four hundred Arab families had settled in the area - "The Arab village of Sarafand which stands to the south of \[Rishon le-Zion] used to be a complete ruin... Now it has become a big, expansive village, because many families who had deserted the village have settled it \[again], since \[now] there is work for all of them... and for their wives, sons and daughters." - Summary until 1908: early resentment -> hostility -> acceptance -> improved relations ## Jews in the towns - 1881-1891: Jewish population in Jerusalem doubled from 13,920 to 25,322 - 1893: Jewish population in Jaffa reached 2,500, despite being a negligible presence in 1880 - Jaffa - Jewish population appeared higher than in reality due to it being the main point of entry for Jewish arrivals. Local Jews would feed into this illusion by gathering in large crowds to meet new arrivals as they disembarked - June 1891: First Arab protest against modern Jewish settlement in Palestine - Upon hearing that larger numbers of Jews were expected from Russia, a telegram was sent from Jerusalem to the Grand Vezir, asking him to ban Russian Jews from entering Palestine and from purchasing land - Telegram was sent either by "leading Muslims" or by a group of Muslims and Christians - Two basic demands: end Jewish migration and end land purchases. This would remain their demands all the way up to the forming of the State of Israel ## Arab leaders - 1899: In response to the Jerusalem commission's report to the Administrative Council, the Mufti of Jerusalem propose to terrorist Jewish arrivals and expel all foreign Jews who had arrived since 1891 - Mutasarrif proposed that Jews be allowed to settle on the condition that they become Ottoman subjects - The Administrative Council accepted the report and sent a summary to the Grand Vezirate in 1900 - the Mufti's proposal was not in it - 1901: Administrative Council granted Leven the right to purchase land in Jerusalem, despite protest from the Mufti - When the Porte annulled Leven's purchase in Tiberias, the transfers made to his name in Jerusalem were stopped shortly afterwards - 1902: JCA representative and director of the Alliance school in Jerusalem, Albert Antébi noted that Arab and Turkish officials were growing increasingly sour towards Jews; as were locals - In 1901, Antébi described a group of illiterate Muslim peasants asking him: "Is it true that the Jews want to retake this country?" In 1903 a Muslim reportedly told a Jew in Jerusalem: "We shall pour out everything to the last drop of blood rather than see the Dome of the Rock fall into the hands of non-Muslims." - 1903: Article by Dr. Lamec Saad, Chief Quarantine Officer in Jaffa shows that certain Christian Arabs in Palestine were well informed about Zionism - Mandel argues that Arab anti-Zionism was not yet a general sentiment prior to the Young Turks Revolution - 1905: Husseini incident - A member of the family asked the Anglo-Palestine Company to extend his credit. When the company representative refused, an argument broke out and he reportedly accused Husseini of dealing like a fellah - Husseini complained in a letter to the APC president in London: *"I have been working with JCA for three years with the most sincere and honourable intentions. But in face of my loyalty to the sons of IsraYl I am very sorry to say that yesterday I was, with all my race, the Arabes, insulted by your representative Mr Leventine, in your bank and before your employees. So as you see that Mr Leventine thus abused, painfully, our welcome and sincerity to the Jews. Such a sad behaviour, that could not come out but of a man like Mr Leventine, shall never \[sic] be forgotten by me nor by my friends."* - Traces of Arab nationalism in "all my race, the Arabs"? #### Christian intellectuals - Ya'qub Sarruf and Fair Nimr, editors of al-Muqtataf who moved to Cairo in 1884 to avoid the Ottoman censor - When asked their thoughts on Zionism after the first Zionist Congress, they replied that the Arabic press hadn't paid it any special attention - Claimed that Jews who had settled had taken over most of the trade and commerce in Palestine - Didn't think Jews would concentrate on agriculture - Believed Ottoman opposition for Great Power interference would be too big an obstacle for Zionism - "Therefore we believe the success of the Zionists is remote" #### Rashid Rida, leading Islamic thinker - Reaction from leading Islamic scholar, Rashid Rida - Student of Muhammad Abduh, Mufti of Egypt from 1899-1905 - Rida's journal, *al-Manar* was dedicated to propagating Abduh's ideas - Cooperated with the Young Turks from 1908-1912 >[!quote]- Rashid Rida, responding to the editors of *al-Muqtataf*, 1898 >"You complacent nonentites... look at what peoples and nations do... Are you content for it to be reported in the newspapers of every country that the penniless of the weakest of peoples \[the Jews], whom all governments are expelling, have so much knowledge and understanding of civilisation and its ways that they can take possession of your country, establish colonies in it, and reduce its masters to hired labourers and its rich to poor men? Think about this question, and talk about it... Then, when it is clear to you that you are restricted in the rights of your homeland and in the service of your nation and co-religionists,... examine and discuss... matters like this. It is more worthy of consideration... than slandering your brothers and accusing them of sinning." - Rida's Arab nationalism were fleshed out in an article on Zionism, entitled "The Revival of a Nation after its Death" in al-Manar, Jan 1902, after the Fifth Zionist Congress, where Herzl boasted about his meeting with Abdulhamid - Supported CUP before joining its opponents in 1911 - Noticed that "the influence of the Jews in the CUP was great" when commenting on the first debate about Zionism in *al-Manar* - Article in 1911 - Stressed the necessity of strengthening *Dar al-Islam* ("the realm of Islam") to challenge Europe - Syrians required large agricultural, industrial and commercial projects to develop the country - Concedes that this would have required some European investment - Since Jews controlled European finance, logic followed that Syrians had to accept aid from Jews; the alternative would be poverty and ruin - The "Zionist danger" was the possibility of them "taking possession of the Holy Land" - Ultimately argued for accepting aid, whilst containing the threat of Zionism #### Yusuf al-Khalidi, elite figure in Jerusalem - Served as Ottoman vice-consul at the Russian Black Sea port of Poti, deputy in the first Ottoman Parliament (1877-78), President of the Municipal Council in Jerusalem - Known for liberal views and religious toleration - Letter to Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn in March 1899 - "Who can challenge the rights of the Jews on Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country." - Turks and Arabs are generally well disposed to Jews, but there are also some who harbour racial hatred, just as in the "most civilised nations" - Christian "fanatics" in Palestine who "do not overlook any opportunity to excite the hatred of Muslims against the Jews" - "It is necessary, therefore, for the peace of the Jews in Turkey that the Zionist Movement, in the geographic sense of the word, stops... good Lord, the world is vast enough, there are still uninhabited countries where one could settle millions of poor Jews who may perhaps become happy there and one day constitute a nation. That would perhaps be the best, the most rational solution to the Jewish question. But in the name of God, let Palestine be left in peace." #### Negib Azoury, Maronite Ottoman official - Published *Le Réveil de la Nation Arabe* in 1905 where he called for the Arab provinces to detach from the Ottoman Empire - Believed there were 200,000 Arabs and 200,000 Jews living in Palestine in 1905 - Argued that the old Jewish kingdom was destroyed because they had never secured the whole of Palestine - Alleged that the Zionists were intending to learn from that lesson by occupying the "natural frontiers" of the country - Mount Hermon, the Suez Canal and the Arabian Desert - Challenged by Farid Kassab, a Greek Orthodox Arab from Beirut - Defence of Ottoman life and praise of Jewish settlers whom he deemed to be peaceful and inoffensive - Accused Azoury of being "not only anti-Jewish from the religious point of view, but also anti-Semitic" - Azoury only accepted the Christian interpretation of the Bible and dismissed "the material and literal interpretation made by the Jews \[which] renders \[the Bible] dangerous and immoral and constitutes the most terrible condemnation of them." - Departure from other Arab writings by embracing European anti-Semitism - First Arab publicist to predict that Arab and Zionist nationalism would come into serious conflict with one another (1907) - *"Two important phenomena, of the same nature but opposed, which have still not drawn anyone's attention, are emerging at this moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel. Both these movements are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins. The fate of the entire world will depend on the final result of this struggle between these two people representing two contrary principles."* - 1909: Is'af al-Nashashibi, at the beginning of his literary career in Jerusalem, wrote a story about a saintly wizard and an 'impious Jew', where he credited the anti-Semitic writer, Edouard Drumont and his followers, whom he described as "great Frenchmen" - [The Young Girl of Zion](https://www.sabil.me/files/original/146653/148075/Kayyali_Abdul-Wahhab-1978-00-00-Palestine_A_Modern_History.pdf), by Ma'ruf al-Arna'ut, 1911 ## The New Regime (1908-1909) * July 24th, 1908: Young Turk revolution * Abdulhamid restores the Constitution which had been granted in 1876 and suspended in 1878 * Press censorship lifted * Sultan's network of spies abolished * Old regime officials dismissed * Parliament reconvened for the first time in 30 years * Attitudes to Zionism remained roughly the same * The Young Turks * Not a cohesive political group when they came to power * Mainly made up of Ottoman Turks but also supported by other national groups e.g. Albanians, Greeks, Armenians and Arabs * Common goal of restoring the Empire by reinstituting the Constitution and parliamentary process * Generally operated behind the scenes rather than taking Cabinet Posts just after the Revolution * Internal differences * Turkish members, concentrated in the Committee of Union and Progress, advocated for a unified empire where non-Turkish elements would be fused with the Turks * *"Our Christian compatriots shall be Ottomanised citizens. We shall no longer be conquerors and slaves, but a new nation of freemen."* * Non-Turkish elements grouped behind Prince Sabaheddin, Abdulhamid's nephew, who had joined the Young Turks in Paris in 1899 * League of Private Initiative and Decentralisation; called for an Empire where ethnic and religious groups would have autonomy over their own provinces * Interactions with Zionists * Some Young Turks met with Zionists in Europe, but saw them in the same way as groups like the Armenians: they would be welcome in the Empire as loyal Ottoman subjects * Ahmed Riza, leader of the CUP in 1906: "Autonomy is treason" * Dr. Victor Jacobson, the Zionist Organisation's representative in Constantinople: *"\[The Young Turks] consider us as separatists, if not today, then at any rate tomorrow. And they do not wish to let people enter \[Palestine] who 'will create a new Armenian question' for them"* * Young Turks were not opposed to Jewish migration to the Ottoman Empire as a whole, so long as they lived in scattered groups * International events * 1908: Bulgaria declares independence from the Empire; Austro-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; Crete announces union with Greece * 1909: CUP emerges as the dominant wing of the Young Turk Movement and tightens control of over the government * Ousting of Grand Vezir, Kamil Pasha who had also served as Foreign Minister under Abdulhamid; replaced by Hilmi Pasha * September, 1909: Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, Ali Ekrem Bey sent to Beirut and replaced by Subhi Bey who had not been a member of Abdulhamid's Palace staff * Subhi Bey was impressed by Jewish colonies and decided to lift the bar on foreign Jews settling Jewish migrants on newly purchased land * Hilmi Pasha believed that Jewish settlement in Palestine would bring advantages to the local population and the Treasury, but also saw their presence as *"constant intervention of a foreign government such as Russia"* * Requested a plan that encouraged economic development but also checked Jewish immigration from Russia and Romania * News of the revolution reaches Palestine * Journal of the Second Aliya reported that the atmosphere in Jaffa had greatly improved: "there is not the same cold attitude which was felt after the incident \[last] Purim" * A group of Jerusalem Muslims, Christians and Jews founded a branch of the CUP as well as a literary, political club called the Jerusalem Patriotic Society * David Yellin, Palestinian-born teacher in Jerusalem: "we see for the first time in these societies Muslims (and of the upper class) associating with Jews and Christians." * Fellahin in the region created a society for the own interests and were joined by Jewish settlers * Second Aliyah * More recent immigrants waved a Zionist flag in the streets during the Revolution celebrations, declaring that political Zionism was the basis of Jewish activity in Palestine * Founders of the CUP branch in Jerusalem invited four Jews on the condition that they made conciliatory statements about Zionism and did not have membership in the Zionist Movement * Effectively the first Arabs known to clearly distinguish between "Jew" and "Zionist" * CUP leaders in Constantinople described Zionism as "a political movement which aims at placing Palestine under an exclusively Jewish autonomy" * 1908: General Elections to Parliament * 3 deputies elected in the Mutessarifat of Jerusalem * Negib Azoury returned from Paris after amnesty granted for political crimes committed by the Young Turks; avoided Arab nationalism and the "universal Jewish peril" in his speeches * Most candidates called for economic and administrative reform * Three Muslims, all from leading families elected (Khalidi, Husseini and al-Sa'id) * Voters were unfamiliar with modern elections and were mostly loyal to family and religion * Ruhi Bey al-Khalidi * Grandson of Yusuf Diya Pasha al-Khalidi * Reputed to be a "liberal" * Sa'id Bey al-Husseini * Described by Zionists as an "Arab nationalist" * Hafiz Bey al-Sa'id * Last Mufti of Gaza * Put under house arrested during a campaign by the authorities against Negib Azoury * Eventually became part of the Arab nationalist movement, but was initially favoured by the Zionists * December 17th, 1908: Parliament opens * Arabs made up 60/288 deputies, enough to ensure that the regime could not offer special treatment to the Zionists * Disturbances in Palestine * Mostly concentrated in the north, specifically in mixed areas around Haifa, Nazareth and Tiberias (including Bedouin, Druze and recently settled Algerians and Circassians) * Some peasants saw the revolution as a "liberty" that gave them the right to act as they liked e.g. by attacking properties owned by large wealthy landlords * Others attacked Jewish settlements around Tiberias * General disillusionment with the revolution * Strict Muslims opposed CUP's secularism * Groups who benefited from the old regime were disaffected * Attempted counterrevolution in Constantinople in 1909 * Thousands of Armenians killed in pogroms before and after the countercoup * Incidents around the JCA settlement (Sejera) between Tiberias and Nazareth * 1899: JCA bought 18,000 dunams of land for Sejera training farm * Years-long disputes over demarcation with four nearby villages 1. al-Shajara (Christians) 2. Tur'an (Muslims) 3. Kafar Kanna (Muslims and Christians) 4. Kafar Sabt (Muslims from Algeria) * 1903: Settlers bought land previously leased to an adjoining village (Lubiyya) * Colony raided numerous times * 1904: Settler murdered by the son of a Sheikh from Lubiyya * 1907: Colony replaces Arab watchmen with Jewish workers from Russia * 1909: Christian peasants from al-Shajara claimed some land that had been owned by the colony since 1899 * Jewish manager reported that peasants were being incited by outside elements from the Arab population, supposedly members of the Tiberias branch of the CUP * March 1909: Settlers retaliated by refusing to employ peasants from al-Shajara or to buy their produce * April 1909: al-Shajara peasants dropped their claim because of legal expenses * Peasants occasionally harassed individual Jews, robbed the colony and once assaulted local Kurdish Jews who lived in their village but worked at Sejera * April 5th, Passover: Jewish photographer mugged by four peasants enroute to Sejera to attend a conference for a Second Aliya political party * The photographer, Chaim Dubner, shot and mortally wounded one of the attackers (Radi Saffuri, a well known robber) * Saffuri's parents convinced him to testify that he was shot by two Jews from Sejera * April 7th: Villagers from Kfar Kanna tried to steal animals from Sejera to avenge Saffuri's death, demanding "blood money" from the Jewish officials * April 9th: 50 villagers from Kfar Kanna attacked crops in Sejera, but were stopped by policemen from Tiberias * April 11th: Two Jews gravely injured in another attack from Kfar Kanna * April 12th: Two Jews murdered, one by residents of Kfar Kanna and the other by residents of al-Shajara * Authorities' response: * Over 10 villagers arrested * Dubner's photographic equipment recovered * Enquiry established Kfar Kanna's guilt * Priests from the village and Nazareth attempted to sue for peace at Sejera * No agreement reached, and the dispute was taken to court for another two years * Underlying causes of the attacks * Dissatisfaction with the revolution * Incitement from CUP members * Arabs who opposed Jewish settlement would join CUP and new members from Jaffa and Jerusalem warned the Committee of "the danger which menaces the country and the peasants from Jewish immigration" * Incitement from Najib Nasser, editor of Haifa newspaper *al-Karmil*, a leading anti-Zionist publication * Lack of convictions * From May 1909 - July 1911, six Jews in the region of Tiberias were murdered * No convictions * By contrast, when a German was killed by Arabs near Haifa in 1910, the Vali of Beirut personally rushed to Haifa ; within a few months, on Arab was sentenced to death and others were sentenced to several years in prison * In 1911, a Jewish guard killed an Arab during an attack on Merhavya in 1911. The Jewish guard was arrested along with ten other Jews were not present with the killing took place. Four were set free, but the other seven were held without trial for 11 months. They were only released due to an intervention from a CUP deputy who recently had his broken leg treated by a Jewish doctor. When a group of farmers pillaged two colonies in reprisal, the authorities stood idly by. * Security requests often ignored * Summer 1913: two Jews killed in the Mutessarifat * Winter 1913-14: uptick of violence against Jewish settlers in the north * Jan 1914: Government authorities post soldiers at main crossroads between Arab and Jewish villages for the first time (first requests were made in August 1912) - Government assistance was likely only part of a short-lived political shift ; through mid-1914, attacks on Jews continued to increase - Attacks on settlers were generally sporadic and caused by local disputes i.e. not of a political nature, at least until the youth became more active around the beginning of WWI * 7 Jewish colonies in the Tiberias region * June 1909: Zionism raised in the Ottoman parliament for the first time ## Conclusions 1. Arabs knew of Lovers of Zion and the Zionist Movement from the beginning - *al-Manar* and *al-Muqtataf* discussed the formation of the Zionist Movement and increased migration flows within months of them taking place respectively 2. By 1914, Arabs were well aware of Zionist aims and activities in Palestine - 1902: Rashid Rida discerned that Zionists were seeking national sovereignty in Palestine - 1905: Negib Azoury predicted that Zionism would conflict with Arab nationalism - 1909 onwards: Arabic newspapers wrote increasingly about Zionism and were generally sceptical of the Zionist Movement's official line about simply seeking a "home" within the Empire as opposed to a fully independent state 3. Administrative divisions meant Arabs outside of Palestine were also aware of Zionism - Officials copied notes about Jewish migration to Beirut and Damascus - Syrian notables in Cairo played a strong role in involving Arabs outside Palestine 4. Arab reactions to Zionism are understood in light of the Ottoman response to modern Jewish immigration - Government didn't want to deal with a new national problem, not least of all a European one with the Capitulations - 1882 - 1908: Jewish population in Palestine grew from 24,000 to 70-80,000 5. By 1908, anti-Zionism had still not really emerged among the Arabs - Still a general unease about the growing Jewish community - Relations between Arabs and Jews had been deteriorating - Arab attitudes towards Jews, which were traditionally unfavourable among Muslims and Christians alike, became affected by European anti-Semitism 6. Most Jerusalem notables seemed to accept Jewish settlement in Palestine, so long as they became Ottoman subjects - After 1901, there was no legal framework for Jewish newcomers to become Ottomans - When naturalisation requirements were relaxed for 3 months in 1914, only around 20 Jews applied to become subjects; the benefits of the Capitulations were easily preferable 7. The Young Turks opposed Zionism as much as Abdulhamid's regime had - Opposition only relaxed between Autumn 1913 and summer 1914, when the Government sought financial support which they believed to be at the command of Jews in Europe - By 1914, the Jewish community in Palestine was about 85,000 with over 40 colonies established 8. Arabs distinguished between the "foreign Jew" and the "Ottoman Jew" - They were aware of the difference between "Jew" and "Zionist", though this distinction was often blurred in practice - most Arab anti-Zionists opposed *all* Jewish migration from Europe into Palestine - Some Arab figures e.g. Najib Nassar and Shukri al-Asali, openly stated that they saw the Zionist Movement and other Jewish groups simply interested in settlement to be a distinction without a difference - ultimately, they were all assumed to be seeking an autonomous Jewish state 9. Arab anti-Zionism proper emerged between 1909 and 1914 - Main forms of opposition were Ottoman Loyalism, local patriotism and Arab nationalism - Loyalists saw Zionists as a "separatist" movement and a vanguard of Russian or German influence - Local patriotism developed in Palestine from around 1910 as Arabs increasingly protested Zionist activity without reference to the Empire - "From that point onwards, local Arabs increasingly spoke of themselves as "Palestinians" in the context of Zionism" - p. 226 - The first anti-Zionist group in Palestine was called the Ottoman Patriotic Party in 1911; two years later an Arab in Nablus proposed to form a Palestinian Patriotic Company 10. Local patriotism was confined to Arabs in Palestine - After WWI, this local patriotism developed into Palestinian Arab nationalism 11. Ideological opposition to Zionism was accompanied by economic anxieties, anti-Semitism and a belief in Muslim unity - Expressions of anti-Semitism varied e.g. - Stereotyping in press cartoons - Rashid Rida's popular conviction that Jews controlled European finance - al-Taji's poem which referred to Jews as weak and deceptive - That Arab leaders felt the need to qualify that they were anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic suggests that they were aware of the latter's growth 12. Many of the essential Arab anti-Zionist arguments of the twentieth century were fleshed out between 1908 (the Young Turk Revolution) and 1914 (World War I) - That Zionists sought a Jewish state in Palestine, which may extend as far as Iraq - That they retained their foreign nationality rather than become loyal Ottoman subjects - They did not integrate with the local population - They were establishing independent institutions of government and self-defence - They preferred Hebrew to Arabic - They possessed vast financial resources - They stood behind the CUP - They were the agents of Great Power influence in Palestine 13. Not all Arab arguments against Zionism were valid, but they did elucidate their fears - Zionists did not want a state from Palestine to Iraq - They didn't have vast financial resources, nor did they control the finances of Europe - They didn't dominate the CUP, nor were they allied with it - They were not being used by Russians or Germans to extend Great Power influence 14. Arab anti-Zionists tended to exaggerate the numbers of Jewish migrants and the amount of land they acquired - 1882 - 1914: 2-3,000 Jewish migrants entered Palestine on average each year; many departed after a short stay; by 1914, there were 85,000 Jews in Palestine - 1910 protest telegram in Haifa spoke of "about 100,000" Jewish migrants who had arrived "recently" - "General Summons to Palestinians" mentioned "over 300,000" Jewish newcomers - Jews only owned ~2% of the land in 1914, but newspaper articles frequently suggested that they had bought up the majority of Palestine 15. The main Arab demands were to end Jewish migration and to end land purchases - Demands were first made by telegram from Jerusalem in 1891. Though this was an isolated event, the same demands were pushed vigorously by the Arabic press and by Arab parliamentary deputies - 1913-1914: Increasing flight of Arabs from Syria and Palestine increased anti-Zionist anxiety - In subsequent years, these two demands were never abandoned 16. There was an absence of any significant body which supported the Zionists - Occasional articles in favour of Zionists almost always came from pro-CUP papers who were trying to defend the CUP for alleged pro-Jewish sentiment - Though Arab notables in Palestine were often friendly with Jews, this was usually on a personal, non-political basis 17. Arabs took political action against Zionism before 1914 - Second parliamentary debate on Zionism in 1911 was coordinated by Arab political action - In 1912 and 1914 General Elections, Zionism was an issue for Arabs in Palestine - During the first Balkan War, former CUP deputies in Jerusalem tried to bring Arab anti-Zionists together - Small anti-Zionist societies birthed in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nablus, Haifa, Beirut, Constantinople and Cairo in 1914 18. Arab action didn't achieve anything tangible, but it did limit the Government's ability to manoeuvre freely in relation to Zionism - Deterred the Government from relaxing restrictions on Jews in Palestine in 1913 19. Arabs outside Palestine were actively involved - When a list of Arab delegates was presented for the meeting at Brummana, 6 were from Beirut and Damascus, whilst only four were from Palestine - After WWI, Arabs from outside Palestine continued to be involved in the Arab-Zionist conflict, "and indeed at later stages overshadowed the Palestinians themselves" 20. By 1914, some Arabs distinguished the Zionist question as it affected Palestine from how it related to the wider Arab cause - Rafiq Bey Al-Azm, President of the Decentralisation Party in Cairo drew this distinction in 1914 and it was well understood by several other Arab leaders 21. The younger generation of Arabs, particularly from anti-Zionist societies in Palestine were also involved - Only a few notable Arabs from this period were prominent in politics after WWI. Some died, and some were hanged by Cemal Pasha for nationalist activities; most were overtaken by a new generation of leaders - Most of the new leadership grew up in the pre-war period 22. The roots of the Arab-Zionist conflict were set in the period from 1881-1914, whilst the Balfour Declaration was more of a turning point which aggravated an already existing trend Teveth, S. *Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs*, p. 14-19