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Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, by Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, editors
9. The Formation of Palestinian Identity: The Critical Years, 1917-1923
Rashid Khalidi
When did a significant proportion of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine begin to think of themselves as Palestinians? What are the constituents of this sense of identification with Palestine, and how does it relate to other forms of identity, whether national, religious, or otherwise? These and other basic questions related to Palestinian identity have engendered extensive polemics
1
and some valuable scholarship.
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They are the focus of this essay.
As with the identity of the peoples of several other Arab countries in the modern period, the case of Palestinian identity is complicated by the difficulty of explaining how it relates to broad, powerful, transnational foci of identity, in particular Arabism and Islam, and to other regional and local loyalties. The fact that in the perception of people in the Arab world throughout most of this century, these and other elements simultaneously constituted the identity of a Palestinian Arab is difficult to explain to those accustomed to thinking of national identity in simple, unidimensional terms, with reference to models derived from an idealized version of the Western European experience. Thus it would be normal for a Palestinian to identify primarily as a Arab in one context, as a Muslim or Christian in another, as a Nabulsi or Jaffan in yet another, and as a Palestinian in a fourth. The same pattern of multiple foci of identity applies to the populations of many Arab countries in the modern era.
However, unlike that of the other Arab peoples--indeed, perhaps uniquely--the Palestinian case is further complicated by the intimate intertwining of the Palestinian narrative with that of Israel and the Jewish people over the past century. In view of the truism that self-definition takes place with reference to an "other" (as Stuart Hall puts it, "only when there is an Other can you know who you are" > 3 ) it is understandable that discussions of contentious questions of national identity tend to gravitate in the direction of such polarizations.
It goes without saying that this overlap of the two narratives has primarily affected that of the Palestinians, as Palestinian identity has since its beginnings struggled in the outside world for acceptance and legitimacy, 4 and even for recognition of its very existence as a category of being. Golda Meir's famous dismissive remark that "There was no such thing as Palestinians. . . . They did not exist" was significant not only for its broad impact on public discourse but also as expressing a view that came to be widely held among Westerners in general.
All of this has complicated what might otherwise have been a relatively straightforward story. In the case of the national identities of the peoples of other Arab countries that came into being in their modern form in the wake of World War I, similar processes of the construction of new identities using elements of old ones as part of a new synthesis has occasioned little attention, and limited controversy, whether within these countries or elsewhere. The main exception is Lebanon. And in the instance of Lebanon, the resulting debate has been primarily an internal one among Lebanese, for whom the definition of Lebanese identity proved to be a bitterly disputed subject throughout this century, contributing to the civil strife that afflicted the country in 1958, and again from 1975 until the early 1990s. 6 While the question of Lebanese identity has occasioned some scholarly attention outside of Lebanon, this was restrained and unpolemical by comparison with that devoted to the Palestinian case.
With this background in mind, this essay attempts to reconstruct the formative period in the genesis of Palestinian national identity, specifically the years immediately after World War I. It builds on the assumption that many of the constituents of this identity--patriotic feeling, local loyalties, Arabism, religious sentiment--were already widespread before World War I, without yet coalescing into a sense of community as Palestinians that constituted the primary focus of identification for most Palestinians. Its main thesis is that under the impact of rapid, momentous, and unsettling changes during the period from the outset of World War I to the beginning of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1922, the sense of political and national identification of most politically conscious, literate, and urban Palestinians underwent a sequence of major transformations. The end result was a strong and growing national identification with Palestine, as the Arab residents of the country increasingly came to "imagine" themselves as part of a single community. This identification was certainly not exclusive--for Arabism, religion, and local loyalties still remained extremely important, and continued to make it possible for Arabs in Palestine to also see themselves as part of other communities.
In succeeding decades this identification with Palestine was to be developed and refined significantly, as Palestinian nationalism grew and developed during the Mandatory period and after 1948. Equally important, it spread beyond the relatively narrow elite that was initially affected by these ideas to broader sectors of the population--outside the upper classes in the cities, and in the countryside. Ongoing social and economic trends that can be traced back to the years before World War I, such as the growth in the urban population and of wage labor, the expansion of the press and of the educational system, and the spread of literacy, all played major roles in this process. This profound transformation of the sense of self of the Arab population of Palestine, which began during the years immediately after World War I, resulted in the emergence of a Palestinian national identity where before no such thing had existed.
Among the elements that caused the Arab population of the country to identify with Palestine before World War I, several stand out. First among them was a religious attachment to Palestine as a holy land on the part of Muslims and Christians. This attachment was felt by followers of both faiths everywhere, but was particularly strong for those who lived in Palestine. Although Muslims and Christians had somewhat different conceptions of what made Palestine a holy land, and of its boundaries and extent, they shared a similar general idea of the country as a unit and as being special. In the Christian case, as Alexander Schšlch has pointed out most clearly, 7 this conception was based on the biblical definition of the country as running from "Dan to Beersheba," and was reinforced by the boundaries of the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox and Latin Patriarchates and the Protestant Episcopate of Jerusalem, all of which included the entirety of Palestine.
Both Schšlch and Yehoshua Porath have described how the Muslim perception of Palestine as a holy land--it is called "al-ard al-muqaddasa" (meaning "the holy land") in the Qur'an (5:21)--developed over time. 8 This took place notably through such genres as the "Fada'il al-Quds" literature, which praised Jerusalem, Hebron, and other parts of Palestine and was widespread before, and even more so after, the Crusades. 9 Also important in this regard were annual seasonal pilgrimages to local holy sites, notably the Nabi Musa celebration, which traditionally attracted thousands of Muslim pilgrims from all over the country to the site where Moses is traditionally believed by Muslims to be buried, at a twelfth/thirteenth-century shrine located half-way between Jerusalem and Jericho. 10
Various authors have also described how Ottoman administrative boundaries, and European ambitions and aspirations in Palestine, helped to shape the local inhabitants' conception of the country. From 1874 onwards, the sanjaq of Jerusalem, including the districts of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Beersheeba, Gaza, and Jaffa, was administered independently from any other Ottoman province, and as such was under the direct authority of Istanbul. In earlier times Jerusalem had briefly been capital of a larger province with the name "Filastin," which encompassed all of what is now Palestine, including Nablus, Haifa, and the Galilee. More frequently, the Jerusalem sanjaq was included with other regions within the province of Damascus. 11
The way in which these administrative arrangements affected local conceptions of the country can be seen in recommendations for action by the new Ottoman Parliament published in the Turkish and Arabic press by a former official of the Jerusalem sanjaq, the Lebanese Najib 'Azuri, in 1908. Among these recommendations was expanding the sanjaq of Jerusalem, and raising it to the rank of a vilayet, which 'Azuri argued was necessary "since the progress of the land of Palestine depends on it." 12 Azuri had earlier aroused the ire of Sultan Abdul Hamid for his outspoken opposition to government policies, notably regarding Zionism. He had been sentenced to death for treason in absentia after his flight to France, where in 1905 he wrote the prophetic book Reveil de la Nation Arabe, which predicted a momentous conflict between Zionism and Arab nationalism. His opposition to Zionism was undoubtedly one of the bases for his argument that Palestine should be a separate province, but it was clearly predicated on the assumption that there was such a thing as a "land of Palestine," an idea that must have been shared by the readers of Sabah and Thamarat al-Funun.
This bears out Schšlch's statement that "the administrative experiments and facts mentioned here, especially the elevated position of the sanjaq of Jerusalem (which lasted for almost half a century), doubtless contributed to the emergence of the concept of Palestine as an administrative entity." 13 Porath goes further: "at the end of the Ottoman period the concept of Filastin was already widespread among the educated Arab public, denoting either the whole of Palestine or the Jerusalem sanjaq alone." 14 This resulting local consciousness of Palestine as a discrete entity, based on religious tradition and long-standing administrative practice, was only enhanced by the fact that foreigners also saw it as such.
It was natural that the covetousness of the European powers regarding Palestine, and in particular their constant efforts to expand their influence and standing there throughout the nineteenth century, 15 would affect the self-view of the inhabitants of the country. The inhabitants of Palestine had long perceived that control of Palestine was a prize of value to Western powers, and such a consciousness did much to cement a sense of community and belonging, and to spur patriotic feeling regarding Palestine. Such a feeling was orig inally particularly strong among Muslims and had been widespread among them at least since the Crusades. 16 In the nineteenth century many Palestinian and other Arab Christians came to share this fear of European imperialism, while at the same time many Christians were among the first local inhabitants to be affected by Western notions of nationalism and patriotism obtained in missionary schools and through other contacts with Europeans.
As was the case in other Islamic cities, there was a strong tradition of what might be called urban patriotism in the cities of Palestine. Jerusalemites, Nabulsis, Gazans, and Khalilis (inhabitants of Hebron--al-Khalil in Arabic) all took pride in their cities, as can be seen from the profusion of local histories devoted to cities and regions of Palestine, and from the frequency of the use of the name of a city--al-Maqdisi, al-Nabulsi, al-Ghazzawi, al-Khalili, and so on--as either a family name or as an identifier in addition to a family name. Outside the cities there was also a deep attachment to place, including pride in the village as special and better than others, and a related pride in family and lineage. With the spread of a broader notion of patriotism as modern education reached wider circles of the population, and with the increased ease and speed of travel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as roads and railways were constructed, these local loyalties were gradually supplemented by a sense of belonging to a larger entity than a city, town, or village and its immediate environs. These loyalties were never superseded, however, and they still retain their vitality in the cities and villages of Palestine. 17
The reaction of the Palestinian Arabs to modern political Zionism drew upon all these preexisting elements: religious attachment to what both Muslim and Christians believed was a holy land, the conception of Palestine as an administrative entity, the fear of external encroachment, and local patriotism. Before going into details of this reaction, it is worth stressing that these elements of attachment to Palestine all antedated the encounter with Zionism. It is necessary to point this out because of the common assertion that Palestinian identity was no more than a reaction to Zionism, and the attachment of Palestinian Arabs to the country no more than a response to the attachment to it of those inspired by Zionism. There is a kernel of truth in these assertions: in some measure, as we have already seen, identity develops in response to the encounter with another. But as we shall see, there were other "others" besides Zionism: the British and other Arabs among them. And in any case, as I have shown, the attachment of the population of the country to it--albeit in prenationalist terms--was strong long before the arrival of modern political Zionism on the scene in the last years of the nineteenth century.
As has been analyzed by Neville Mandel and others, there was a widespread and sophisticated opposition to Zionism among educated, urban, and politically active Palestinians from a very early stage in the implantation of the Zionist movement in Palestine. 18 There was, in addition, a strong current of opposition to Zionism among the peasantry in areas where Zionist colonization led to the displacement of fallahin from their lands. 19 All of this was reflected in the press, where the issue had a broad impact on public opinion, and helped to shape both Arab views of Zionism, and the conception of Palestine as a land under threat. 20 At the same time the issue of Zionism was a defining one for many Palestinian papers, notably al-Karmil, founded in Haifa in 1908 by Najib Nassar, and Filastin, established in Jaffa in 1911 by the cousins 'Isa and Yusuf al-'Isa. The very titles of these papers--in Arabic, Filastin means Palestine, while al-Karmil means Mount Carmel, overlooking Haifa Bay--are indicative of the local patriotism that inspired their establishment. For several decades thereafter, these remained among the most important newspapers in Palestine and were unwavering in their opposition to Zionism.
One of the clearest and earliest prewar examples of this conception of Palestine as a land under threat from the Zionist movement, and of the Palestinians as an entity, can be seen from the opening words of a special issue of the Jaffa newspaper Filastin entitled "An Open Letter to Subscribers." In it, the editors commented sarcastically on a failed attempt by the Ottoman authorities to close down the newspaper in May 1914 in response to their published attacks on the Zionist movement: "Dear readers, it seems we have done something serious in the view of the central government in warning the Palestinian nation [al-umma al-filastiniyya] [my italics] of the danger which threatens it from the Zionist current." 21 As significant as the sentiment that Palestine was endangered by Zionism, was the use of the term "Palestinian nation" in this context. Perhaps equally significant, Yusuf and 'Isa al-'Isa fought the government closure in local court, won, and were carried from the courtroom on the shoulders of a delirious throng of well-wishers. 22
It can therefore be understood why, although other foci of loyalty were still more powerful for most of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine before World War I, the idea of Palestine as a source of identity and as a community with shared interests had already taken root. It competed with and complemented loyalty to the Ottoman state and to the Muslim and Christian religious communities, the growing sense of Arabism fostered by the spread of education and the expansion of the influence of the press, and other more local loyalties--to regions, cities, villages, and families. In this context the growing problem of dealing with Zionism provided Palestinians with the occasion to feel part of a larger whole, whether Ottoman or Arab, which they hoped might help them to deal with an opponent that they already began to fear they could not resist alone. The extent to which the question of Zionism was addressed in Ottoman politics, in parliament and in the press, and the degree to which Arabist politicians and newspapers stressed their opposition to Zionism, encouraged this tendency. At the same time, as time went on this problem contributed to the tendency for Palestinians to feel separate and abandoned, for in the end the Ottoman authorities failed to take seriously the complaints of the Palestinians regarding Zionism, while even those Arabist politicians who seemed sympathetic proved equally ineffective.
The overlap between these various loyalties, and the way in which one developed from another can be seen from the remarks of 'Isa al-'Isa, editor of Filastin, about the motives that led him to found his newspaper in 1911. In a speech many years later at the Arab Orthodox club in Jerusalem, he stated that at the outset his aim was to defend the Arab Orthodox cause. 23 Very soon afterward, however, he found himself in the midst of a national conflict with two fronts: one Arab-Turkish, and the other Arab-Jewish, and he joined in both, without abandoning the Orthodox cause. 24 Clearly, for an individual such as 'Isa al-'Isa, all of these loyalties were compatible with one another, and notable among them was the sense of Palestinian identity that his words in the Filastin editorial cited above show clearly to have existed even before World War I.
World War I changed many things as far as Palestinian identity was concerned, however. Of the elements of identity for Palestinians and other Arabs whose attraction had waned by the end of the war, two stand out: they were Ottomanism and religious affiliation. The reason for the collapse of Ottomanism as a focus of identity is obvious. Beyond the defeat of the Ottoman army and the withdrawal of Ottoman authority from the Arab provinces by the end of 1918, Ottomanism as an attempt at a transnational ideological synthesis was rendered obsolete by the outcome of World War I. Among Turks and Arabs, Armenians and Kurds, its place was taken by the national principle. That principle had already asserted itself forcefully in the decades before 1914, as it dissolved many of the bonds that held together the multinational Empire, and its appeal was greatly strengthened during the war, when President Wilson made national self-determination one of his Fourteen Points. Although the Ottoman heritage was to continue to have a powerful influence on the Arab world in the years that followed (one that has been unjustly ignored and insufficiently examined), in a period of a few years, Ottomanism as an ideology went from being one of the primary sources of identification for Palestinians and other Arabs to having no apparent impact at all.
With regard to the Arab provinces, it can be argued in hindsight that even before the war the Ottoman synthesis was gravely undermined because of what many Arabs came to perceive was the rise of Turkish nationalism as the governing principle of the Ottoman state and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). 25 Similarly, the decline of religion as the governing principle of the Ottoman state in the waning years of the Empire, and what was perceived by many as the cynical exploitation of Islam by the highly secular CUP from 1908 to 1918, accelerated a decrease in the saliency of religious identification in the empire before and during the War. This complemented and enhanced a growing shift to secularism and secular nationalism on the part of some of the younger segments of the Ottoman elite, but this shift was by no means as definitive as the eclipse of Ottomanism. For many sectors of the population, and perhaps for most people in the successor states of the Ottoman Empire, religion continued well into the present century, and indeed up to the present day, to be the most important single source of identification and community feeling. This was true not only of the lower classes and the rural populace but also of many members of the upper classes and among city dwellers, particularly the older ones.
The end result was nevertheless that the two of the central pillars of identity before 1914, Ottomanism and religion, were diminished in importance by the end of the war. This left the field open for nationalism, the ideological rival of both, which had been growing rapidly in influence in the late Ottoman period. The only question, in Palestine and elsewhere, was not whether nationalism would supplant other forms of loyalty but, rather, which specific form of nationalism. And, at the outset, the answer to that question seemed to be clear: Arab nationalism appeared to be the obvious successor to Ottomanism as the hegemonic ideology throughout the former Arab provinces of the now-defunct Ottoman Empire. 26 However, in Palestine, as elsewhere in the Arab world, matters were not quite that simple.
"A nation which has long been in the depths of sleep only awakes if it is rudely shaken by events, and only arises little by little. . . . This was the situation of Palestine, which for many centuries had been in the deepest sleep, until it was shaken by the great war, shocked by the Zionist movement, and violated by the illegal policy [of the British], and it awoke, little by little." 27 These were the words used soon afterwards by the eminent Jerusalem writer and educator, Khalil Sakakini, to describe the situation in Palestine in the immediate aftermath of World War I, a period during which crucial changes in consciousness and perception among much of the population took place.
Each of the factors Sakakini listed had a major impact on Palestine, starting with the war, which initially brought with it a massive Ottoman military presence to support the campaigns across the Sinai desert against the Suez Canal launched by Jamal Pasha's Fourth Army. This was followed by the arrival of the allied army commanded by General Allenby, fighting its way north through the country in 1917 and 1918. Parts of Palestine were devastated by combat, notably the Gaza region, many trees were cut down to fuel steam locomotives, draft animals were requisitioned by both armies, famine prevailed in some areas, and virtually all the draft-age men were inducted into the Ottoman army, some never to return. Many others were arrested, executed, or exiled by the authorities on suspicion of aiding the allies. 28 The eco nomic results of the war were debilitating, as was its demographic impact, which has been estimated in the most careful assessment of the demography of Palestine during this period as leading to a population decrease of over 6 percent in little more than four years. 29
However serious was the material impact of the war on Palestine, its political and psychological consequences were even greater. The effect of the collapse of the Ottoman state, within whose framework over twenty generations of Arabs had lived for four centuries in the countries of the Fertile Crescent, has already been mentioned. This event left a huge vacuum in political consciousness--particularly for the older generation--one made all the greater by the occupation of the region by the British and the French, an eventuality much anticipated and much feared by most of the population before the war. 30 As the quotation from Sakakini indicates, the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and the revelation of the Sykes-Picot accords by the Bolsheviks --both in November 1917, only weeks before Jerusalem fell to Allenby's forces--had an enormous impact in Palestine. 31 Suddenly the Palestinians found that their country was occupied by the greatest imperial power of the age, Great Britain, which had made arrangements for its disposition with France and had proclaimed its support for the national aspirations of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
These upheavals in the world around them, upheavals that impinged directly on the structure of the lives of the entire population, made possible, and at the same time necessitated, extremely rapid changes in attitudes and consciousness on the part of the Palestinians. The speed of these changes is striking. By way of contrast, mentalities and ideology appear to have evolved relatively slowly in Palestine in times of peace and stability, such as the years stretching from the late 1860s through 1914 (and in this respect Palestine appears to have been similar to other Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire). We know that there were important changes in government, social structure, education, and ideology over this period. But the pace of change, at least as regards attitudes, mentalities, and self-view, appears to have been fairly sedate. However, it is clear from the evidence for the years after 1914 that in this time of crisis, when the population was subjected to great stress, their attitudes and identities were transformed with extraordinary rapidity and with only minimal apparent dislocation for those whose self-view was thus transformed. It would appear that this propensity of peoples to reassess fundamental attitudes and beliefs at times of major historical shifts is a general pattern, and not one exclusive to this time and place. 32
For primary material providing Palestinian perceptions of events for the war years and the first year afterward, we are unfortunately restricted to memoirs, private papers, a limited number of published documents, and the occasional pamphlet or interview in the press outside of Palestine. Both British and Zionist sources are of course available in abundance for the early years of the British occupation of Palestine, but they are of limited utility for this purpose.
Perhaps the most crucial source for evaluating Palestinian public attitudes and perceptions for most of this century, the press, was shut down by the Ottoman authorities on the outbreak of the war and only reappeared slowly afterwards, starting in 1919, when it operated under strict British military censorship. The postwar delay can be explained in part by the fact that the country was under military rule--under the rubric Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (South)--until 1920, and indeed was an active scene of combat for most of 1917 and 1918, until the armistice in November of the latter year. During much of the hard winter and spring of 1917-1918, moreover, a near-famine reigned in many parts of Palestine. 33 The British military regime was only superseded by a civilian one in July 1920, which itself maintained tight control over newspapers and other publications. 34
Many established prewar publications, such as 'Isa al-'Isa's Jaffa newspaper Filastin, only resumed publication well after the war ended, following many delays in reopening. In al-'Isa's case, this did not take place until March 1921 because of his exile from the country by the Ottoman authorities during the war, his service with Faysal's government in Damascus for two years thereafter, and what appears to have been a British ban on his reentry into Palestine for several months after that. 35 Najib Nassar's al-Karmil, another important prewar Palestinian paper, resumed publication in Haifa only in February 1920, while Elie Zakka's less influential al-Nafir reappeared in the same city in September 1919. 36
In the years immediately after the war, the first new newspaper to be established in Palestine was Suriyya al-Janubiyya, published in Jerusalem beginning in September 1919 by the lawyer Muhammad Hasan al-Budayri, and edited by 'Arif al-'Arif. 37 This paper was important in several respects: it appears to have been the most influential organ of opinion during its short lifetime; it was highly political and intensely nationalist; and its articles were extremely vividly written--for many years indeed only Filastin among Palestinian papers could approach Suriyya al-Janubiyya for the pungency and power of its prose, and as we have seen, it was two more years before Filastin reopened. That this new newspaper should have attracted such talented writers is not surprising, given that it was affiliated with the Arab nationalist club al-Nadi al-'Arabi in Jerusalem, that the Arabist movement had been a magnet for talented journalists since well before the war, 38 and that during this period Arabism benefited from the prestige that attached to the new Arab state in Damascus. 39
The newspaper was certainly taken seriously by the British authorities, as was evidenced by their closing it for a month after the first ten issues and then shutting it down permanently following the disturbances of April 1920, after it had published for less than a year. The first issue after the first closure in November 1919 reports the paper's reopening after a month of enforced silence, while insisting staunchly that it will not change its "Arab principles." This issue shows a slight softening of its normally militant nationalist tone by comparison with earlier numbers, a softening that does not continue in the later issues of the paper that are extant. 40
The newspaper's title, meaning "Southern Syria," was indicative of the political temper of the times: at this stage many in Palestine were were motivated by the hope that all of Syria (here meaning greater Syria, including modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel) would remain united under the state established by Faysal as a first stage towards a larger Arab unity, a hope that was to wane in succeeding years, although it remained alive. The salience of this hope, and its diminution over time, can be traced from the varying frequency of the employment of terms reflecting it in the slogans that were found at the top of the pages of nationalist newspapers like Suriyya al-Janubiyya and its nationalist successor, al-Sabah; 41 the names chosen for conferences, meetings, and political parties and clubs in Palestine; the wording used in communiqués and statements; and the letters and papers of Palestinians during the first few years after the war.
The background and import of the commitment to southern Syria at this time in Palestine requires some explanation and is illustrative for this exploration of the emergence of Palestinian identity. The Arab state in Syria was seen quite differently by different constituencies. For the British, the entity headquartered in Damascus was not a state; it was no more than a temporary military administration of one area of a region where Britain had multiple commitments and interests. Great Britain in fact never recognized this state, or Amir Faysal in his capacity as ruler of Syria: when in London and at the Paris Peace Conference, he was received as the representative of his father, whom the British recognized as King of the Hijaz. Ultimately, of course, in July 1920 the British gave in to insistent French demands that they honor their commitments to France embodied in the Sykes-Picot agreements of 1916 and allowed French forces to take over Syria, expel Faysal, and dismantle the Arab state. 42
In contrast for many Arabs, this state was a harbinger of a new era of Arab independence and unity, the first stage in the reconstruction of an Arab polity whose roots were seen as going back to the earliest era of Islam and, fittingly, to the great Umayyad state, whose capital was Damascus. 43 The boundaries of this new Syrian state were always problematic, however. While the linguistic lines separating mainly Arabic-speaking areas of Syria from mainly Turkish-speaking areas of Anatolia served as rough boundaries, the separation of Syria from Egypt and the Hijaz was generally recognized, and the relation of Syria to Iraq was settled by the Iraqis holding a congress in Damascus which called for a separate state, the precise status of Lebanon and Palestine was less clear. These coastal areas of greater Syria, or bilad al-Sham, were the ones that the European powers coveted the most, where they had the most extensive interests, and which these powers had agreed in the Sykes-Picot accords during the war to keep under their direct control. The Arab state in Damascus nevertheless claimed sovereignty over the littoral, and although Arab troops were expelled from Beirut by the French in 1918, and the British never allowed this state to extend its authority to Palestine, both Lebanese and Palestinians sat in the Syrian Parliament and many of them served as ministers in the Syrian government. 44
For the Palestinian elite, therefore, a commitment to seeing their country as southern Syria was in large measure an indication of devotion to Arabism and to its incarnation, the first modern Arab state of Syria with its capital in Damascus. As with Palestinian identity, there is little in the prewar period to indicate an intense commitment to Syria as a focus of identity on the part of Syrians, while, as in the Palestinian case, there is much to show a general consciousness of Syria as an entity. The encroachments and ambitions of foreign powers, in particular France, whose government explicitly and publicly declared its desire to control Syria from 1912 onwards had had an impact in Syria; until World War I, however, the response to this external challenge more often took an Ottomanist or Arabist cast than a Syrian one. 45 Southern Syria as a focus of identity was therefore new, its emergence as rapid as that of Palestine as a focus of identity, and like Palestinian identity, it overlapped with Arabism, albeit to an even greater degree during the two brief years when Syria was the location of the Arab state that seemed the incarnation of Arab nationalist aspirations. With the crushing of this Syrian experiment by the French in 1920, Syria was to fade as a focus of identity for Palestinians, although it remained important for many Lebanese. 46
We can see the centrality of Syria for Palestinians soon after the war in the earliest extant issue of Suriyya al-Janubiyya, dated 2 October 1919, where the focus is clearly on Syria, and in particular on news about developments relating to the country at the Paris Peace Conference. Already at this early date, a note of alarm creeps in as to the possibility that Syria will be partitioned: an article by 'Arif al-'Arif reports rumors that the Paris conference was going to confirm the separation of both Lebanon and Palestine from the rest of Syria and the right of the Zionists to immigrate to the latter. 47 Another article in the same issue, reprinted from the newspaper al-Istiqlal al-'Arabi in Damascus, gloomily concludes that after Iraq has been forgotten by the Arabs and abandoned to the British (who at this stage were intent on imposing direct rule there on the Indian model) now it is the turn of Palestine, which will be separated from the rest of the Arab lands, and abandoned to the "shadow of Zionism." 48
The same notes of defiance are struck even after the paper's closure by the British. In the first issue after it was reopened, in November 1919, one article commented on news from Paris regarding the likely partition of Syria, arguing that "we are residents of Southern Syria, we do not want partition, we want an independent Syria, and we are against Zionist immigration." 49 A second article, reporting a public speech by Sir Herbert Samuel at the London Opera House on the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, categorically stated that the Arab nation had awakened from its sleep, and that "our country is Arab, Palestine is Arab, and Palestine must remain Arab." 50 This passage is interesting in that it combines local patriotism, focused on Palestine as "our country," with a strong commitment to Arabism--a combination that was to become characteristic. Such an assertive response can be understood in light of the content of Samuel's speech, in which he said that while the Zionist movement did not intend to turn Palestine into a "purely Jewish state" immediately, its aim was to create as soon as possible "a purely self-governing Commonwealth under the auspices of an established Jewish majority." 51 Not entirely surprisingly, this moderation on Samuel's part failed to reassure Palestinians suddenly faced with the specter of becoming a minority in a country that they naturally assumed was their own. The focus on Syria continued through 1919 and into early 1920 in Suriyya al-Janubiyya, which by this time had established itself as the most influential newspaper in Palestine. 52 A December 1919 article entitled "Warning, Warning!" cautioned against meetings between Arab leaders and the Zionists at which deals were made at the expense of Palestine: it stressed that any agreement that harms "the Arab grouping (al-jami'a al-'arabiyya) and Syrian unity" would be opposed by the people. 53 Similar language is used in a March 1920 article that stated that Amir Faysal knew better than to make an agreement with the Zionists at the expense of Arab rights, for the Arabs, especially "the people of Southern Syria," knew their history and their rights. 54 Such a stress on Arabism and on the unity of Syria is to be expected at a time when the elected First Syrian General Congress, including representatives from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, had just concluded its meetings in Damascus in early March 1920 with radical resolutions proclaiming Faysal King of a united Syria, rejecting a French mandatory, as well as both the Sykes-Picot agreements and the Balfour Declaration, and stressing the unity of Syria as a part of the Arab homeland.
In fact, as Muhammad Muslih and other historians have shown, by this time many Palestinians, including the most devoted Arabists among them who were in Damascus serving the new Sharifian state, had grown disillusioned with Faysal's willingness to compromise with the Zionists, and with the lack of concern shown by many Syrian leaders regarding the issue of Zionism. 55 This disillusionment can indeed be read without difficulty between the lines of the articles just cited. It became clear to these Arabist Palestinian intellectuals and politicians in Damascus that for some Damascene politicians, the survival of an independent Arab state in Syria in the face of French imperialist ambitions would require great sacrifices, including perhaps a sacrifice of Palestine to Britain and the Zionists, who might then support Syrian independence against the incessant pressures from the French.
This can now be seen to have been a short-sighted calculation, for neither the British nor the Zionists had the ability to deter France from its drive to control Syria, even had they the desire to do so. In any case, within a few months these questions were rendered moot, as the entry of French troops into Damascus ended Syrian independence and delivered a crushing blow to Arab and pan-Syrian aspirations. The effects of these momentous events were naturally felt strongly in Palestine: just as the destruction of the Ottoman Empire forced a fundamental rethinking of questions of identity on Palestinians, so did the destruction of Faysal's much shorter-lived kingdom in Damascus.
Even before this, however, and before Suriyya al-Janubiyya was shut down for good by the British in the wake of the Nabi Musa riots of April 1920, the paper had begun to reflect other ideological trends. Side by side with a continuing commitment to Arabism, and with it to a unified Syria, this important organ of opinion showed a growing concentration on purely Palestinian matters. A remarkable article by Hajj Amin al-Husayni (later to become Mufti of Jerusalem) argued that the Arabs should take heart from the experience of a people ("qawm") long dispersed and despised, and who had no homeland but did not despair and were getting together after their dispersion to regain their glory after twenty centuries of oppression (nowhere are the Jews or Zionism mentioned by name, although the meaning is unmistakable). While ostensibly addressed to the Arab people as a whole, the fact that this exhortation was directed primarily at a Palestinian audience is indicated by comments such as: "you can see others with far less then yourselves trying to build their house on the ruins of yours," an unmistakable reference to Zionism and Palestine. 56
More blatant than the subtle argument of Hajj Amin was a piece published in January 1920 over the signature "Ibn al-Jazira," a pseudonym perhaps for 'Arif al-'Arif, entitled "Manajat Filastin" (meaning a confidential talk or spiritual communion with Palestine) that began with the fulsome peroration:
This remarkable paean was followed by a lengthy series of further declarations of loyalty to Palestine and love for it, stressing in particular the "patriotic bonds and national rights" that tie the people of Palestine to their country. Noting that these were the sorts of expressions of the love of Palestinians for their country, by which they proved to all how attached they are to it, the piece concludes with the words "Long live dear Palestine and its honest, sincere sons." 57 This is classical nationalist rhetoric, notable for the fact that it is solely Palestine, and not the whole of the Arab lands, and solely the people of Palestine, not all the Arabs, which are referred to.
Even more striking than this example of overripe romantic nationalism in terms of the terminology employed are news articles in Suriyya al-Janubiyya like the March 1920 article that discussed the new-found unity between Christians and Muslims in Gaza "after all old sensitivities and frictions had been removed from spirits and hearts." This unity, the author of the article noted in conclusion, was demonstrated by the establishment of a Muslim-Christian Society in Gaza aimed at building a united front against Zionism and against attempts by the British and the Zionists to divide the Arabs on religious lines. The Gaza branch was one of a series of such societies established in cities all over Palestine at this time and representing a new form of organization of Palestinian Arab politics in response to the British occupation and the boost it gave to the fortunes of the Zionist movement. 58 The article concludes that, God willing, this Society would have a positive effect in terms of "al-wataniyya al-Filastiniyya khususan wa al-'Arabiyya 'umuman" (Palestinian nationalism/patriotism in particular, and Arab nationalism/patriotism in general). 59
This crucial distinction between Palestinian and Arab patriotism, while ostensibly putting the two forms of patriotism on the same level, in fact privileged the former, for it was this form that was operative in the day-to-day political activities of Palestinians in this period and onward. This distinction formed the practical basis of nation-state nationalism in Palestine and other countries of the Arab Mashriq in the years that were to follow, as commitment to Arab nationalism continued but eventually over the decades declined into little more than lip-service. It was only a matter of time before this change could be seen in small but significant shifts in terminology, visible in the daily press. While Damascus was described as "the capital" in the same March 1920 issue of Suriyya al-Janubiyya, 60 its successor as the leading nationalist organ in Jerusalem after its closure, al-Sabah, published in the following year by Muhammad Hasan al-Budayri's cousin Muhammad Kamil Budayri in the same offices and with the same political line, mentioned in its first issue in October 1921 that it was being published in Jerusalem "the capital of Palestine." 61 Minor though this difference in wording may seem, it bespoke a subtle but important change in focus in little over a year and a half for many Palestinians, who now saw that Jerusalem was the center, not Damascus. 62
This "South Syrian" interlude has been examined by a number of historians, notably Muhammad Muslih and Yehoshua Porath, although both tend to focus on broad trends of political history, and neither seems to have closely examined the press closely. 63 This interlude marked a crucial hiatus between pre-1917 political attitudes of the Palestinians, and those that were to last for the rest of the Mandate period. As we have seen, the Southern Syrian idea was linked to and mainly espoused by fervent Arab nationalists. In the immediate aftermath of the war, as the idea of independence for the Arabs, via the creation of a federation of three large states--Syria, Iraq, and the Hijaz--linked together by a Hashimite dynastic connection, seemed to be on the brink of realization, the initial optimism among Arabs that allied policy would allow such an outcome was encouraged by a combination of factors. These included what was known of the British promises to Sharif Husayn in 1915 and 1916, combined with public declarations by the allies such as the Anglo-French statement of 7 November 1918, promising the Arabs of Syria and Iraq liberation from Turkish rule and freely chosen governments; 64 the reassuring confidential counsels of British advisors and officials to various leading Arab figures such as Faysal; 65 and a strong dose of wishful thinking.
While these hopes animated many Arabs, in Palestine from the very outset of the post-Ottoman period the specter of the Balfour Declaration clouded these bright expectations. During Allenby's ceremonial entry into Jerusalem in December 1917, which was attended by a host of French and Italian military and political representatives and contingents of their armed forces, the British had excluded Arab forces, Arab military flags, and representatives of the Arab army. 66 This was in striking contrast to the situation elsewhere in Syria, where Arab forces were often given pride of place, as for example in the capture of Damascus and the entry of allied troops into the city. And in violation of the principle of strict maintenance of the status quo ante bellum as regards the holy places and the rights and privileges of the various communities, which Allenby proclaimed as the basis of the military government soon after the occupation of Jerusalem, important changes were soon made in favor of the Jewish community, such as the use of Hebrew as an offi cial language. 67 Not surprisingly, this important change, which concerned language, so important where issues of identity and nationalism are salient, deeply disturbed the Palestinians. The behavior of representatives of the Zionist movement, who assumed that the Balfour Declaration meant that they would rapidly become the rulers of the country, and who soon began to arrive in Palestine in large numbers, only increased these initial concerns. 68 Within a short time, many Palestinians came to believe that the British intended to carry out their pledge to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, although others continued to hope that this was not the case.
Against the background of a growing understanding between Britain and France regarding the partition of the Arab lands, their disregard for Arab claims in Palestine, the unwillingness or inability of Faysal and other Syrian leaders to act against Zionism, and the failure of both the Arab and the Syrian ideas as practical vehicles either for the organization of political life or for obtaining support against the British and the Zionists, the Palestinians found themselves all alone and confronted by a Zionist movement that seemed to move from strength to strength. In this precarious situation, the Palestinians were obliged to find a satisfactory basis for their resistance to a multiplicity of external threats. In view of developments in Palestine before World War I and the experiences of the other Arab countries in similar situations--such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan 69 --it seems most likely that a Palestinian particularist response would have emerged eventually, irrespective of the goad of Zionism, and would have ultimately developed into Palestinian identity and eventually a territorially based nationalism. Certainly that is the logic of every other entity in the eastern Arab world within the frontiers drawn by the imperial powers. But in the event Palestinian identity crystallized much more rapidly than it might otherwise have done due to the urgency of the threat that the Zionist movement posed, and the already existing high level of Palestinian entity-consciousness. Indeed, it is apparent that within a few years of the end of the war, a well-developed sense of Palestinian identity had already emerged, at least among certain sectors and strata of society.
This can be seen in a variety of places, notably in the pages of the press, which both shaped opinion and reflected it. Thus the nationalist successor of Suriyya al-Janubiyya in Jerusalem, al-Sabah, explained in its first issue in October 1921 that while one of its purposes was to defend the Arab cause, its main aim was "to serve the cause of the Fourth Palestinian Arab Congress, and to support the objectives of the delegation of the nation which is defending the Palestinian Arab cause in Europe, as part of the general Arab cause." 70 This delegation represented a coalition between various Palestinian political forces with a view to putting their collective critical position regarding the Balfour Declaration and other aspects of British policy before British policy- makers in London. Through the various qualifications and caveats about the Arab cause in the passage quoted, it is apparent that the practical focus of this news paper, and of the broad political trend in Palestinian politics represented by the delegation that it supported, had narrowed to Palestine itself.
In al-Sabah and other nationalist papers, and in general Palestinian political discourse in the years that followed, the "general Arab cause" would continue to be mentioned, but this was increasingly lip service: what really mattered was the "Palestinian Arab cause." If this was the line of the Arabist al-Sabah, it should not be surprising that Filastin, which even before the war had stressed Palestinian particularism, should be even more emphatic in stressing a separate Palestinian identity after its reappearance. Its lead editorial in its first issue in March 1921, after a hiatus of six years, explicitly talks of "Palestine and its sister Syria," thereby making clear that each is a separate country. 71 This terminology--"sister Syria"--represents the mature discourse of Arab nation-state nationalism. This is the discourse in which for over half a century now, independent Arab states have been referred to as brothers and sisters, implying that they are members of one family out of respect for the myth of the existence of one Arab nation, even while it is perfectly clear to all concerned that they act completely independently of one another.
And beyond the press, beyond political discourse, this separate nature of Palestine was being emphasized and established in myriad ways. Among the most important was education, for my discussion so far of the growth of Palestinian national consciousness applies mainly to the urban, literate upper- and middle-class and highly politicized segments of the population, which were a minority in the early 1920s. Contrary to the condescending views of most British colonial officials 72 and Zionist leaders, however, some degree of politicization had already affected other strata, notably parts of the rural population, as could be seen from clashes between peasants and Jewish settlers in the countryside even before 1914. 73 The growth of the educational system in Palestine, and the attendant spread of nationalist concepts through this system, greatly facilitated the politicization of the countryside and provided a sort of conveyor belt whereby the ideas we have been examining rapidly became widespread beyond the cities and the literate population in the years that followed.
In the educational system in Mandatory Palestine, the salience of Arab nationalism has already been noted by many authors: the Peel Commission Report, in somewhat exaggerated fashion, claimed that Arab teachers had turned the government schools into "seminaries of Arab nationalism." 74 What has been less noticed is the degree to which the system fostered a specifically Palestinian national consciousness. One example will suffice to illustrate this point. As early as 1923 Sabri Sharif 'Abd al-Hadi, who taught geography in the Nablus secondary school, had published a book entitled Jughrafiyyat Suriyya wa Filastin al-Tabi'iyya (The Natural Geography of Syria and Palestine). 75 The book is an otherwise unremarkable text, which discusses the natural features, agriculture, communications routes, demography, and administrative divisions of Syria and Palestine. Its importance lies in the fact that all over Palestine students were already in 1923 learning that Palestine was a separate entity, a unit whose geography required separate treatment. Clearly, no one who disputes the widespread existence of Palestinian identity, and the beginnings of a Palestinian national consciousness during the Mandate period can have examined the country's educational system in even a cursory manner.
What this essay has attempted to show is that even before the Mandate for Palestine had been formally confirmed on Britain by the League of Nations in July 1922, important elements of the country's Arab population had already come to identify primarily with Palestine. This Palestinian identity was to remain strongly tinged and to overlap with elements of Arabism (it will be recalled that the delegation to London described itself as a Palestinian Arab body, and the most common self-description of political groupings during the Mandate was as Palestinian Arab) and religious sentiment, which had been among its precursors. It was to spread significantly in succeeding years to broader segments of the population outside the cities, primarily via the press and the educational system. Nevertheless, this early period saw the emergence in a relatively complete form of the basic self-identification of Palestinians as Palestinians that has characterized them until the present.
Note: Chapter 9 is an earlier version of a chapter in Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Columbia University Press, 1997).
Notes:
Note 1: Most of these polemics center on the nonexistence, or the illegitimacy, or the recent provenance, of a separate Palestinian identity. They were epitomized by Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine (New York, 1984). Initially praised by a number of reputable scholars, this book was shown by a devastating review by Yehoshua Porath in the New York Review of Books to be worthless as scholarship. Back.
Note 2: These include Porath, 1918-1929; 'Abd al-Wahhab Kayyali, Ta'rikh Filastin al-Hadith, (Beirut, 1970) (trans. as Palestine: A Modern History, London, 1978); Lesch, Arab Politics; Muslih, Origins; and Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal, Palestinians, The Making of a People (New York, 1993). Back.
Note 3: "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference," Radical America 23:4 (October/December 1989): 16. Back.
Note 4: An early disparaging comment on the legitimacy of Palestinian aspirations came from A. J. Balfour, in a Foreign Office memo dated 11 August 1919 (cited in J. C. Hurewitz [ed.], The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics [New Haven, 1979], 2:189): "Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land." Back.
Note 5: Sunday Times (London), June 15, 1969, 12. Back.
Note 6: For an early example of the terms in which this debate was framed, see Marwan Buheiry, "Bulus Nujaym and the Grand Liban Ideal 1908-1919," in M. Buheiry (ed.), Intellectual Life in the Arab East, 1860-1939 (Beirut, 1981), 62-83. Kamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (Berkeley, 1988), is the best survey of the struggle over the historiography of Lebanon. See as well Ahmad Baydun, al-Sira' 'ala Ta'rikh Lubnan, wa al-Hawiyya wa al-Zaman fi A'mal Mu'arrikhina al-Mu'asirin (Beirut, 1989). Back.
Note 7: In his posthumous work, translated into English as Palestine in Transformation, 1856-1882: Studies in Social, Economic, and Political Development (Washington, D.C., 1993), 9-17. Schölch is concerned at the outset of his book to "ascertain the extent to which it is at all meaningful to write a history of Palestine during a certain phase in the nineteenth century when there was no administrative unit with this name and when this area's 'borders'-in other words, the area's historical-geographical identity-were contested." Back.
Note 8: This echoes a Hebrew term used to describe the country, "ha-eretz ha-mikdash." Given the brief adoption of Jerusalem as a direction of prayer by the early Muslims, and other Jewish
Note 4: An early disparinfluences on early Islam, there is very possibly a connection. Back.
Note 9: See Kamil al-'Asali, Makhtutat Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis (Amman, 1984). Back.
Note 10: Ibid., 16; Porath, 1918-1929, 1-9. Back.
Note 11: Schölch, Palestine, 12-15; Butrus Abu Manneh, "Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period: The New Ottoman Administration and the Notables," Die Welt des Islams 30 (1990): 1-44; idem, "The Rise of the Sanjak of Jerusalem in the Late 19th Century," in Gabriel Ben Dor (ed.), The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict (Ramat Gan, 1978). See also 'Abd al-'Aziz Muhammad 'Awad, "Mutasarrifiyyat al-Quds, 1874-1914" in al-Mu'tamar al-Dawli al-Thalith li-Ta'rikh Bilad al-Sham: Filastin (Amman, 1983): 1, 204-223. Back.
Note 12: 'Azuri's article, originally published in the Turkish paper Sabah, was reprinted in Arabic in Thamarat al-Funun, 23 September, 1908, 7. A copy of the article was among the papers that Ruhi al-Khalidi, the newly elected deputy from Jerusalem, was carrying with him to Istanbul from Marseilles in 1908: Ruhi al-Khalidi papers, Khalidi Library, Jerusalem. Back.
Note 13: Schölch, Palestine, 15. Back.
Note 14: Porath, 1918-1929, 8-9. Back.
Note 15: Among monographs on the rivalries of the European powers over Palestine see A. L. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine (Oxford, 1966); Rashid Khalidi, British Policy Toward Syria and Palestine, 1906-1914 (London, 1980); Rose, From Palmerston to Balfour; Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism, 1897-1918 (Oxford, 1977). Back.
Note 16: See the discussion in Rashid Khalidi, "Contrasting Narratives of Palestinian Identity," in Patricia Yaeger (ed.), The Geography of Identity (Ann Arbor, 1996), 215-216, of a 1701 petition by notables and other inhabitants of Jerusalem to Sultan Mustafa II protesting the visit of a French Consul in Jerusalem, "since our city is the focus of attention of the infidels" and since "this holy land" could be "occupied as a result of this, as has happened repeatedly in earlier times." The meeting that produced this petition was attended by both notables and common people, testimony to the prevalence of such feelings among all sectors of urban society. Back.
Note 17: A recent joke shows how persistent are these local urban loyalties, and how they can still be imagined as transcending broader bonds: the scene is a street in Jerusalem, where two native Jerusalemites (currently outnumbered in the city by newcomers from Hebron) are witnessing a fight between a Palestinian and an Israeli settler. The first asks the other why he doesn't intervene, and the second answers: "Why should I? It is a fight between settlers." Back.
Note 18: Neville Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I (Berkeley, 1976). See also Rashid Khalidi, "The Role of the Press in the Early Arab Reaction to Zionism," Peuples Mediterraneans/Mediterranean Peoples 20 (July/September 1982): 105-124. Back.
Note 19: Rashid Khalidi, "Palestinian Peasant Resistance to Zionism before World War I," in Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (eds.), Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestine Question (New York, 1988), 207-233. Back.
Note 20: See Khalidi, "Role of the Press," 105-124. Back.
Note 21: Filastin special issue (described on the masthead as closed by order of the Ministry of the Interior, an order that this issue was presumably defying), 7 Nisan 1330/May 1914, 1. For details of this affair, see Khalidi, British Policy, 356-357. Back.
Note 22: Ibid.; a French consular official, commenting on this incident, remarked that it indicated widespread opposition to Zionism among the urban population of Palestine. Back.
Note 23: For more on the struggle of Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox in Syria and Palestine to free their church from the control of its Greek hierarchy and to Arabize it, see Derek Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Palestine and Syria (Oxford, 1969). Back.
Note 24: The speech, delivered "at the end of the Second World War" is reported in 'Ajaj Nuwayhid, Rijal min Filastin ma bayna Bidayat al-Qarn hatta 'Amm 1948 (Amman, 1981), 30. Back.
Note 25: They perceived this largely after the fact in the years after World War I. The rewriting of Arab history in the interwar years to fit this new version of events is a fascinating story that has yet to find its historian. Back.
Note 26: How Arabism supplanted Ottomanism is best treated in C. Ernest Dawn's seminal From Ottomanism to Arabism. See also Khalidi et al., Origins. Back.
Note 27: Khalil Sakakini, Filastin ba'd al-Harb al-Kubra (Jerusalem, 1925), 9. This 56-page pamphlet is a collection of articles published in the Cairo newspaper al-Siyasa in 1923. Back.
Note 28: The total number of Palestinians who were executed for nationalist activities during the war is not known. Bayan Nuwayhid al-Hut, al-Qiyadat wa al-Mu'assasat al-Siyasiyya fi Filastin, 1917-1948 (Beirut, 1981), 46-52, discusses the cases of nine leading Palestinian personalities executed by the Ottoman authorities or who died in prison. In addition, hundreds of others were exiled to Anatolia with their families during the war on similar charges. Back.
Note 29: Justin McCarthy, The Population of Palestine: Population History and Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (New York, 1990), 25-27. Back.
Note 30: See Khalidi, British Policy, for more on pre-war concerns about the occupation of Syria and Palestine by the European powers. Back.
Note 31: Bayan al-Hut, al-Qidayat, 77-78, notes that although the text of the Balfour Declaration was not officially published in Palestine until 1920, within a few days of its issuance on November 2, 1917, the Egyptian press had publishing details of it and of the jubilant reactions to it in the Egyptian Jewish community. These provoked a strong reaction among Palestinians when the news reached them soon afterwards. Back.
Note 32: See Jacob Burckhardt, Judgments on History and Historians, trans. Harry Zohn (Boston, 1958), 221 ff. Back.
Note 33: Ronald Storrs, Orientations (London, 1937), 336-338. Storrs was the first British Military Governor of Jerusalem. Back.
Note 34: This can be seen from two letters from Ronald Storrs to Mustafa al-Budayri, dated August 16, 1921-one refusing permission for publication of a new newspaper entitled al-Amal, and the other refusing permission to open a printing press-and a third letter dated six days later requesting in a peremptory manner that Muhammad Kamil al-Budayri, publisher of the newspaper al-Sabah, come into the Governorate the following morning for an interview: papers from the files of al-Sabah, in the possession of Dr. Musa Budeiri, Jerusalem. For the Ottoman and British press laws, see Yusuf Khuri (ed.), al-Sihafa al-'Arabiyya fi Filastin, 1876-1948 (Beirut, 1976) 147-225. Back.
Note 35: Filastin, 1-328, March 19, 1921, "Hadith qadim wa bayan jadid," 1. Back.
Note 36: Khuri, al-Sihafa al-'Arabiyya, 14-15. Back.
Note 37: Only a few issues of the paper exist, some in the Khalidi Library in Jerusalem, and others in the possession of Dr. Musa Budeiri. Suriyya al-Janubiyya, as well as al-Sabah, published in 1921 by Muhammad Hasan al-Budayri's cousin, Muhammad Kamil al-Budayri, was printed in a small set of rooms belonging to the al-Budayri family immediately adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif, which is now the site of al-Maktaba al-Budayriyya. Suriyya al-Janubiyya is described by Bernard Wasserstein in The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917-1929 (2d ed.; Oxford, 1991), 60, as "the nationalist newspaper." Back.
Note 38: See Rashid Khalidi, "'Abd al-Ghani al-'Uraysi and al-Mufid: The Press and Arab Nationalism before 1914," in Buheiry, Intellectual Life, 38-61. Back.
Note 39: See Muslih, Origins, 168, who notes that al-Budayri, al-'Arif, and Hajj Amin al-Husayni, who wrote frequently for the paper, were leading members of al-Nadi al-'Arabi. Back.
Note 40: Suriyya al-Janubiyya, no. 11, 11 November, 1919, 6. See also Wasserstein, British in Palestine, 180-182, who incorrectly ascribes to al-'Arif alone all the credit for producing the paper. Back.
Note 41: While Suriyya al-Janubiyya printed the words "biladuna lana" ("our country/countries are ours") across the masthead of every issue, the slogans at the top of the inside pages on issues ranging from October 1919 to March 1920 were either overtly Arabist ("we live for the Arabs and die for the Arabs") or expressed general nationalist sentiments ("there is no majesty, no glory, no honor and no life except in independence"). By contrast, al-Sabah employed the more general-and more ambiguous-"bilad al-'Arab lil-'Arab" ("the Arab countries are for the Arabs") on its masthead. An unexceptionable sentiment in Arab nationalist terms, this slogan also represented an adjustment to the new realities of 1921 with its recognition that there are many Arab countries. Back.
Note 42: See Malcolm B. Russell, The First Modern Arab State: Syria under Faysal, 1918-1920 (Minneapolis, 1985) for the best account of the new Syrian state. Back.
Note 43: For the somewhat different attitudes of some Syrians, and especially some Damascenes to the new state, see ibid.; Muslih, Origins; and James L. Gelvin, Contesting Nationalisms and the Birth of Mass Politics in Syria (Berkeley, 1997). Back.
Note 44: Among the Palestinians who served Faysal and his government were 'Awni 'Abd al-Hadi, 'Isa al-'Isa, and Muhammad 'Izzat Darwaza. See Dhikra Istiqlal Suriyya (Damascus, 1920). Back.
Note 45: See Khalidi, British Policy, and Khalidi et al., Origins, for details of these pre-war evolutions. Back.
Note 46: Until the 1940s many Lebanese, particularly Sunnis, refused to accept the legitimacy of Lebanon as an entity, preferring to consider the country as no more than the Syrian coastal region. See Salibi, House of Many Mansions. Back.
Note 47: "al-Anba' al-mulafaqa," Suriyya al-Janubiyya 8:2 October 1919, 1. Back.
Note 48: "Illa natadhakar Filastin?," ibid., 3-4. Back.
Note 49: "Zubdat al-Akhbar," ibid., no. 11, 11 November 1919, 5. Back.
Note 50: "Hawla al-Mas'ala al-Sihyuniyya," Suriyya al-Janubiyya, no. 16, 27 November 1919, 4. Back.
Note 51: Cited in Wasserstein, British in Palestine, 76. Porath, 1918-1929, 319, n. 17, suggests that "perhaps Samuel had not precisely said what was later attributed to him," and was misunderstood by the Arabs. Samuel said exactly what the Arabs thought he had: that Zionism aimed for a Jewish majority and control of the country. Back.
Note 52: The only other important newspapers to publish in Palestine while Suriyya al-Janubiyya appeared were Bulus Shahada's Mir'at al-Sharq, published in Jerusalem starting in September 1919 (this became a the organ of the anti-Husayni faction in the early 1920s, and a nationalist organ later on, when Ahmad Shuqayri and Akram Zu'aytir wrote for it); and al-Nafir and al-Karmil, reopened in Haifa in September 1919 and February 1920 respectively. As mentioned earlier, Filastin only resumed publication in March 1921. Back.
Note 53: "Hidhar, Hidhar!," Suriyya al-Janubiyya, no. 22, 23 December 1919, 2. Back.
Note 54: "Hawla al-Mas'ala al-Sihyuniyya" (this had become a regular column in the paper), ibid., no. 48, 26 March 1920, 3. Back.
Note 55: See Muslih, Origins; Porath, 1918-1929; Russell, First Modern Arab State. Back.
Note 56: "Wa la tay'asu min ruh Allah," Suriyya al-Janubiyya, no. 11, 11 November 1919, 3. Back.
Note 57: Ibid., no. 32, January 23 1920, 2. Back.
Note 58: See Lesch and Porath for the significance of these societies. Wasserstein claims that some British officials encouraged the establishment of these societies, presumably as a counterweight to the Zionist movement. Back.
Note 59: Suriyya al-Janubiyya, no. 48, 26 March 1920, 2. The word "wataniyya," which can mean either nationalism or patriotism, is derived from "watan," homeland. The article in question reported on the strong local reaction to what were described as attempts by Jewish merchants, with the connivance of the British authorities, to purchase large quantities of livestock and other food products in Gaza, and the effect of this in driving up local prices. Back.
Note 61: al-Sabah, no. 1, 21 October 1921. Back.
Note 62: Such a shift was not necessary for the main competitor of Suriyya al-Janubiyya, Mir'at al-Sharq, whose lead editorial in its first issue, published on 17 September 1919, makes no reference to Arabism (the term "umma," used frequently, is not further specified as being the Palestinian or the Arab nation), while it stresses that it is being published "bayna qawmina" in Jerusalem, with the clear implication that the paper is Palestinian in focus. Back.
Note 63: Each devotes a chapter to this subject: Muslih, Origins, 131-154; Porath, 1918-1929, 70-122. In his chapter Porath occasionally uses the press as a source, although far more frequently relying on Zionist, British, and other Arab sources. Back.
Note 64: For the texts of these documents, see Hurewitz, Diplomacy, 2:46-56, 110-112. Back.
Note 65: The most influential of these counselors was T. E. Lawrence. Back.
Note 66: Bayan al-Hut, al-Qidayat, 63-65. Back.
Note 67: Storrs, Orientations, 353-354. Wasserstein points out (42, n. 34) that initially Hebrew was not recognized as an official language by the military administration, but that by the end of 1919 this ruling had been overturned. Back.
Note 68: The speeches of Zionist leaders abroad, reported for decades in the Arabic press, had long aroused anti-Zionist sentiment in Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab world (see Khalidi, "Role of the Press"), and after the war, speeches such as that of Samuel, mentioned in n. 51, provoked a fierce reaction. But it was the speeches and actions of Zionist leaders and officials in Palestine that provoked the greatest response from Palestinians. Back.
Note 69: For Syria, see the recent work of James Gelvin, and for Iraq, Mahmoud Haddad, "Iraq Before World War I," in Khalidi et al., Origins, 120-150. Back.
Note 70: [Title illegible] al-Sabah, no. 1, 21 October 1921, 1. Back.
Note 71: "Sanatuna al-Khamisa," Filastin, no. 1, 19 March 1921, p. 1. Back.
Note 72: For G. S. Symes, Chief Secretary of the Mandatory government from 1925 to 1928, the Arab peasantry "obviously couldn't . . . manage their own affairs satisfactorily" (Wasserstein, British in Palestine, 134.) Back.
Note 73: See Khalidi, "Palestinian Peasant Resistance," for examples of this. Back.
Note 74: Wasserstein, British in Palestine, 179. See A. L. Tibawi, Arab Education in Mandatory Palestine (London, 1954), who notes that by 1945 nearly half the Arab school-age population was enrolled in schools. See also Ylana Miller, Government and Society in Mandatory Palestine (Austin, 1985), for an excellent account of the spread of education in rural areas, generally at the instigation of the rural population. Back.
Note 75: Cairo, 1923. The book was used widely in Palestinian schools. Back.
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