Every clipping in this archive printed between 1920 and 1929: 71 of them, oldest first, as plain text that can be read, searched and quoted without running any code. Each entry links to its own record, where the scan is.
· The American Israelite · Cincinnati · page 1
Criticizes Zionists' Methods
Palestinian Restoration Should Not Be at Expense of General War Relief Work
“Zionists who seek to advance their cause at the expense of general Jewish relief were scored in a sermon delivered by Rabbi David Philipson at the Rockdale Avenue Temple, Cincinnati. In speaking on ‘The Mission of Israel,’ Dr. Philipson led up to the striking injunction which he sought to impress. He spoke as follows: ‘Those American Jews who advocate the universalistic interpretation of the mission of Israel do not recognize any homeland but the United States. We repudiate altogether a statement like that recently made by Max Nordau, possibly the foremost Zionist leader, who urged that Jews, though citizens of other lands, yet consider Palestine in the light of a homeland. This doctrine of what might be called a superstate is dangerous and we non-Zionists have absolutely no sympathy with it. In our view Palestine, whenever the independent Palestinian state will be founded, will be a homeland for Palestinian Jews, as the United States is for us. It is not our homeland in any sense. There is, however, another question which forces itself at this time. A drive is on at present, or will be very soon, for Palestinian relief under the auspices of the Zionist organisation of America. It is regrettable that Zionists are using this for Zionist propaganda, as has appeared recently in this city. It goes without saying that all Jews ought to and doubtless wish to do what they can for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Palestinian institutions, but this movement should be under general and not under specific Zionist auspices, even as is the movement for the relief of the suffering and destitute Jews in Poland, Galicia and other lands…’”
An American rabbi in 1920 using “Palestinian” four times as an ordinary adjective — Palestinian state, Palestinian Jews, Palestinian relief, Palestinian institutions — and speaking of “the independent Palestinian state” as something that will be founded.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Zionists and The Palestinian Fellaheen
“At the Zionist meeting in London Radicals and Conservatives have scored an even break. The Radicals wanted all the land declared nationalized at once, while the Conservatives carried the day with theoretic ownership and gradual acquisition by purchase from the owners… In the meantime no one seems to have taken into consideration the 600,000 Fellaheen in the narrowest limits of Palestine and more than a million in the borders once ruled by David and Solomon. This population represents the actual tillers of the soil from time immemorial. In 5000 years of recorded history Palestine has been invaded by Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites, Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Euro—”
Six hundred thousand, counted, and described as the actual tillers of the soil from time immemorial. Note the headline: Palestinian, used in 1920 to mean the Arab peasantry. In this archive that use is rare enough to be worth marking.
American engineer, returning after a visit, says the plan of the Zionists is working out, with American Jews taking the leadership and working out the problems
Edward Marshall, interviewing the engineer H. T. Cory
“Thus in Palestine mankind really has a better natural opportunity than is found in the best of the wonderful American Pacific coast, but there is some lack of merit in the human material at hand. The problem is terrific, largely because of the deeply-rooted antipathies existing between the various inhabitant races. It seems to me that the task is far less that of getting the Hebrews into Palestine (they are coming so fast that the trouble seems to be to keep them out) than of getting Palestine fully and efficiently ready for their coming.” Life in the New Palestine. “Not all was profound peace during my stay in Jerusalem. Sir Herbert Samuel, the new British governor general, arrived while I was there and troops lined both sides of the way from the railroad station to the palace. The night before five men had been arrested because they had sworn to kill him before he took office. Before I left Jerusalem the Bedouins came up on the west side of the Dead Sea district and attacked Jericho. But these same Arabs were courteous enough to our Zionist party en route to Jaffa.”… “It is interesting to note that the American Jew is taking a large part in Palestine. He is better developed than his blood-brother from elsewhere and is showing his superiority.” It Is a Big Problem. “I was very much impressed by many of the things the Zionists are accomplishing, but I also was impressed by the magnitude of the problems they must meet. Certainly, however, the Arab has no more chance if the Jew stays and keeps up his drive than the negro has to submerge the white man in America.”… “So here, in the scene of Christ’s travels, we see active, energetic and progressive life suddenly renewed. I am not at all doubtful about the permanence of the effort. I am not pessimistic.”
H. T. Cory is an American engineer home from the Nile Projects Commission, and the paper is careful to say he is “not a Jew” and speaks of Palestine “as an interested visitor.” He went, he says, at Justice Brandeis’s invitation. Asked what becomes of the people already there, he answers with an analogy to Black Americans and does not treat the outcome as in doubt.
“Foundations for a ewish nation in Palestine were laid in the British mandate recently made public… No prejudice against non-Jews. English, Arabic and Hebrew the official languages… The picture is of Jerusalem… Note the airplane; it is the only thing that gives it a modern touch.”
The photograph shows a densely built city — houses, balconies, shuttered windows, a street, domes and towers — in which tens of thousands of people lived. The caption’s closing instruction is that the only modern thing in it is the British aeroplane overhead. Nothing in that sentence is false. The people are in the photograph and not in the caption. “a ewish nation” is the paper’s dropped letter. The summary of the mandate in the paper’s own words — no prejudice against non-Jews — is the fourth instance in this archive of the majority being named by subtraction.
“PALESTINE RECLAIMED. By Redcliffe N. Salaman, M. D. With an introduction by the Hon. W. Ormsby Gore, M. P. Published by E. P. Dutton & Co. THIS is the story of the Jewish battalions that fought in Palestine during the war and of the numerous colonies of Jews in their ancient homeland. It is told in a series of letters to the writer’s wife, and forms an interesting commentary on conditions in Palestine and the difficulties that stand in the way of successful colonization. The author, who is a medical man especially interested in research work, points out the shortcomings of the colonists as unreservedly as he scores the unfriendly attitude of the occupied enemy territory administration which, he says, championed the cause of the Arabs against the Jews because the former are well armed and more likely to give trouble. The humor of the situation, the author says, lies in the fact that the Arab is sly and untrustworthy and bitterly anti-British, while the Jew is ready to be intensely loyal.”
A book review in an American daily in 1921, relaying the author’s characterization of Arabs without comment, in the reviewer’s own voice.
High Commissioner For Palestine Tells Of Ambition For Palestinian People.
Jerusalem, July 15
“Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner for Palestine, on the occasion of the king’s birthday, addressed a representative gathering here. In the course of his speech he expressed regret that harmony between the devotees of different creeds which he earnestly desired to promote had not been attained. He declared that Great Britain would never impose on the Palestinian people a policy contrary to their religious, political and economic interests… Sir Herbert said he was anxious that the Palestinian people should be more closely associated in the administration. Great Britain, he assured his hearers, intended to make provision for the government of Palestine in an instrument which would be registered with the League of Nations. The interests of the non-Jewish population would be not only safeguarded by the mandate itself but likewise in the instrument referred to in which the future constitution of the country would be defined.”
The Palestinian people, as a phrase, in an American paper in 1921. The High Commissioner means everybody in the country; the words are on the page either way.
The British Government Frowns on Superstitions of the Fellaheen
“JAFFA, Palestine, Feb. 13.—The British administration in Palestine is trying to stamp out some of the peculiar superstitions of the fellaheen (peasants) and has appointed a committee of district governors to advise it as to the best method of attaining that purpose. After four years of occupation, the authorities are beginning to realize that superstition plays an important role in keeping the peasants in ignorance. Some of the native beliefs are very interesting. One government official discovered that he had transgressed a tradition the other day when he stepped over a baby’s coat as he crossed a village street. His action was noticed by a group of women who halted him and told him he would have to retrace his steps or the baby would surely die. As their attitude was menacing, he did so to save himself from attack. The same official on another occasion was invited to take lunch with the Mouktar (head) of a village. As he entered the guest chamber, he stumbled and he fell headlong on the floor. The host told him that his falling was sure to bring bad luck to the village unless he saw fit to forego the lunch. It is a common practice for girls to visit the tombs of prophets and lay there pieces of their garments, believing that by so doing they are sure to get married soon. Sometimes they go without food or drink for seven days for the same purpose. Married women who have no children, trying to avoid divorce, go to cemeteries and walk over children’s tombs in order to have some of their own. Often, to be blessed with children, they go to mosques, walk seven times around the building and then smash an egg in the gateway. These are only a few of the odd customs which are commonly practiced by the fellaheen and which the government is anxious to destroy.”
A colonial government legislating against village practice, which is something you can only do to a population that is there and is doing it. Honolulu, 1922. The last word of the piece is destroy.
· The American Jewish World · Minneapolis · page 6
THE ANTI-ZIONIST PROTEST
Mendel Silber
“Unbelievable as it may seem, there have been some unfeeling Jews who protested to Senator Lodge against his Senate resolution in favor of Zionism… Once the foundation has been laid and the building has gotten under way, it would be nothing short of criminal if any member of the family were to attempt violently to destroy the foundation… Or is it because Reform Judaism claims that the Jews are a religious group instead of a nation, a people? How dare Reform Judaism claim that?”
Two editorials on one page. The second, HOW DARE THEY!, attacks Rabbis Calisch, Landman and Philipson for appearing before a House committee against the Hamilton-Fish resolution, and records their claim to speak for several hundred congregations and about 95 per cent of the Reform Jews of America. The question it puts — whether a group is a religion or a people — is the same test the Associated Press would identify in 1988 as governing what to call Palestinians.
Very disquieting reports concerning conditions in Palestine cause the Jews of the world to pause and consider the next step in the Zionist program... Lord Northcliffe's assertion that there was bound to be an upheaval in Palestine soon, is causing great disquietude in Jewish circles.
“Palestine has a total population of 757,182, according to the figures of the census of three months ago. This figure equals approximately the population of the city of Boston as given by the official count in 1920. Ten per cent of the people in Palestine are given as Christian; 11 per cent as Jews, and 79 per cent—”
The whole question, answered by a news agency in 1923. Seven hundred and fifty-seven thousand, one hundred and eighty-two people, counted by the government that ran the place, and translated for American readers into a city they knew. The size of Boston.
“It is not good for the indigenous Arabs, who are bewildered by its injustice. Nor is it good for the indigenous Jews… When the last foreign Zionist has departed the Palestinian Jew will be forced to bear for a generation the burden of Zionist folly… What are 79,000 Jews in a population of 755,000? They are drops on the Arab ocean… The Arab nation is ironically watching the last agonies of the great Zionist delusion. These sons of the soil inherit an age-old tradition and culture.”
James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express, reported at length. He is contemptuous of Zionism throughout and had no stake in calling Arabs indigenous; he uses the word of both populations in one sentence. The phrase the Palestinian Jew, set against the foreign Zionist, is direct evidence that before the word narrowed it belonged to the place and to everyone in it.
Speaker Pictures Cheery Life in New Jewish Colonies of Palestine Which Resemble American Villages
“She pictured the happy, normal life in many of the Jewish colonies in Palestine, saying that one got a wrong idea of the country by a tour of Jerusalem for the real life of the country now lies in these colonies… In Jerusalem, Mrs. Gais said, the Sabbath is celebrated on three days each week: Fridays, by the Moslems; Saturdays, by the Jews, and Sundays, by the Christians.”
A woman who had spent four months in the country, speaking on “conditions in general in the Holy Land” — and the country she describes has no Arabs in it. Nothing is hostile and nothing is false. Nine-tenths of the population appears twice in eight hundred words: as a calendar note and as a clause about who the hospital treats.
“The Palestinian Arabs are opposed to the treaty between England and the Hedjas, according to Muza Kazim Pasha, the President of the Moslem-Christian Association of Palestine, who expressed this view in a cable to King Hussein of the Hedjas, protesting against the signing of the treaty. The President of the Moslem-Christian Association, in his cable, states that the Palestinian Arabs consider the treaty, which omits the independence of Palestine, as a betrayal of the interests of the Palestinian Arabs.”
Four uses of Palestinian Arabs in one short item, all of them political, forty years before the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded. The Moslem-Christian Association is the body whose leaders asked an American reporter in 1919 where they were supposed to go.
Arabs Strike in Jerusalem; Jaffa and Haifa Government Closes Arab College following Strike of Teachers and Students; Arabs Crowd Jerusalem Streets; Balfour Called “King of Jews” in Arab Proclamation
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“Jerusalem, (J. T. A.) — Order was not disturbed in the Holy City when the Earl of Balfour and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the president of the World Zionist organization, arrived for the purpose of opening the Hebrew university in Jerusalem on April 1st… Although the majority of the Arab stores were closed as a sign of protest and some of the elementary schools, maintained by the government for Arab pupils, were empty because of the pupils’ strike, peace prevailed. The building where the headquarters of the Palestine Arab Executive is located was draped in black. Arab mobs crowded the streets. Jerusalem, (J. T. A.) — The strike proclaimed by the Palestine Arab Executive against the arrival of Lord Balfour was carried out in Jaffa and Haifa, according to reports received here. The majority of the Arab stores in these cities were closed. London, (J. T. A.) — Two members of the Palestine Arab Executive were arrested when Lord Balfour left the Cairo station, according to a dispatch from Jerusalem to the London ‘Daily Mail.’ They were arrested because they shouted ‘Down with Balfour,’ the dispatch states. The correspondent of the ‘Daily Mail’ further states that according to his information a large group of fanatic Arabs in Nablus and Hebrom have decided to march to Jerusalem to join the protest movement. A state of excitement prevails among the lower Arab classes, particularly because of the fact that an Arabic proclamation distributed in the bazaar stated that ‘Balfour came to govern Palestine as the King of the Jews.’… Tel Aviv, the one hundred per cent, modern Jewish city of Palestine, is preparing to receive Lord Balfour, the author of the Balfour Declaration, upon his arrival here… All Jewish stores and factories will be closed at 2 o’clock in the afternoon in honor of the lord’s visit. The houses will be decorated with the blue and white and the British flags… Jerusalem, (J. T. A.) — The Men’s Training College, a seminary for the preparation of Arab teachers, supported by the Palestine government, and the Arab high school were closed, according to an official announcement of the government issued recently. The teachers and the students were suspended following their decision, in spite of the government’s warning, to join in the strike proclaimed by the Palestine Arab Executive against the arrival of Lord Balfour.”
The headline says peace and the smaller line under it describes a general strike across Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, shuttered shops, empty schools, a building draped in black, two men arrested in Cairo for shouting, and a government teachers’ college closed with its staff and students suspended for striking. The word the copy uses for the crowds is mobs. Four years later the same paper’s readers would get the first Arab Women’s Congress; this archive holds that too.
“For a long time there has existed among the Arab and Jewish workers an antagonism which served well the purpose of the employers who wanted to keep the employes divided, says the bulletin. The labor movement, however, has been successful in removing a great deal of this antagonism by founding an international organization covering both Jews and Arabs…”
The rarest kind of item here: Arabs and Jews in Palestine doing something together, successfully, and the thing is a union recognition and a claim for the eight-hour day.
· The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle · Milwaukee · page 8
88 Jews Left Palestine in May
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“Two hundred and twenty-nine persons left Palestine permanently during the month of May… Of these 22 are Christians, 89 Moslems and 88 Jews. Many young Arabs of Nazareth are emigrating to America, due to the bad economic conditions prevalent there, according to the Arab paper, ‘Falastin,’ which complains that the Palestine government is taking no measures to prevent this emigration.”
Eighty-nine Moslems left. Eighty-eight Jews left. The headline names the eighty-eight. Nothing about that is improper — this is a community weekly and its readers’ interest is the Jewish figure, which sits one person below the larger number in the next sentence. It is the cleanest specimen here of the ordinary operation of a paper knowing who it is for. The question is what happens when every paper does that.
The Removal Of Hebrew Letters From Palestine Stamps Demand Of Arabs
With: Arabs Wish To Create “Smoke Bank” To Save Palestine From Zionists
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem. (J.T.A.) The demand that the Palestine government abolish the two Hebrew letters, Aleph and Yud, the two initials of Eretz Israel, on the Palestine post stamps, was made by the Palestine Arab executive in a memorandum submitted to the Palestine High Court. The memorandum demands that either these two initials be removed or that the words Syria Genovia meaning Southern Syria, be added in Arabic… requesting that amnesty be granted to a number of Arab youths who were arrested in connection with the strike which occurred on the arrival of Lord Balfour to Palestine. The Arab executive also addressed a memorandum to General Sarrail, French High Commissioner of Syria, asking for the release of a number of Syrian leaders who were arrested in connection with the Druze rebellion… Five Arab notables decided to discontinue smoking for the purpose of establishing a fund for a bank to ‘save Palestine from the Zionist menace.’ The bank is to be known as the ‘smoke bank.’ The Arab paper ‘El Carmel’ warmly supports the idea and urges Arabs to abandon smoking and give the sums saved toward the ‘smoke bank.’”
In two columns of wire briefs: a Palestinian political executive, a petition to the High Court, a general strike, mass arrests, an Arabic newspaper and a boycott fund.
Palestinian Folk Lore, Primitive Beliefs, Amulets and Charms
J. Goldsmith, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“In the primitive days the belief prevailed among practically all peoples that success, beauty, youth, strength, all the desirable things in life were in constant danger from envious people and envious gods… Among primitive and backward peoples these beliefs still obtain. In Palestine even today the natives, Moslem, Christian and Jew, believe in the power of the evil eye, and by charms and spells and amulets strive to avert the working of the curse… Dr. Canaan, an Arab doctor of medicine in Palestine, who studied for many years in Germany, and is married to a German wife, is an authority on the subject of folk lore and he has written a great deal concerning it, both in books and in periodicals. He is extremely popular with his patients, Moslems, Jews and Christians, and is thus able to pursue with special advantage, his investigations among them on his pet subject. He has a remarkably rich collection of amulets and other charms, and he can talk with amazing knowledge of the varieties of magic which they are supposed to be able to work. It is to Dr. Canaan that I am indebted for what I know of these matters.… The belief in the evil eye obtains in Palestine among Jews, Moslems and Christians, but chiefly among the Moslems — the fellaheen and the Bedouins. Of the Christian population, the Greek Orthodox are more superstitious than the Protestants and the Roman Catholics… Effective protection against the evil eye are blue pearls, alum and pictures of the eye… Blue is believed to neutralize the evil eye. In the East, blue is the dominant color in nature, sky air and water are all blue. Many of the walls and tombstones are also blue. And that is why blue has been chosen as the color of protection… Medicines are not believed in. It is an impossibility for a doctor to take away an amulet from his patient, the people believing that if the amulet is taken away the illness will grow worse.”
The headline calls it primitive; the body says the authority on the subject is a named Palestinian physician, and that everything the writer knows he owes to him. Tawfiq Canaan practiced in Jerusalem and published extensively on Palestinian folk medicine. He is the earliest named Palestinian scholar in this archive, and the paper credits him while filing his field under superstition.
“In his book, ‘The New Jerusalem,’ C. K. Chesterton gives eloquent expression to the same fear of the native Arab Palestinians. ‘Rightly or wrongly,’ he writes, ‘certain people in Palestine fear the coming of the Jew as they fear the coming of the locusts; they regard them as parasites that feed on a community by a thousand methods of financial intrigues and economic exploitation. I could understand the Jews indignantly denying this, or eagerly disproving it, or best of all, explaining what is true in it while exposing what is untrue. What is strange, I might also say weird, about the attitude of some quite intelligent and sincere Zionists is that they talk, write and apparently think as if there were no such thing in the world.’”
The native Arab Palestinians, named as such in an American paper in 1926. The initials are the paper’s: it sets C. K. Chesterton.
Negib Diab, editor of Mirat-ul-Gharb: 'the Arabs have been comparatively silent these years, but that is not a sign that they are in favor of Zionism. They have realized that they are powerless to oppose a movement so ably sponsored by political and economic forces vastly superior to their own; their silence is a sign of weakness, not of love to Zionism.'
League Commission Inquires Into Phases of Palestine Development
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“Palestinian Nationality. The chairman said that the question of Palestine citizenship raised important legal issues… Col. Symes said that the British government had always been firmly opposed to dual nationality. Anyone adopting the Palestinian nationality had to renounce his former nationality. M. Rappard said that he quite understood why Jewish immigrants complained of a provision according to which the high commissioner could at any moment revoke the Palestinian nationality which they had acquired by paying a fee… Public Security: Jewish Representation in Palestine Forces. M. d’Andrade said that the Jews had complained of the preponderance of Arabs in the gendarmerie… M. Rappard… was of importance for the Arabs not to form too great a proportion of the gendarmerie corps of Palestine if this corps were to be used to secure the safety of the Jews. There was a risk indeed that in cases of rioting the Arab gendarmes might join their compatriots in attacking the Jews. Col. Symes said there was a fair proportion of Jews in the Palestine police force, but there were no Jews in the civil police force of Transjordania… The Arab Grievances. M. Palacios said that up to the present, the Arabs had always been opposed to the whole mandate; in the present petition they make, for the first time, no protest against its basic principles and its establishment as a whole but only against the failure to carry out some of the terms of the mandate. Did this indicate that real progress had been made? Col. Symes said that outwardly, at any rate, the political attitude had not been appreciably modified… Politically, most of the educated Arabs had a conception of an ideal Palestine state which was at variance with the mandate. The Pan-Arab politicians hoped for an eventual amalgamation of all Arab-speaking countries, and they disliked any system under which Palestine, Syria and Iraq were treated as separate territories. Their conception was accordingly utterly opposed to the principle of the Palestine and other mandates. They had at the outset been led to suppose that, if they pursued a policy of non-co-operation with the mandatory, the terms of the mandate might be changed. They had, therefore, pursued that policy. There were also domestic reasons for the policy of non-co-operation. The Arabs were conscious of their own internal divisions and were naturally anxious to conceal them and to show a united front… Col. Symes said that there had been no change in the policy laid down by Sir Herbert Samuel. The refusal to participate in the Central government had come from the Arabs; if and when they desired to co-operate they would be welcome. The chairman said the commission was happy to note that the Arabs, thanks to the conciliatory policy of the mandatory power, were gradually beginning to collaborate with it… The question came up of the Arab grievances with regard to the use of Eretz Israel, the Jewish flag and the Jewish anthem. Col. Symes said that the Hebrew name for Palestine was ‘Land of Israel’ and the government, to meet the Jewish wishes, had agreed that the word ‘Palestine’ in Hebrew characters should be followed in all official documents by the initials which stood for that designation. The Jews had adopted an anthem which was used in their assemblies and officials of the administration rose as a matter of courtesy when the hymn was played. No other official recognition had been given to the hymn. The flag was a Zionist emblem. It was never paraded as a state flag and the administration saw no reason to prohibit it being flown like any other private emblem. There was no corresponding Arab flag, but an attempt had been made to popularize the Hedjaz state flag and to introduce an Arab hymn. The only concern of the government in this matter was to prevent the two parties from needlessly provoking one another.… Jewish Immigration to Palestine Continues at Low Ebb. Jerusalem. — (J.T.A.) — Figures published show that during November 521 immigrants entered the country, while 923 emigrants left.”
A verbatim-style report of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission discussing Palestine, printed in a Milwaukee weekly. Three things in it are hard to find anywhere else in this archive. The British representative explains that Palestinian nationality required renouncing any other and could be revoked by the High Commissioner at will. A commissioner argues that Arabs should not form too large a share of the gendarmerie because they might side with their compatriots. And on flags: the Zionist emblem was flown freely as a private emblem, the Hebrew initials for Land of Israel followed the word Palestine in all official documents, and there was, in the government’s own words, no corresponding Arab flag. The item at the foot reports 521 immigrants arriving in November against 923 emigrants leaving.
Absentee Landlord Only Real Problem In Colonization, Zionists Here Told
“There is no real Arab problem in so far as the native Arab and the colonization of Palestine by the Jews is concerned, according to Judge Julian W. Mack, federal judge of New York, and a leading member of the Zionist organization of America, who spoke before a crowded auditorium at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association Sunday. ‘No injustice is being done the native Arab by the colonization of Palestine, for to the native Arab the bit of land represented by Palestine in the vast area of Arabia and Syria will not be missed,’ Judge Mack said. ‘It is the rich, absentee Arab landlord who is fearful. In the coming of an educated class this landlord sees a menace to the resigned and submissive ignorance of the nomadic Arab, and he is worried.’ Not Taking Land. ‘The Jews are not taking land from the Arabs, for there is no land to take. They are buying land, buying it with the money the Jews over the world are contributing to the Jewish national fund. The charter of this organization does not allow it to sell the land, and so this land will never become a matter for private speculation. It is leased to the colonists, in hereditary leases often, so the land can be cultivated.’ From the beginning of the Jewish colonization of Palestine, Judge Mack added, the work has been one of practical idealism. Their first work in Palestine, even before the mandate guaranteeing them protection was adopted by the nations of…”
A United States federal judge, speaking to a crowded hall in Alabama in January 1927, giving the argument in its plainest form: that the land of Palestine will not be missed by Arabs who have Arabia and Syria. In the same breath he describes the people he says will not miss it as living in resigned and submissive ignorance. The paragraph headed Not Taking Land sets out the Jewish National Fund mechanism exactly — land bought with worldwide donations, never resold by charter, leased to colonists in hereditary leases.
Glory Of Ancient Palestine May Be Restored By Jews
“The Jew, living under English rule, apparently holds in his hand the future of modern Palestine, Rev. Dr. A. H. Smith, pastor of Trinity Lutheran church of Ashland, told the Amina club, speaking before the club’s weekly luncheon in the Elks grill, yesterday at noon. ‘It may be possible that the Jew will come again and restore a part of the old time glory of Palestine,’ he said. The Jews who have repopulated Palestine through the Zionist movement are carrying on an extensive agricultural program, using modern agricultural implements. They are beginning to reforest the land and to put a new life into it, unknown to the Turks and Arabs who have controlled Palestine for so many centuries, he said.… He made the people that inhabit the land appear as real in their occupations and modes of living as though they were to be seen in any American city… The speaker described the mountains in their picturesque setting, yet desolate of forests, due to the ravages of the Turk. The forests have all been hewn down, he said, and only orange groves and other tropical fruits provide the foliage of the land, except for the reforestation work the Jews have done in most recent years. The 740,000 population of Palestine, includes 600,000 Arabs, 100,000 Jews and 40,000 Christians. This is compared with a population of between seven and eight million during the time of Christ, he said.… ‘A new day has dawned for Palestine as a result of the English control,’ he said. ‘The land is quiet, at peace and its economic life is stable.’… He pictured old Jerusalem with its narrow streets and byways, where the camel still monopolizes traffic and the donkey carries the merchandise to the little shops and stalls… He told of meeting a Bedouin who was shooting fish from his horse in a stream. The Arab came suddenly galloping up to the tourist party, and in good English asked for tobacco. In the conversation that ensued, Dr. Smith said he learned that the Arab had spent several years in the United States and had an excellent command of English.… First, he said, there is great reason for being wonderfully thankful that we live in the United States. He said he found everywhere, among the Arabs particularly, superstition, filth, degradation, unstability and ignorance. The Arab is as he has been for 2,000 years. He has not progressed…”
A lunchtime lecture at an Elks grill in Ohio, and it contains its own refutation. The pastor concludes that the Arab has not progressed in two thousand years, four paragraphs after describing a Bedouin who galloped up to his tourist party, asked for tobacco in good English, and turned out to have lived several years in the United States. The population he gives is 600,000 Arabs, 100,000 Jews and 40,000 Christians — a different breakdown from the 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians and 150,000 Jews that two other 1927 clippings in this archive print eight months later.
Bishop Dunn Denies Modernization of Palestine by Jews Reduces Sanctity of Holy Land
New York Catholic Leader, Describing Impressions of Palestine, Declares Jewish Enterprise Is Advancing Progress of Mankind
“NEW YORK. — There is no foundation, in the view of Monsignor John J. Dunn, Bishop of New York, for the fear entertained by some people that the modernization of Palestine would spoil the atmosphere of sanctity which surrounds the Holy Land for the followers of three of the world’s great religions… ‘What the Jews have achieved in that land,’ said the Bishop, ‘especially in the sphere of agricultural development is nothing short of marvelous. I have seen the farm settlements in the Valley of Esdraelon and other places. They stand out strikingly from the rest of the country. I have witnessed the toil and enthusiasm of the men and women, old and young, who return to till the soil of their land, moved by the passion to restore its ancient splendor…’ ‘The difficulties are, of course, numerous. They are difficulties having to do not only with the neglected condition of the soil, with the accumulation of marshes, the bareness and treelessness of the hillsides, but also with the presence of a native population that has naturally harbored suspicions with regard to the purposes of the newcomers. These suspicions, however, have been demonstrated to be groundless by what has actually taken place. I have been informed from many sources that a remarkable change has taken place in the attitude of the Arab population towards the work of the Jews. Where formerly there existed mistrust and even hatred, there is now good-will and a desire to co-operate. I consider that change, in view of the circumstances, nothing short of miraculous. It can only be explained by the fact that the Arab natives have realized that their own welfare is bound up with the success of what the Jews are engaged in.’… ‘That is why I believe, finally, that it can be fairly stated that the Jewish enterprise in Palestine is one that makes for the progress of mankind.’”
A New York bishop reports on what the Arab population of Palestine now thinks, having been informed from many sources. No Arab is quoted, named or asked. The same page carries Sir Wyndham Deedes, chief secretary of the Palestine Administration, telling a farewell luncheon that Christians everywhere are anxious for the Jews to succeed in Palestine.
Send Commission of 6 to Study Conditions — Two Americans Are Named · Zionists To Send Fact Commission To Palestine
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, London
“London. — (J.T.A.) — The sending of a commission of six to examine the entire economic system employed by the Zionist agencies in Palestine and to prepare a budget to be submitted to the 15th congress of the World Zionist Organization which will be held August 30, in Basle was determined upon by the actions committee, the general council of the Zionist movement, in session here. The commission is to proceed to Palestine immediately and will carry on its work with a view to submitting proposals to introduce changes in the system if found desirable. Five members of the commission will be appointed by the Zionist executive. Two Americans, Emanuel Neumann and Samuel J. Rosensohn will be members of the commission. Other members are Bernard Feiwel, Mr. Kastreliansky, economic advisor to the Zionist executive in Jerusalem, Harry Sacher and Engineer Schocken. The general council also approved the project of securing a loan of £140,000, of which the amount of £90,000 is to be used for emergency works for the purpose of discontinuing the relief allotments. The emergency works are to be begun soon. Measures are also to be taken to alleviate the position in Tel Aviv and to improve the situation of the workingmen in the colonies. The council also decided to take steps toward the creation of an Industrial Bank, to complete workingmen’s settlements in the suburb of Palestinian cities and, in conjunction with the Vaad Leumi, the national Council of Palestine Jewry, to create obligatory general labor bureaus in which employers and employees are to be equally represented. The council also voted to continue to make energetic representations to the Palestine government to accelerate public works… In their concluding addresses Dr. Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, and Dr. Leo Motzkin praised the spirit of co-operation… Dr. Weizmann in his address made a moving appeal to the labor groups represented at the council for a ‘patient, courageous and impartial attitude,’ during this trying time.”
The financial machinery of settlement set out in a Milwaukee weekly: a fact-finding commission, a £140,000 loan, emergency works to replace relief payments, an industrial bank and compulsory labor bureaus. The phrase worth marking is workingmen’s settlements in the suburb of Palestinian cities, where Palestinian is doing plain geographical work in 1927 and the settlements are the Jewish ones.
“JERUSALEM, May 24. — The Palestine Arab executive has addressed a memorandum to the Permanent Mandate Commission of the League of Nations, protesting against the Zionist policy in Palestine. The text of the memoradum was made public here, although usually this is not done before the document has actually been received by the league authorities. The memorandum complains that the British Government has not fulfilled the decisions taken by the Permanent Mandate Commission, that the Arab language is being ignored, that there are too many British officials in Palestine, that the Arab population has not been consulted concerning the Palestine Government’s £4,500,000 loan and that there are no popular executive bodies functioning in the country.”
A Palestinian political petition to the League of Nations, summarised in two paragraphs. The complaints are procedural and specific: the language, the staffing, the loan nobody asked them about, the absence of any elected body. The archive holds the same dispatch in the Evening Star, filed by a different agency under a different headline.
General Deeds and Mrs Silverman Address Organizations on Country’s Progress
“Interesting addresses in regard to the rebuilding of Palestine were given at a luncheon meeting at the Standard club Thursday by General Sir Wyndham Deeds, chief secretary in the British administration in Palestine 1920-23, and Mrs. Archibald Silverman, vice-president of the American Jewish congress and of the national Hadassah organization, who are in the south in the interest of the united Palestine appeal… Represented at the meeting were five Jewish organizations, Temple Beth-Or, Temple Agudath Israel, the B’Nai B’Rith organization, the Council of Jewish Women and the local Hadassah chapter. Mrs. Sanford Marcus, president of the Hadassah chapter, presided… General Deeds told of the importance with which the work in Palestine is looked upon abroad. He expressed the opinion unofficially that it constitutes one of the most important tasks underway abroad by the British… Two important aspects of the conditions in Palestine he discussed were the Arab question and the practicability of the work going forward in Palestine. The Arab question, he said, is rapidly disappearing and in his opinion will continue to do so as the Arabs are feeling more and more that development of Palestine by the Jews will redound to their good as well as to that of the Jews. The speaker stated that the work of rebuilding Palestine is practical and is not setting up an artificial, unenduring life. Many of the old colonies have become self-sustaining and new ones, with money for their support, will become so…”
The man who had been chief secretary of the Palestine administration for three years telling an Alabama luncheon that the Arab question is rapidly disappearing. This archive holds him again the same year in Buffalo, on the same fundraising tour, telling a farewell luncheon that Christians everywhere are anxious for the Jews to succeed. Directly below the report, in the same column, runs a legal notice of a writ of attachment in a Montgomery county debt case.
· Fort Worth Record-Telegram · Fort Worth · page 1
Zionists Vex Arabs
Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, May 24. — The Palestine Arab executive has addressed a memorandum to the permanent mandates commission of the League of Nations, protesting against the Zionist policy in Palestine.”
The whole item. This archive holds the same dispatch in two other papers the same week: the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Evening Star both print what the memorandum actually said — that the Arabic language was being ignored, that there were too many British officials, that nobody had consulted the Arab population about a £4,500,000 government loan, and that the country had no elected bodies at all. Here a petition to the League of Nations becomes two sentences and a headline about Arabs being vexed.
Palestine Arab Executive Protests to League Commission.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, May 26 (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). — The Palestine Arab executive has addressed a memorandum to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, protesting against the Zionist policy in Palestine. The text of the memorandum was made public here, although usually this is not done before the document has actually been received by the League authorities. The memorandum complains that the British government has not fulfilled the decisions taken by the Permanent Mandates Commission, that the Arab language is being ignored, that there are too many British officials in Palestine, that the Arab population has not been consulted concerning the Palestine government’s £4,500,000 loan and that there are no popular executive bodies functioning in the country.”
The same petition as CP-1927-004, from a different agency, one day later. Where the Globe-Democrat headline says who is protesting, this one says only Hits Zionist Policy. Directly beneath the last line, in the same column, the paper prints its next item in full: “Kissing of dogs is condemned by a European medical specialist, who says no dog is clean in the mouth.”
“With a view of getting the opinion of a Palestinian (not a Jew) the editor of ‘The Modern View’ conversed with an active business man of Jerusalem and Cairo, where the gentleman has commercial establishments. His opinion is submitted in this article without comment, to our readers. ‘Will England continue permanently in control of Palestine? What condition would justify a recall of the Mandate?’ ‘England may officially withdraw but her influence and connections will never be released from Palestine even if the formal occupation is no more. Until the Jew and the Arab come to some agreement and until assurance of a permanent peace between them can be definitely depended on, which I think is very distant, England will remain in power in Palestine.’ ‘Are Zionist agricultural colonies thriving? Do Arabs buy products of Jewish agriculturalists?’ ‘I do not think the Zionist colonies are prospering. The trade-unions operate unfavorably and the workers are not experienced agriculturalists, but mostly men and women of the cities from the countries where they came. The Arabs do not buy the products of the Jewish colonists to any large extent and most of what the colonies produce is sold by export.’ ‘Is the cost of living high in Palestine? Are the housing conditions good and sanitary?’ ‘The cost of living is extremely high. The housing conditions, at least in the Jewish and the Arab quarters, are far worse than in London.’ ‘Would French rule in Palestine be preferable to that of England?’ (He laughed.) ‘You need only look at Algeria or Morocco to see the inefficiency of French control. They have not the faculty of colonial government.’… In a general way he added the following: ‘There has been violent political strife between the Arab and the Jew in Palestine because of Arab fear of Jewish dominance and from an opposition to the changing of old methods to the newer western practices in all fields of action. The fear of added Jewish immigration if new industries are opened and developed may be an irrational one but it is there. Over $5,000,000 is spent annually by Zionists and others in recent years. I am of the opinion that there is a gradual decrease in the frictional feeling and ultimately there may be some better understanding between my people and the Jewish folk in Palestine, who represent the Zionist propaganda. But as I before stated, it will take many years, if ever, before a complete understanding can be reached.’ ‘Zionist effort, endeavor and ambition in Palestine appear to be directed to developments in sanitation, education, irrigation, immigration, cultivation, socialization and electrification, rather than to religious application. They emphasize “a Jewish nation” instead of Jewish aspiration.’ (To be continued next week)”
“LADY NICOTINE PROVIDES EMPLOYMENT FOR THOUSANDS IN HOLY LAND. Tobacco cultivation — first introduced into Palestine three years ago through the Agricultural Experimental Station established by Zionist funds, is now one of the chief crops of the Holy Land. The tobacco plantations on the Jewish colonies have absorbed thousands of workers, men and women… Through the United Palestine Appeal for $5,000,000, sufficient funds will be secured to extend tobacco cultivation on a still wider scale.”
The clearest terminology evidence in this archive. To interview an Arab, the editor of an American Jewish weekly in 1927 has to tell his readers he sought the opinion of a Palestinian, and then put in brackets: not a Jew. The word by itself would have been understood the other way. The interview runs at length and is printed, as the paper says, without comment: the colonies are not prospering, their produce is exported because Arabs do not buy it, housing in both quarters is worse than London’s, and the fear of Jewish dominance may be irrational but it is there. The man says my people. He is not named. Beside him a photograph credits Zionist funds with introducing tobacco to Palestine three years earlier.
Crisis in Palestine Calls for Concerted Action of Palestine Government and Jewish People Throughout World · A Letter from Palestine
S. Schwartz
“All Palestine is groaning under the weight of a grave economic crisis. With the sole exception of the organ trade, business is at a standstill. Many concerns are in a state of crisis and a large number have been totally ruined. The big Manor textile factory scheme is dead. Industrial enterprises which have existed for years have suspended work or reduced production. A lot of business premises and shops, especially in Tel-Aviv, are not earning anything. The school teachers have received no salaries for the past three months. As many as 7,000 workers are employed and are living as best they can on the dole given them by the Zionist executive — 25 piastre a week for an unmarried worker and 50 piastre for one who has a wife and family. There are in addition 10,000 middle-class families in the country who are not earning anything. Ever since the fourth Aliyah (middle-class immigration movement), collapsed, everything has been going wrong… There is no money anywhere, not in the towns, nor in the villages. Everybody is in doubt and taxation is heavier than ever. What is at the bottom of it? The fact that there has not been enough money brought into Palestine… The Jewish population is not buying products of the country and prefers to import its goods. Too many houses were built in the beginning and too many shops were opened. The people who went into the colonies were not really suitable.… In the course of a year Palestine receives a sum of about one or two million pounds, when the work of colonization requires at least five, if not, ten million pounds a year. Did not the Zionist Organization itself estimate in 1920 that for the next five years it would be necessary to spend at least £25,000,000 on colonization, at the rate of £5,000,000 a year? And we know in the six years which have elapsed, the Keren Hayesod and the Jewish National Fund together have managed to raise not more than an eighth of this sum.… Counting from the time of the British Occupation, we are now having our third crisis. We shall get over this crisis as we got over the others, although we must admit that it is the worst we have had… One of the proposals submitted was that 20 percent of the salaries of the officials of the Zionist Organization should be deducted and put aside each month towards the fund… The report of the Government Department for Public Works for the Fiscal Year 1925-6, which has just appeared, shows that the government spent during the period almost a quarter of a million pounds (£223,000) on public works in Palestine and of this sum hardly anything went to benefit the Jewish population. All in all, it may be that a score or so of Jewish workers found employment on these public works. And things are no better in the case of the municipalities. The Jewish workers have gained very little as a result of the municipal public works undertaken in Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, etc.”
A letter from Palestine, printed in the same paper and the same year as the Balfour anniversary tributes and the Ruppin address, and it reads like a different country. Teachers three months unpaid, seven thousand workers on a dole of twenty-five piastres a week, ten thousand middle-class families earning nothing, no money in the towns or the villages, and the writer counting it as the third crisis since the British arrived. The figure at the end is the useful one: of £223,000 the government spent on public works in 1925-6, the writer complains that hardly any of it reached Jewish workers — which is, from an unfriendly witness, a record of where the mandate’s public money actually went.
Scarcely a House in Palestinian City That Had Stood for Over 2000 Years, Left Intact · Dead Lie Unburied, Injured Unattended · Wailings of Despair by Stricken Population Resound Throughout Desolated Community
Gershon Agronsky, Universal Service Staff Correspondent
“NABLUS (Shechem), Palestine, July 13. — In this, one of the most ancient cities in Palestine, horror stalks. With more than 70 bodies recovered from the ruins of Monday’s earthquake, and with many dying, survivors are beseeching the rescue parties to extricate their relatives from the debris. The sight is more tragic than a shell-swept battlefield. Knots of people linger about the ruins of their houses, looking to the police for help. Thirty doctors are endeavoring to cope with the town’s greatest disaster. Constables, rushed from all the nearby cities, are almost unable to restore order… Walls of anguish rend the air. Amid the cries of the injured, and the wailing of the survivors whose relatives are missing, one hears the poignant shout: ‘Our city is destroyed!’ Stout-hearted sheiks wring their hands and cry: ‘We are lost!’ And all is answered by the chorus of the distracted Arab women, whose poise generally is so perfect. Starvation threatens the town. Relief rations from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are inadequate. The grand old city, with its famous markets, is a heap of debris piled with furniture and topped with bleeding human limbs… In many instances the earthquake did not spare even the well-built houses. Two cigarette factories, a mosque, two schoolhouses, the courthouse, and many heavy stone balustrades, balconies and walls are badly damaged and ready to crumple at the slightest quiver. At every turn, one sees ‘No thoroughfare’ signs. Persons with means are fleeing from the town. It is believed that there is little hope of rebuilding the place, for barely one house is intact, and nearly 200 ruins have been counted. Only one Christian, one Samaritan and one Jew are among the casualties. Part of Nablus is inhabited by a now nearly extinct race of Samaritans, the remaining handful of a once powerful race which, four centuries before Jesus Christ, built a temple on Mount Gerizam, which was destroyed.”
The archive had nothing at all from 1927 before this. The headline calls Nablus a Palestinian city and introduces it by its place in Hebrew annals, in that order. Seventy dead, and the paper counts the casualties by naming the three who were not Muslim. Gershon Agronsky later founded the Palestine Post and became mayor of Jerusalem.
What American Archaeologists Excavated at Tell En-Nasbeth
Dean William Frederic Bade
“Seven miles north of Jerusalem, on the west side of the Nablus road, lies a commanding hill whose summit has all the earmarks of an ancient city mound… the writer was able to leave for Palestine with funds sufficient for an initial campaign. It was fortunate for our maiden enterprise that we were able to avail ourselves of the co-operation of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem… Dr. Albright, director of the school, initiated negotiations with some of the Arab owners of Tell en-Nasbeh and assisted in reaching a formal agreement with them in the presence of Mr. C. Lubbat, Governor of the Ramallah District. Dr. C. S. Fisher, professor of archaeology in the school and director of the Megiddo Expedition, outlined for me his technique, gave me an experienced assistant in the person of Mr. Labib Sorial, besides several trained Egyptian workmen, and undertook in addition the task of general supervision.… Among the first structures that came to light, when we began to strip layers within the city wall, were what we took to be grain bins, or silos… Farther back from the wall were later found more than thirty silos excavated from bedrock and of much greater capacity. These clearly were of the Bronze Age and contained abundant and interesting evidence of the Canaanite period of the city’s occupation… The women often went to draw water at night and accidently dropped their lamps into the cisterns, thus providing, unintentionally, another means of identifying the strata.… [Facing columns] New York. — The sum of $587,704 has been received in cash by the national headquarters of the United Palestine Appeal during the period of Redemption Month… Among the communities that have led in this response are: Eastern Pennsylvania with 110,000; Greater New York with $89,172; Newark, N. J., $50,000; Connecticut and Rhode Island, $49,225, exceeding their cash quota by $8,225; Sea Board Region, $39,140; Pacific Coast, $39,880; Northern New Jersey, $24,676; Southern Michigan, $24,563; Chicago, $20,850… ‘I desire to express my confidence that the efforts of all concerned will continue throughout the summer and that the means will be provided for conquering the difficulties through which Palestine is still passing.’… this year’s income, up to July 1st, which amounts to $2,841,510, is in excess of that for the same period of the previous year by $471,773… One of the most important items in the expansion of the educational work is the publication of the ‘Palestine Pictorial,’ a monthly magazine sent to 35,000 contributors and featuring in graphic form the developments and possibilities of Palestine…”
An excavation report that records, in passing, who owned the hill: Arab owners of Tell en-Nasbeh, negotiated with formally in the presence of the governor of the Ramallah district. A named Arabic-speaking assistant, Labib Sorial, and Egyptian workmen did the digging. The archaeologist also notes the local women drawing water at night, whose dropped lamps helped him date the layers. The other two-thirds of the page is the money: half a million dollars collected in one American month for the United Palestine Appeal, listed by region, and a magazine on the possibilities of Palestine going to thirty-five thousand subscribers.
Terrible Scene of Destruction in Ancient City of Nablus; Property Damage $2,000,000 — Majority of Dead Arabs.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, July 14 — (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) Latest estimates of the earthquake casualties place the number killed in Palestinian and Transjordanian cities and villages at 670, and the injured at 3000. The property damage was estimated today to be $2,000,000. Reports which are being received here hourly from various sections of the country add to the number of casualties and the amount of damage to property. The Arab cemeteries are full of mourners. A terrible picture of destruction is to be seen at Nablus, the biblical city of Shechem, seat of the ancient Samaritan sect and home of a large Arab population. With the exception of two streets, the entire city lies in ruins. Rescue parties are at work extricating the bodies of victims from among the ruins in Nablus and neighboring villages. Many of the injured are dying. Rescue work is also being carried on in Ramleh. No Jewish Casualties. The fact that no casualties have been reported among the Jewish population is considered by the orthodox Jews as a miracle. The rabbis of Jerusalem have passed a proclamation calling upon their people to assemble in the synagogs to offer thanksgiving for their deliverance and to pray that the disaster will not reoccur. The losses suffered by the Jews are mainly damages to property. A delegation representing the Jewish population of Palestine will proceed to Basle, Switz., to appear before the forthcoming Zionist congress which will open there on Aug. 30. The delegation will ask for funds to repair the damage wrought by the earthquake. Experts have examined the historic buildings and have ascertained that the important edifices in Jerusalem and the provinces need repairs, especially the minaret of the Harem-Es-Sherif and the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, which have been badly damaged. The upper part of the minaret has been broken off.… Racial, religious and political differences, which usually divided the population of Palestine, are for the present forgotten, as the extent of the loss to life and property is being ascertained. The common spirit of humanity in the face of disaster is inspiring speedy measures of relief in which Jew and Arab, Moslem and Christian, are joining hands. Quake Destroyed Wilhelm’s Picture. JERUSALEM, Palestine, July 14 — (AP) Examination of the wreckage of Government House, badly damaged in Monday’s earthquake, revealed that a stone from a partially wrecked tower hurtled through the roof of the chapel destroying a picture of the former German Emperor in Biblical robes… A prominent Moslem architect, after an examination of the temple area, placed the total damage there at less than $5000.”
The third American printing of this earthquake held here, and the third casualty figure: seventy-odd in the Waco paper on 14 July, six hundred and seventy here on the 15th, two hundred in Milwaukee on the 22nd. All three count the dead the same way. Waco names the one Christian, one Samaritan and one Jew among them. Milwaukee’s second line says no Jews killed. This one says Majority of Dead Arabs under the headline and carries a subheading, No Jewish Casualties, above a paragraph about thanksgiving services. It is also the only one of the three to record the Arab cemeteries full of mourners, the broken minaret of the Haram al-Sharif, and relief work in which Jew and Arab were joining hands.
Nathan Straus First to Respond With $20,000 — No Jews Killed · Jews of Tel Aviv Aid Anti-Semitic Arabs
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“Jerusalem, July 19. — (J.T.A.) — An official statement warning the population against panic, was issued by the Palestine government following the slight shock of Sunday. The statement assured the population that according to seismological advice, no new shock is to be anticipated, as only a minor tremor is possible. An appeal to Moslems throughout the world to create a Palestine relief fund was issued by the Grand Mufti, the ecclesiastical head of the Palestine Moslems. The Grand Mufti’s appeal fixes the amount of damage caused by the earthquake at £4,000,000. The damage in Nablus alone amounts to £1,000,000, the appeal states. The Palestine government, it was learned, has informed the municipality of Tel-Aviv that it does not find it necessary to accept the offer of Tel-Aviv Jewish volunteers to clear the debris. The government workers will be in a position to handle the situation, the government stated. 200 Killed, Latest Report. London, July 19. — (J.T.A.) — An official report from the Palestine government received by the Colonial office states that the number of persons killed in Palestine is 200, the number seriously injured, 356, and that 375 were slightly injured. The survey, which has as yet not been completed, shows that 1,000 houses were severely damaged… Little damage was suffered by government buildings. Buildings of antiquarian interest have escaped lightly. The gravest casualties and the greatest damage occurred in Nablus, Lydda, Ramleh and Jerusalem. The roads in Palestine suffered little damage. In Transjordania, 62 persons were killed, while 102 were injured… Vatican Sends Relief. Rome, July 19. — (J.T.A.) — The amount of 50,000 lire was despatched by the Vatican as a relief fund for the victims of the Palestine earthquake. The fund will be administered by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.”
Two hundred dead, the worst of it in Nablus, Lydda, Ramleh and Jerusalem, and the two facts the line under it selects are that no Jews were killed and that Jews of Tel Aviv are aiding anti-Semitic Arabs. The archive holds the same earthquake in a Texas paper eight days earlier, where a correspondent walks through Nablus among the bodies and the casualties are counted by naming the one Christian, one Samaritan and one Jew among them. Both papers arrive at the dead by describing who they were not.
To Salvage the Dead Sea’s Colossal Mineral Treasures
Twelve Hundred Thousand Million Dollars in the Great Holy Land Lake Where Wicked Sodom and Gomorrah Stood and Lot’s Wife Was Turned to Salt — And Four Powerful Syndicates Battle Over the Right to Take It Out
King Features Syndicate
“British and American syndicates are engaged in a lively fight for the concession to explore the mineral resources of the Dead Sea… And in New York and London, business men are saying that they expect to salvage potash, bromine, gypsum and magnesium to the value of nearly $1,200,000,000,000 before they are through. That is almost exactly 290 times the British War debt to the United States. Dr. Thomas Herbert Norton, of New York, heads the American syndicate bidding for the concession. There are three others, but the British Chemical Trust is generally picked to win. Palestine is a British mandate, and the Palestine Government is administered by Englishmen… The concession which will be granted by the Palestine Government will safeguard the interests of the natives. It will not give an unrestricted monopoly. The bulk of the surplus profits will go to the Government itself, for reinvestment in Palestinian industry. The holders of the concession will be obliged to agree to furnish fertilizer to the farmers of Palestine and Transjordania at cost. Part of the wealth realized will be spent in establishing vocational training schools in which natives will be trained to take important posts in industry and public life… Black Arabs today dig for salt at the bottoms of the lagoons along the shore, sometimes forming little companies to market the product, or banding together in cooperative groups.… Fascinating country, all of it, the Holy Land. And destined, so the London financiers say, to bloom again. In the meantime, the Dead Sea country is sparsely inhabited. Most of the natives are Arabs who farm a little and rove a little. Tomorrow the Dead Sea may hum with trade… Zionists are taking a keen interest in the oil development, and this later project to salvage the wealth of minerals in the sea.”
“Black Arabs, a Strange and Little Known Race, Dredging by Hand the Salt Deposited by the Dead Sea in the Shallow Water of Its Shores, as They Have Done for Centuries.”
A full page on who will be permitted to extract a trillion dollars from the Dead Sea. The people already working it appear twice: once in a photograph caption as a strange and little known race doing by hand what they have done for centuries, and once in the text as natives to be trained for important posts once somebody else owns the concession.
Special Conference of United Palestine Appeal in New York Urges Redemption of Palestine Pledges
“Three hundred and fifty thousand in cash will be raised before the first of October for reconstruction work in Palestine and for the relief of unemployment, according to a decision made at a special conference of the United Palestine Appeal, held at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City, on September 18th… ‘Whereas, the Fifteenth Zionist Congress has emphasized the critical economic situation which exists in Palestine, and the necessity for immediate funds, to relieve unemployment, and otherwise aid the Jewish pioneers, and stressed the fact that workers in Palestine are in urgent need of the financial support which has been promised to them by American Jewry, on the basis of which they launched upon large undertakings…’ In an address delivered by Judge William M. Lewis of Philadelphia, national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal, he stressed the urgency of raising funds immediately for the Jewish workers in Palestine, and said: ‘There is still a considerable amount of unemployment accompanied by distress, in some cases acute, especially in the cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa… The economic crisis in Palestine may be compared to a hole in a dyke. If the necessary measures are taken when the hole is small, comparatively little effort is required to make the well sound as ever, but should there be any delay, much more effort and energy and material will be required in the end.’ ‘It must be remembered that our aim of $350,000 for Palestine before the end of October is not based on additional contributions. All that is being asked is that Jews who promised money to Palestine during the past year should make good their promise at once, so that their share in the upbuilding of the national Jewish Homeland may achieve its greatest effectiveness.’… Another address was delivered by Morris Rothenberg… ‘Economy, so that the maximum could be achieved with the minimum of expenditure; consolidation so that the present colonies and other Jewish institutions in Palestine could be strengthened. Our work in Palestine for the next year, at least, must be that of preservation of all available resources, and we cannot afford to inaugurate any new enterprises.’ ‘There have been many occasions on which Zionists have been faced with more difficulties than they are at present, and these obstacles have always been overcome… The years gone by have been years of experimentation, and may have been costly, because of the newness of the project which we undertook… But the situation today is changed. The experimentation has been concluded. A rather accurate knowledge of Palestinian conditions has been attained, and what will be done in the future can be built on a more solid foundation… The purpose of the New York United Palestine Appeal Conference is to take immediate advantage of the opportunities offered for quick recovery from the economic depression which has gripped Palestine for the last two years.’”
The American answer to the crisis described from Palestine three months earlier in this archive. A hotel ballroom in New York, a resolution, and a target that is not new money at all: it asks only that people who already pledged should pay. The headline says a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the first sentence says three hundred and fifty thousand. One speaker calls the settlement project years of experimentation which may have been costly, and says no new enterprises can be started for at least a year.
Jewish Birthrate Higher in Palestine Than Elsewhere
Dr. Arthur Ruppin
“The statement that the Jewish birthrate in Palestine exceeds that of the Jewish birthrate in any other country was the hopeful strain in the address of Dr. Arthur Ruppin, Zionist colonization expert and formerly a member of the Executive, which he delivered at the Fifteenth Zionist Congress. The opinion of Dr. Ruppin on the present state of affairs in Palestine is based on knowledge and is supported by his observation of many years. — The Editor. I see the present agitation against the workers in Palestine as something more than a chance appearance. I see it as a conflict between the principles of pioneering and of ordered business life… The swampy Emek, invested by Bedouins and hostile neighbors, could not be conquered by staid fathers of families belonging to the middle class, but by an enthusiastic youth which does not shrink from danger to life and health. Ten years ago no Jew dared venture into the streets of the Emek because of human enemies and of malaria. Only now that it has been made one of the most healthy and safe parts of Palestine, can we begin to talk of settling other elements than Chaluzim there. We must not forget that Zionism, as it now appears clearly, is a work for a very long time ahead. We shall not tomorrow, or the day after, in five or ten years time, be able to rest our hands in our laps and say: Well, it’s done! It is a work which will engage the coming generation, particularly the coming generation in Palestine. Every Jewish child born in Palestine is a valuable force for our work. It is fortunate that the fear of bearing many children which has seized the Jews in the Galuth countries has not yet reached Palestine. In Palestine we have optimism, the hope of the future, which still regards children as a blessing, as our forefathers did. The Jews of Palestine have the highest birthrate of all the Jews in the world. But the most important point is that this youth remains in Palestine and is not drawn to turn its back on Palestine by the greater material prospects in other countries.… Now for the question of the economic structure which the Jews are to build up in Palestine. The peculiarity of our work lies in this that the Jews in Palestine cannot — as in the Galuth lands concentrate to an overwhelming extent in trade, but that they must engage in their right proportion in all the branches of work which constitute a sound form of economic life… At present only fifteen per cent. of the Jews in Palestine are engaged in agriculture and this is a foundation too weak for our economic pyramid. It is futile to talk of a program of immigration so long as we have not emerged from the present crisis in Palestine. The present crisis is crippling every systematic activity…”
The man who ran Zionist land purchase and settlement, addressing the Fifteenth Zionist Congress, printed in full in an American weekly. Two things are worth reading slowly. The valley is described as invested by Bedouins and hostile neighbors and as something to be conquered — the existing population appearing in the same clause as the malaria. And the birthrate is set out as an instrument: every Jewish child born in Palestine is a valuable force for our work. The page it shares carries a lecture series on Jewish farm colonies in the Soviet Union, where seven thousand families had been settled with American money.
British Statesmen Praise the Jewish Achievements in Palestine Since Issuance of Balfour Declaration
Lord Balfour, Lloyd George, Lord Robert Cecil, General Jan Smuts and Sir Herbert Samuel Reaffirm Necessity of Palestine as National Jewish Homeland; $7,500,000 to Be Raised for Palestine Next Year
“Four leading British statesmen, in messages addressed to the national conference on Palestine under the auspices of the United Palestine Appeal which concluded its sessions in Cleveland, Ohio, last night, reaffirmed the terms of the Balfour Declaration, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its issuance. The national conference on Palestine, which was attended by twelve hundred representative Jewish men and women from all parts of the country… decided upon raising $7,500,000 for work in Palestine during the next year.… the Cleveland Conference was intended as a tribute to Lord Arthur James Balfour, who, as Foreign Minister in the British Cabinet, addressed a letter to Lord Walter Rothchild on November 2nd, 1917, which read: ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly undersood that nothing shall be done whch may prejudice non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’… Lloyd George Regards Declaration as Binding. ‘Tested by the events of the past ten years the policy embodied in the Balfour Declarative of 1917 has been amply justified. A regenerated Palestine is in the making, and the Jews are playing their full part in the work of reconstruction… The Balfour Declaration, now incorporated in the Mandate for Palestine is a pledge of British sympathy and goodwill. It is a pledge which will be strictly honored… Let the Jews do their part and Great Britain can be relied upon to do hers.’… Lord Balfour Sees Jewish Home Assured. ‘Ten years have now elapsed since the Declaration on Zionism made by me on behalf of the British Government in 1917. Nothing has occurred during that period to suggest the least doubt as to the wisdom of this new departure. The experiment was admittedly a bold one, dealing with a unique situation in a manner wholly without precedent in history. I am, however, convinced that, if it be supported by Jewish communities throughout the world, its success is assured, and that a home will be secured for the Jewish race in the land which is immemorially associated with their name.’… General Smuts Calls Balfour Declaration One of Notable Events of History. ‘The Balfour Declaration is one of the notable events in history, and its true importance will be realized much more in the decades to come… All throughout the long centuries Palestine remained for the Jews a foreign land and the promise remained in abeyance. Then came the Great War in which their history oppressors suffered crushing defeat, even to the verge of extinction. And from that awful judgment seat of history came at last the pronouncement known as the Balfour Declaration…’ Sir Samuel Reviews Jewish Achievement in Palestine. ‘When the Balfour Declaration was issued in November, 1917, in the very crisis of the World War, what prophetic eye could have forseen the results ten years after? Palestine severed from the Turkish Empire and become a separate state; Great Britain charged with its guardianship; the Jewish population of the country multiplied threefold…’”
The Declaration as printed here is missing seven words. The letter Balfour sent reads “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” This paper prints “nothing shall be done whch may prejudice non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” so the clause naming civil and religious rights is gone while the clause protecting the rights and political status of Jews in other countries survives intact. The same sentence also carries two plain typesetting errors, “undersood” and “whch,” and this archive does not claim to know whether the omission is a third one. The words are transcribed here exactly as the paper set them. Read again at full resolution on 24 September 2026: the omission and both typesetting errors are confirmed on the page. The rest of the column is the four statesmen in their own words, including Jan Smuts describing the country as one that had remained for the Jews a foreign land throughout the long centuries, and Herbert Samuel counting the Jewish population as having multiplied threefold in ten years. Nobody in twelve hundred delegates or four messages mentions the people the missing clause protected.
“GENEVA, Nov. 11 — (AP) — Several Thousand Arabs, now residing in Mexico, Salvador and Honduras, must abandon temporarily at least their expressed aspirations to return to Palestine and become citizens. The Arabs have petitioned the league of nations’ mandate commission for the right of citizenship, but it is understood the commission will inform them that Great Britain, as the power having the mandate over Palestine, must first consent to this. Great Britain refused consent sometime ago after which the Arabs appealed to the league explaining that they were born in Palestine when Palestine was part of Turkey. Palestinian citizenship was instituted in 1925, but the treaty of Lausanne gives Great Britain the prerogative of rejecting application. It is understood that Great Britain rejected the petition on the ground that the Arabs have been absent from Palestine for a long period and that they really do not intend to return there.”
Several thousand Arabs in Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras, born in Palestine when it was Ottoman, petition the League of Nations for the citizenship of the country they were born in. Britain refuses, on the ground that they have been away a long time and do not really intend to go back. The date is November 1927, twenty-one years before 1948. The archive holds, from six weeks later, a notice explaining that Palestinian citizens traveling to Britain counted as aliens there.
British Officials and Dr. Chaim Weizmann Tell Herman Bernstein of Wonders Accomplished by Jews in Restoring the Holy Land — Lord Balfour Optimistic About the Future.
Herman Bernstein
“Miracle Wrought By Jews In Ten Years In Palestine. British Officials and Dr. Chaim Weizmann Tell Herman Bernstein of Wonders Accomplished by Jews in Restoring the Holy Land — Lord Balfour Optimistic About the Future. By Herman Bernstein… Outstanding Figures in Palestine Restoration.”
Three portraits, captioned: “Field Marshal Lord Herbert Plumer is High Commissioner of Palestine, Dr. Chaim Weizmann is president of the World Zionist Organization and Lord Balfour is the author of the Balfour Declaration proclaiming Palestine as the National Jewish Homeland.”
The same syndicated feature the San Francisco Chronicle ran a week later, by the same correspondent, under a different headline: a miracle wrought by Jews here, ten years of progress there. Brooklyn illustrated it with portraits of the High Commissioner, Weizmann and Balfour. San Francisco illustrated it with a photograph of a fruit market in Central India. The full text of the feature is transcribed in this archive from the Chronicle printing.
· San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco · page 1
Palestine Is Celebrating Its Ten Years of Progress
Holy Land Is Becoming an Industrious Country, Officials Report · Proclamation Pledging Aid of Great Britain Improves Conditions
“I have visited Palestine twice — two years ago and this year. I went to Palestine with a sense of fear that I might be disillusioned. I was afraid that Palestine was but a dream of the dreamers, that the lovers of Zion had painted a picture that was more beautiful than real, more dream than actuality. And so I feared that Palestine might prove at close range only a painful disappointment… Palestine Transformed Into Living Land Again. I traveled throughout the little land from Hebron up to Kfar Gileadi. I visited the old and the new Jewish colonies, the old and new cities, and what I found may be described as a veritable miracle of today. The Jews, in less than eight years, have transformed Palestine into a living, throbbing beautiful little land… The antagonism between the Arabs and the Jews is dying out slowly and gradually. The great difficulty is caused by the difference between the two civilizations, that of the East represented by the Arabs, and of the West represented by the Jews.… Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist organization, who was instrumental in securing the Balfour declaration during the World war, said: ‘The restoration of Palestine to Israel now is nothing short of a miracle…’ ‘We are attempting to build a home in Palestine and we are conscious that this building can only be successful if it will be done in co-operation with the peoples of Palestine. We are coming into Palestine not as conquerors. We are taking our place according to our merits and our achievements. The Arabs and Christians have to recognize that we have a right to do what we intend to do. Just as we recognize that Palestine is going to be the common homeland for Jews and Arabs, we want the Arabs to recognize that we have a right to come into Palestine, not on the back of anybody, but with them, to work and create new values of which Palestine is capable.’ ‘Palestine has a population of about 700,000 non-Jews, an overwhelming majority of Moslems, a small minority of Christians and another small minority of Jews. Roughly speaking, there are 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians, and 150,000 Jews.’… During the last eight years the Jewish population of Palestine has grown from 50,000 to 150,000… In 1911 Palestine was visited by 5700 tourists. In 1923 it was visited by 15,500 tourists, and in 1925, by 20,000… In Palestine the most interesting experiment in modern times is taking place. From all corners of the earth the dry bones of Israel are gathered… They come there as builders, as messengers of peace, not of war.”
“Tourists in Central India derive much amusement from trading at the open air fruit markets, such as that shown above. The vendor always quotes a price for his wares that is two or three times their value, and the purchaser must be a good trader to get value for his money. The lack of rain in the summer permits the markets to be maintained outdoors.”
The whole page marks ten years of the Balfour Declaration, and the single large photograph on it is a fruit market in Central India, captioned as a fruit market in Central India. Nothing on the page connects the picture to the subject. The text is worth keeping for its own figures: 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians and 150,000 Jews, with the Jewish population having tripled in eight years, and Chaim Weizmann saying in the same column that the Jews are coming into Palestine not as conquerors and that it is going to be the common homeland for Jews and Arabs.
Dr. Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization, and Other Notables Review the Ten Years of Jewish Occupation of Palestine; Described As Golden Opportunity.
Herman Bernstein, Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Nov. 19. — In November the Jews throughout the world are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, issued by the British Government in 1917, proclaiming that ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’ Sir Herbert Samuel, the first High Commissioner of Palestine, has thus summarized the achievements of the Jewish people in Palestine during the ten years since the historic Balfour Declaration… The Land of Prophets. I visited Palestine twice — two years ago and this year. I went to Palestine with a sense of fear that I might be disillusioned… A Miracle of Restoration.… ‘The economic crisis is testing the strength of the Jewish settlers. Two-thirds of them have made good. And they have to bear the burden of the one-third that have not made good yet. We want to subsidize Palestine. We want Palestine to become productive. Smaller industries must be established. And, above all, more efforts should be concentrated on the colonies.’… Not a Jewish State. I asked Dr. Weizmann to describe the beginning of the work on the Balfour Declaration. He answered: ‘When the war broke out… Zionist organization was concentrated on plans of work in Palestine, with political horizon, with insufficiency on the part of the Powers, and opposition on the part of Turkey. The war divided our forces, as we were separated by gulfs and trenches. Russian Jewry was practically broken up…’… ‘We are attempting to build a home in Palestine and we are conscious that this building can only be successful if it will be done in co-operation with the peoples and population of Palestine. We are going into Palestine not as conquerors. We are going into Palestine not to dominate anybody. We are going to build up Palestine, together with the people there… Just as we recognize that Palestine is going to be the common homeland for Jews and Arabs we want the Arabs to recognize that Palestine is going to be the common home for Jews and Arabs.’… ‘Palestine has a population of about 700,000 non-Jews, an overwhelming majority of Moslems, a small minority of Christians and another small minority of Jews. Roughly speaking, there are 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians and 150,000 Jews. Since the war, and even before the war, there has been a striving on the part of the Arab people for a revival.’… The Jordan Harnessed. Pinchas Rutenberg, a Russian Jew, regarded as the most powerful dynamic force in Palestine, has initiated an electrification system and is harnessing the Jordan to give cheap light and power to the Holy Land, and to improve irrigation.”
The third American printing this archive holds of one syndicated feature by Herman Bernstein, and the third headline: a miracle in Brooklyn, ten years of progress in San Francisco, and here a rebirth, with the line under it calling it ten years of Jewish occupation of Palestine. The word is the paper’s own and it is meant admiringly. The Declaration as quoted at the top is also short: where the letter Balfour sent reads “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country,” this printing runs straight from “may prejudice” to “the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country,” so the existing population is absent from the sentence entirely. The archive holds a second 1927 paper, the Buffalo Jewish Review, printing the same Declaration two weeks earlier with seven words missing from the same clause. The two are different textual sources and this collection does not claim to know why either is short.
“JERUSALEM. — The Sinai peninsula, always the main road for hashish traffic between Egypt and Palestine, has been the scene recently of several exciting encounters with smugglers. One band was pursued for hundreds of miles across difficult country but because of a two days’ start the caravan was not overtaken. The trail led, however, to a mountain near the Gulf of Suez where seventy-seven kilos of hashish were concealed pending the arrival of boats and a caravan of camels to run the consignment to Cairo. A group of Palestine Arabs was caught in Raffa on the coast landing hashish from a boat. The smugglers under the heavy fire of the patrol beat a hasty retreat leaving behind a dead camel and 265 kilos of hashish. The police expect to capture the smugglers, having identified the tribe to which they belong by the marks on the camel. The Palestine tobacco ordinance has just been amended restricting to the minimum the area in which hashish may be planted.”
The same wire item the Birmingham Post Herald ran two days later as ‘Palestine Arabs Smuggle Hashish Following Edict.’ Here the Palestinians are out of the headline and the drugs are in it. Both printings are held.
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 3. — (I.N.S.) — The Sinai Peninsula, always the main road for hashish traffic between Egypt and Palestine, has been the scene recently of several exciting encounters with smugglers. One band was pursued for hundreds of miles across difficult country but because of a two days’ start the caravan was not overtaken. The trail led, however, to a mountain near the Gulf of Suez where 77 kilos of hashish were concealed pending the arrival of boats and a caravan of camels to run the consignment to Cairo. A group of Palestine Arabs was caught in Raffa on the coast landing hashish from a boat. The smugglers under the heavy fire of the patrol beat a hasty retreat leaving behind a dead camel and 265 kilos of hashish. The police expect to capture the smugglers having identified the tribe to which they belong by the marks on the camel. The Palestine tobacco ordinance has just been amended restricting to the minimum the area in which hashish may be planted.”
A crime brief, kept for two things it records in passing: that hashish was a planted crop in Palestine whose acreage the government was restricting by ordinance, and that the police expected to find the men by reading the ownership marks on a dead camel.
“BUT THE ROAD has not been one glorious triumphal march, even with the zeal of the pioneers and the support of the Jews of the world and the British Government… TAKE, for example, the matter of the Arabs. Seven hundred thousand Arabs, resident in Palestine as landowners or workers, did not take kindly to the Jewish immigrations. Their fears were understandable. The Arabs were, they imagined, to be supplanted. But through diplomacy on the part of Great Britain and humanity on the part of the Jewish settlers, the situation is not only hardly acute; it is almost definitely solved, at least for the present. Jewish landowners are getting their land, not by confiscation from Arab owners, but at a purchase price far in excess of anything the Arab ever hoped for. Jewish farmers are taking the Arab peasants out of a practical serfdom and are giving them good wages, fair hours of labor and living conditions such as they never before received from their fellow-Arabs. Jews and Arabs are entering upon business partnerships.… In fact, so far has the bugbear of hostility been dispelled that the Manchester Guardian, conservative in any estimate of international relations, has the following to say: ‘The Arabs — not distant kinsmen of the Jews — are showing themselves not unresponsive to the stimulus of Jewish example of progressiveness and patriotism; and it may be that history will vindicate the judgment of those who see the future of Palestine as the home of two nations living side by side, preserving each its own culture and distinctive way of life and thought, and sharing equally in the privileges and duties of citizenship.’… THE CHARGE of unjust taxation seems very sound. Due to Zionist work in Palestine, the value of land has increased greatly. The Arabs now holding land, under some old agreement, do not pay any increase in taxes, but as soon as poor Jewish settler buys or receives a piece of land, the greatly advanced revised tax rate is asked of him at a time when, at best, success is a hard struggle.… The extreme opposition, capitalizing the facts of an unemployment situation embracing 8,000, and the general attendant unrest, advocates vigorous action… these indicate the trend of the demands of this Revisionist group headed by a Russian Jew named Jabotinsky… Dr. Weizman feels that the opening of the Dead Sea mineral project will end all unemployment in six months… Sir Herbert Samuel, first High Commissioner, recounts them in concise and forceful fashion: ‘Palestine severed from the Turkish Empire and become a separate state; Great Britain charged with its guardianship; the Jewish population multiplied threefold; almost all the great Valley of Esdraelon and large tracts of land elsewhere settled with Jewish villages; the little Jewish suburb of Tel Aviv become a town as big as ancient Jaffa, its neighbor… some eight to ten million pounds contributed or invested from all over the world for the purchase of land… All this accomplished with a due regard for the legitimate interests of the Arab population, with a simultaneous increase in their prosperity also and with a growing reconciliation as a consequence with Arab sentiment — all in a single decade.’… Today, on Mount Scopus outside Jerusalem, at a university of the most ancient of these faiths, there is, in addition to all other branches of learning, a school of religion where Christian, Mohammedan and Jew, side by side, are studying the fundamental unities of faith and origin.”
“TEN YEARS AGO IN JERUSALEM’S STREETS — Troops of the victorious Allenby expedition listen to the reading of the proclamation to the civilian population, some of whom can be discerned peering down from nearby rooftops.”
A Christmas Day essay that states the population and then dissolves it. Seven hundred thousand Arabs are named in one sentence as landowners or workers; in the next their fear of being supplanted is something they imagined; in the third the matter is almost definitely solved. The specific mechanism it does report is the tax: land already held by Arabs was assessed under an old agreement and not revalued, while a Jewish settler buying a piece of it was charged the new rate at once. The photograph shows Allenby’s troops in 1917 hearing the proclamation read, with the civilian population visible on the rooftops above them.
“Jerusalem. — (J. T. A.) — Palestinian citizens who wish to travel in the United Kingdom must obtain visas on their Palestanian passports from the Immigration and Travel Section at Jerusalem, an official notice published here states. Applications must be submitted to the Chief Immigration Officer through the Immigration or Police Officer of the district in which the applicants reside. The Immigration Officer at the port of arrival in the United Kingdom, before granting permission to land must be satisfied that the applicant complies with the British immigration laws and regulations. In addition to the visa, the traveller must be in a position to produce documents showing the object of his visit, the porposed length of his stay and his means of support in the United Kingdom. On obtaining leave to land, Palestanian citizens must comply with the regulations applying to aliens in the United Kingdom. Requests for exemption from registration under the Aliens Order, 1920, should be made to the Home Office.… A new novel by Vladimir Jabotinsky entitled ‘Samson the Nazarite’ in Russian will be published by the Logos Verlag of Berlin this month.”
Palestinian citizenship and Palestinian passports as plain administrative fact in 1927, in a notice about visa procedure — and the headline’s point, that holders of them counted as aliens in the country that governed them. This is the third distinct sense of the word the archive holds from 1927 alone: an Arab, when a St. Louis editor has to write “a Palestinian (not a Jew)”; a place, in “Palestinian cities”; and here a nationality on a travel document, covering everyone the Mandate administered. The paper spells it Palestanian twice and porposed once. Underneath runs a two-line notice of a new Jabotinsky novel.
Tree Dances for Jew’s Violin, Abandoned in Cause of Zion
Yehuda, Who Gave Up Musical Career to Slave in Palestine, Plays His Fiddle at Midnight.
Meyer Levin, Special Cable to the Buffalo Evening News and Chicago Daily News
“Meyer Levin of the foreign staff of the Buffalo Evening News has been working this summer in a Zionist farm colony, or meshek, in Northern Palestine. Toiling 12 hours a day in the hot sun, guiding a plow, wielding a hoe in the fields and trimming in orange groves, he is learning something of the new Palestine pioneers who are trying to transform the ancient Holy Land from an arid desert into a modern homeland. From Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Galicia came his fellow workers in the meshek — at Yazur, near Haifa… MESHEK YAZUR, PALESTINE, Aug. 26. — There is a tree that dances. Trunk and all, it swings itself stoutly with a graceful hop, smoothly with a circling glide, swaying in a ring-around dance around itself. You can easily find the tree that dances. It stands quite alone on the top of Mount Carmel… To understand about the tree you must know about Yehuda. Yehuda that plays on a violin. Wild as a wild Arab! Yehuda works, works, works. He runs, runs! Ach! there is no time to live! And for the fiddle! Ach!… They tell of him that he was born on a boat as his parents were migrating to Palestine. You know his family! Among the wealthiest bourgeoise in Jerusalem. They gave him a good musical education. They wanted to send him to Paris to study. But Yehuda saw there was work to be done in Palestine. Should the work be left to others? Yehuda went to a meshek. Work, work! Ah, there is no time to live! One should have two lives, one for the fiddle, and one for the farm.”
The archive had nothing at all from 1928 before this. The phrase doing the quiet work is a simile: a Jewish violinist laboring in a farm colony is “wild as a wild Arab,” and the noun is not describing anybody in the story. Meyer Levin, later the novelist, filed it as a cable from the field.
Dr. Crossfield Cites Marvelous Progress Made In Reclamation Of Holy Land
“But by far the greatest difficulty in the way of Zionism is the attitude of the indigenous Arab, who today outnumbers the Jew six or seven to one. He has occupied the land for centuries, and claims it as his ‘fatherland.’ To remove a large part of this Arab population to make way for incoming Jews from all nations, will severely tax the statesmanship of Zionism…”
A sermon by Dr. R. H. Crossfield at the First Christian Church, reported the following morning. The pastor is sympathetic to Zionism and the headline says Marvelous Progress; he is doing arithmetic out loud. Population transfer is named as a plain operational problem, in an Alabama newspaper, in 1928.
First Christian Pastor Talks On Zionist Movement In Holy Land
“The greatest obstacle, he thought, in the way of success of Zionism is the attitude of the indigenous Arab, who outnumbers the Jew six or seven to one, has occupied the country for centuries and claims it as his ‘fatherland.’”
The same Sunday-night sermon as the Post Herald printing, covered by the other paper in the same city and printed the same morning. Two independent desks both kept the indigenous Arab; neither reached for a softer word. This printing runs about half the length, and the sentence that got cut for space is the one about removing a large part of the Arab population. On the same page, in the adjacent column, the paper headlined a local arrest Negroes Arrested After Boy Robbed Of 45 Cents And Cigarets.
Land Question Agitates Palestinian Arabs, Plans for Colonization Under Way
Moslem Supreme Council Buys 4,000 Dunams to Keep Land from Jews
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem
“A renewed interest in the Palestine land question is noticeable in the Arab press and in Arab political circles in the country. According to a report from the Palestine paper ‘Felastin,’ the Arab villagers of Taibe sold to the Moslem Supreme Council an area of 4,000 dunams at the low rate of £2 per dunam. The purchase was made as a part of the Supreme Council’s campaign to obtain possession of considerable land areas to prevent their transfer to Jews. The body is thus becoming actively engaged in opposing the acquisition of land by Jews. According to another report published in the Haifa Arab paper, ‘An Afir,’ a group of Arab immigrants in the United States contemplates the establishment in Palestine of an Arab colony. An area of 5,000 dunams is to be acquired for the purpose.”
Palestinian Arabs in a 1929 headline, and colonization used for an Arab settlement scheme. Two Arabic newspapers are named as sources.
Correction: {'note': 'Slide 9 captions this scan as The Dispatch, 17 July 1911. It reports the Moslem Supreme Council and Pinchas Ruttenberg’s Jordan Electric Works, neither of which existed in 1911. Filed to the caption on the other scan on that slide.'}
“These fixed the dead and wounded in the last five days fighting between Jews and Moslem Arabs at 143 and 426 respectively. Divided as follows: Killed, 46 Moslems, 4 Christians, 93 Jews. Wounded, 118 Moslems, 39 Christians, 269 Jews. It was added an accurate check of casualties was impossible… Hebron, scene Saturday of a massacre in which Arabs literally cut to pieces Jewish men, women and children.”
August 1929. The archive holds six American papers from this fortnight, in six registers: a Mississippi daily, a Texas daily’s map, a Communist photo spread, a Jewish weekly’s front page, a Virginia column of wire datelines, and a Buffalo weekly a week later. This one counts Christians as their own column, which almost nothing later in this archive does. Beneath the banner, a photograph of Mrs. Louise McPhetridge Thaden receiving a floral wreath at the Cleveland airport.
British Imperialist Jewish Magnates, Religious Fakers Cause Riots
“English imperialism, the Anglo-Jewish industrial magnates, and religious fakers, both Arab and Jewish, these are the cause of the race riots sweeping Palestine… This group of demonstrators in New York East Side ignore this fact… At right, group of Jewish rabbis in the East Side demonstration—brothers to the religious fakers in Palestine…”
August 1929. The archive holds six American papers from this fortnight, in six registers: a Mississippi daily, a Texas daily’s map, a Communist photo spread, a Jewish weekly’s front page, a Virginia column of wire datelines, and a Buffalo weekly a week later. Two photographs of Americans demonstrating about Palestine in a New York street, with hand-lettered placards — which this archive holds very little of for this period. The placards name Harry Charles Luke, then acting High Commissioner.
JEWISH COLONIES IN PALESTINE OCCUPIED BY BRITISH TROOPS
Associated Press
“A group of Moslems, Christians and Jews waited upon the president of the Syrian state and protested against the situation of the non-Zionist population of Palestine… The Jewish survivors of the Hebron colony, where 15 American students at the Rabbinical College were killed, were uneasy… Many Jews were disarmed and arrested, the military authorities making no distinction between Arabs and Jews.”
August 1929. The archive holds six American papers from this fortnight, in six registers: a Mississippi daily, a Texas daily’s map, a Communist photo spread, a Jewish weekly’s front page, a Virginia column of wire datelines, and a Buffalo weekly a week later. It also carries a fourth version of the formula that names the majority by subtraction — the non-Zionist population, twice — after Herzl’s non-Jewish population, Balfour’s non-Jewish communities and King–Crane’s non-Jewish inhabitants. And it gives the number of Americans killed at Hebron.
Legend, as drawn: “PRINCIPAL CITIES · ARAB VILLAGES · JEWISH LANDS · RAIL ROAD.”
“Scenes of sanguine rioting between Jews and Arabs in Palestine are indicated on this map. The worst disorders have occurred at Jerusalem and Hebron… Note the numerous purely Arabian settlements that are located near large cities where the two races are intermingled.”
Arab villages are a dot. Jewish lands are a shaded area. A point marks a position; a polygon marks territory. The Arabs were about nine-tenths of Palestine in 1929 and on this map they hold no ground, because the legend contains no symbol that would let them. The same map prints SAMARIA, YEHUDA and JUDEA as ordinary physical geography, thirty-eight years before 1967. “tribsmen” is the paper’s spelling.
“My dear Weizmann, Events in Palestine have moved me to indignation and disgust, but they do nothing to shake my confidence in the general wisdom of the policy… The warning even at this distance has for months been clear and unmistakable. There has been restlessness and mutterings and threats all along. Where these things failed to mean anything to those in charge of affairs or why they failed to bring action upon their part, I am frank to say I cannot understand… Yours most sincerely, BALFOUR.”
August 1929. The archive holds six American papers from this fortnight, in six registers: a Mississippi daily, a Texas daily’s map, a Communist photo spread, a Jewish weekly’s front page, a Virginia column of wire datelines, and a Buffalo weekly a week later. Balfour’s own letter, dated 30 August 1929, twelve years after his declaration. The page also reports the Madison Square Garden meeting that The World News had announced nine days earlier, and gives the Arab response its own headline: Arabs Term Commissioner’s Statement ‘Extremely Unjust’.
Oppose Balfour Declaration and Zionist Immigration in Palestine.
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Oct. 27. — (AP) — While a protest against the Balfour declaration and Zionist immigration was being voiced at the first Arab women’s congress in Jerusalem, Jews in the city celebrated Simhath Thora festival. Synagogs were crowded. Arab women at the same time passed through the streets riding in 70 automobiles. A large general Arab conference begins tomorrow.”
Five sentences for the first Arab Women’s Congress ever held in Palestine. Two months after the riots of August 1929, several hundred Palestinian women convened in Jerusalem, elected an executive and drove through the city in a motorcade. The Associated Press gives the number of cars. It gives no woman’s name, no resolution and no quotation, and balances the paragraph by noting what the Jews of the city were doing that day. The paper’s spellings, Synagogs and Simhath Thora, are kept.
Sir Walter Shaw Promises Investigation of Outbreaks and Their Causes Will Be Thorough and Impartial — Arab Women’s Congress
Dr. Alexander Mombelli, Jerusalem Correspondent, N. C. W. C. News Service
“Jerusalem, Nov. 13. — Three developments of outstanding significance have taken place in Palestine in recent days. These are the arrival in the Holy City of the Inquiry Commission, the meeting in Jerusalem of the first All-Palestine Arab Women’s Congress, and the All-Palestine Arab Congress, which met the following day in this city… Arab Women’s Congress. About 100 persons, Moslems and Christians, attended the All-Palestine Arab Women’s Congress, which adopted resolutions attacking the policy of the High Commissioner, demanding the dismissal of the attorney general, a Zionist, asking for the abrogation of the Balfour Declaration, protesting against the new Collective Punishment Ordinance and supporting the boycott movement. The meeting was followed by an impressive procession of automobiles through the streets. In the procession, some 200 women rode in 70 cars. Eight of these women went as a committee to wait on the High Commissioner and on the foreign Consuls, while at the Damascus Gate the demonstrators stopped in front of the Government Offices and demanded loudly that justice be done. A large gathering of natives cheered the demonstrators, and troops were busy keeping order. The particular importance of this movement by the Arab women lies in the fact that it is the first time in the history of the Holy Land that native women have taken part in the political affairs of their country. Delegates from all parts of the country attended the All-Palestine Arab Congress the next day… The meeting debated at some length whether Arabs should appear before the Inquiry Commission, and it was finally decided that they should. The meeting also decided to call a general strike, and to recommend that taxes not be paid until representative institutions have been set up. A still further action was the decision to cable to the British Premier a protest against the conduct of the British High Commissioner. Notable Incident. The climax of enthusiasm was reached in the Congress when a Moslem Sheik and a Greek Orthodox priest embraced to symbolize the union of all the natives of Palestine, irrespective of creed, in the common effort to defend the country against the Zionist policy adopted and maintained by the Mandatory Power. When discussion arose concerning the adoption of a national Arab flag for Palestine, it was suggested that the sign of the Holy Cross be represented on it with the Crescent. The matter was not decided, however… The Balfour Declaration, as officially interpreted at present, has not granted to the Jews those political rights which they hold necessary to the establishment of a Jewish National Home, and this fact has led to agitation which causes continual unrest.”
The same congress the Associated Press covered in five sentences, which counted the cars and named nobody. A Catholic news service correspondent gives the resolutions, the eight women who went as a committee to the High Commissioner and the consuls, the crowd at Damascus Gate, and the sentence the wire had no room for: that this was the first time in the history of the country that its women had taken part in its political life. The archive holds both printings, ten years before Sadhij Nassar was jailed for what she wrote.
Part of Covering Palestine, an archive of 1262 newspaper clippings about Palestinians printed in 512 papers between 1799 and 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles. Nothing here was printed after 6 October 2023.