Every clipping in this archive printed between 1930 and 1939: 54 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 Cincinnati Enquirer · Cincinnati · page 1
For Peace In Palestine
The People · To the Editor of the Enquirer
Peter Dughman, Cincinnati
“Dear Sir: It may be understood by Mr. Robert Greenfield, that I am not trying to defend by knowledge, in saying that before any non-Zionist ever expressed his opinion, I wrote and spoke about the subject. I am very thankful to Mr. Greenfield for advising me to study history, he is appreciating my specialty. I never denied any historical fact… Mr. Greenfield titled his letter of January 21 by ‘Peace in Palestine,’ in which he shielded Zionism, while we have never seen peace in Palestine with Zionism upheld. What the future comes with, can be foreseen by summing up the conclusions of the past and present. In Palestine now there is no peace as simplicity may see, but there is a thin coat covering hostility, the coat being woven by despotism, which will not last long… The Arabs will not fight the Jews as the Jews never were an able fighting race. When the Arabs fought, they fought the world and conquered it; and I do not think that I have to tell Mr. Greefield to study history, to know that they civilized the world. Battleships and machine guns is not what I mean by civilization.… It is not strange that Zionist propaganda, convinced you that Zionism did so much to Palestine, the same during the first week of Palestine riots through the misleading telegrams of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency convinced me that the Moslems killed some Christians, I for love of justice revolted badly, but not long after that when the true news reached, the world understood. The most I can say, is go to Palestine and this is not much to loyal Zionists to sacrifice, there you will see in what condition the Jews are, and how much Arab-Jewish cooperation there is. The Balfour declaration infested the Arab Effendis only, as you said. In Palestine there is the Arab Women Congress working for the same cause the Balfour declaration seemed to have infested even the women of Palestine, they are not, and they will never be Effendis. If Mr. Greenfield will follow carefull the thoughts of the Jews everywhere, he will find out that Dr. Phillipson represents the majority. The majority has to be listened to. Romance created mysticism, they are in the human soul, they succeed in weakened hearts only. PETER DUGHMAN, Cincinnati, January 24.”
An Arab reader in Ohio answering a Zionist correspondent in the letters column, two months after the first Arab Women’s Congress met in Jerusalem — and using it as his closing argument. Told that only the effendis, the landowning class, objected to the Balfour Declaration, he replies that the women of Palestine are organizing too, and they will never be effendis. He also accuses the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of misleading telegrams during the 1929 riots; this archive holds JTA dispatches from that same period. The letter runs beside a filler item about tooth decay among Eskimos. His spellings and grammar are kept as printed.
“The Jewish immigrants in Palestine are, of course, more progressive than the indigenous Arabs, but neither this circumstance nor the fact that the ancestors of the Jews were there before the Arabs can excuse a policy of injustice. The Arabs, who constitute by far the greater part of the population, are united in seeking a greater degree of self-government, and they naturally resent the intrusion of a body of aggressive and unsympathetic aliens… The large sales of land which have taken place since 1921 have created a class of Arabs who are dangerous because they are landless and discontented.”
On the Shaw commission report into the August 1929 disturbances. The condescension and the recognition are welded into one clause, and then the sentence refuses to let the condescension do any work.
Charge Failure to Observe Terms of Mandate, in Heated Session Here.
“Declarations of indignation against the British government in firey oratory by Jewish leaders and in a resolution charging failure to observe the terms of the mandate calling for the establishment of a national Jewish home in Palestine, featured the final session of the American Jewish Congress, which was thrown into an uproar in the Willard Hotel late yesterday. The resolution charging violation of the terms of the mandate was introduced at the session late yesterday. The adoption of the resolution charging violation of the mandate was the outgrowth of the receipt of news dispatches from London yesterday afternoon in which recommendations were made in an official report to the British government by Sir John Hope Simpson that immigration to Palestine be suspended until a census is taken. The Simpson report criticized methods hitherto pursued by Jewish agencies with regard to colonization and immigration to Palestine, and dwelt on land settlements there. The Simpson report was made simultaneously with the British government’s statement of its future policy in Palestine, a statement based largely on Sir John’s report. The introductory part of the resolution declared that the Jews of America ‘organized a Jewish Legion which fought under Gen. Allenby and aided in the freeing of Palestine from the yoke of Turkish oppression, and, continuing in the belief that the British government was resolved to adhere to the policy to which it was pledged, they thereafter co-operated with the Jews of other countries in the construction upbuilding of the land by contributing men and money for the establishment of economic, social and cultural institutions in Palestine.’ The resolution was introduced by Louis Lipsky, chairman of the committee which prepared it, who severely criticized the action of the British government. Baruch Zuckerman, leader of the Socialist Zionist movement, speaking in Yiddish, brought many in the audience to their feet with terms of fiery oratory. Jacob De Haas, chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Zionist organization, declared, ‘this is the saddest hour we have faced,’ in referring to alleged failure of the British to carry out the terms of the mandate… The congress also adopted resolutions urging the Rumanian government to take steps to avoid anti-Jewish riots in that country and expressing ‘deep concern’ over anti-Semitic outbreaks in Germany.”
Washington, October 1930: the Hope Simpson report reaching American readers through the anger it caused at a convention in the Willard Hotel. The paper uses the word colonization in its own summary of the report. The subheadings are “Fought Under Allenby” and “Stab in the Back.” The same congress passes a resolution about anti-Semitic outbreaks in Germany, in 1930.
“If the Jewish National Home is ever permanently established with the consent and cooperation of the indigenous Arab population, and under the equal protection of Great Britain, it probably will be the first time in history that such a thing has happened… The establishment of a national home for the American Indian in, let us say, New England would be sure to raise psychological and social problems transcending the actual necessities of the case… the Arabs have enjoyed possession in Palestine since the seventh century.”
The paper that wrote indigenous also wrote primitives, forty lines apart, in one column — and conceded Arab possession since the seventh century in the same breath. Both belong on the record if either does. Recognition was compatible with contempt, and that is how the record reads. The editorial also reaches for American settler colonialism as its own explanatory frame, unprompted, in 1930.
“…the Zionists are naturally unwilling to be reminded that, after all, the Arabs have enjoyed possession in Palestine since the seventh century… the League of Nations mandate makes Britain as responsible for one racial group in Palestine as for another.”
The identical editorial to the Baltimore Sun’s of five days earlier, credited and reprinted. The Sun ran it under the single word PALESTINE; Wilmington boxed it and headlined it Racial Controversy in Palestine. The archive has very few cases where the same body copy can be set beside two headlines with everything else held constant.
“The attitude of some of the Petach Tikvah and Ness Ziona colonists in connection with the recent orange-picking disturbances is extremely unfortunate. These unsavory incidents have recurred annually and have always elicited disapproval. It had been hoped that this year, however, the complex of outer events would compel these Jewish orange-grove owners to deport themselves differently. But dispatches that emanate from Jerusalem report clashes and assaults and violent picketing. The situation at Petach Tikvah is easily described. At the harvest time, Jewish plantation owners refuse to hire Jewish workers and employ Arabs instead. On the surface that might appear merely as a generous gesture inspired by Brith Shalom principles. But the facts are the very opposite. The reason that the Arabs are employed is because they can afford to accept a starvation wage. The Jewish settlers cannot content themselves with the low rates that are offered. The result is that Jewish unemployed, properly resentful at the attitude of the owners, have picketed the groves and attempted to prevent Arabs from going to work. There can be no sympathy for violence in picketing, but there must be general appreciation for the plight of these Jewish workers. The very thing which Jews wish to avoid is being carried out by these Petach Tikvah orange-growers. They may be affording employment to Arabs, but their action amounts to exploitation. While the fellaheen may be grateful for the temporary work, then can always fall back upon this episode as an illustration of the ‘Jewish exploitation’ which Arab propaganda will be quick to utilize.”
A Zionist editorial in 1931 describing Palestinian farm labor as a starvation wage that Jewish workers cannot live on, and objecting to it chiefly because of how it will look.
In Palestine and, contrary to general belief, Jews and Arabs are friends, says Brooklyn man
Eleanore Levenson
“Palestine is still a strange and picturesque land. A land of startling contrasts where nomadic tribes live in the most primitive fashion side by side with communities and cities that boast theaters, universities, libraries and all the most gracious gifts of civilization.”… “Abraham I. Shiplacoff has just returned from a three months trip to Palestine as head of a delegation from the National Labor Committee for the Organized Workers of Palestine. He told me during our interview that when he first came to the Palestine frontier and started the trip across the desert he saw miles and miles of arid, unbeautiful land. There were only stone and rocks, goats running loose, nothing green, nothing growing. He asked, ‘Is this Palestine?’ A Frenchman sitting in the same compartment said, ‘Wait until you get to the Jewish farms. There you will see a new world, a green world. It is the medieval and the modern side by side.’” “Not only do the Arabs still live as they did in Biblical ages but there are a hundred and fifty thousand Bedouins who wander from place to place. Mr. Shiplacoff said: ‘They live by grazing and on whatever they can lay hands on while prowling at night through Arabian and Jewish villages. This also is considered a trade, an accepted way of earning a livelihood.’ When a Bedouin child reaches school age, about eight or nine, his education is begun by his mother, who starves him for a few days and, driven by hunger, he goes out and learns to steal. If he is a nimble thief he will soon be on his own. Horses, sheep, food, anything unwatched is fair game for the Bedouins.” “To this arid land, inhabited by the most primitive people, the Jews have come, bringing their longing for a national homeland, their social idealism and more tangibly the implements of modern science and invention, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into reclaiming Palestine.”… “Every coin and banknote, every street sign and official paper is printed in three languages—English, Arabic and Hebrew.”… “The Arabs served the Jewish boys with coffee and spoke to them in a friendly fashion, but they couldn’t help asking, ‘Aren’t you afraid to come here?’ Another Arab standing by said, ‘Why should they be afraid? There are no Englishmen around.’”
Abraham I. Shiplacoff, home from three months in Palestine as head of a delegation from the National Labor Committee for the Organized Workers of Palestine, called “the Jewish Debs” by the paper. The headline says Jews and Arabs are friends. The article that follows it describes Bedouin children taught to steal by starvation and a land “inhabited by the most primitive people.” He blames “the effendis, the Arabian feudal lords who exploit the fellaheens.”
“Jerusalem, Feb. 14.—In accordance with the proposal outlined by Sir John Hope-Simpson in his much criticized report on Palestine which recently led to the issuance of the British government’s white paper, the Palestine government already has begun listing landless Arabs with a view to providing them with soil sufficient for their needs. Government commissioners are asking sheiks and muktars (headmen) of tribes and villages to provide them with names of the Arab landless.”
Landless is an administrative category, and a government was keeping the list. You cannot register people as having lost land unless they had land to lose. The paper ran it as routine wire news.
Palestine Arabs Dismayed By Britain's Newest Policy
Premier MacDonald Declaration on White Paper Receives Mixed Reception. Moslem Council Declares Zionist Pressure Caused Government to Change.
This conflict means that the Arab has been swindled in explanations, writes Falastin in the English Supplement, a Jaffa Arab paper to-day which proceeds to say that insult has been added to injury by not informing Arab leaders simultaneously with Dr. Weizmann about the declaration, although the Arabs are as much concerned with amplifications or removals of misunderstandings as the Jews. The paper ends with the following bold statement. “If there is any change in the white paper which is harmful to the Arabs then the latter must systematically range the whole east against a policy which will ruin the Arabs as a whole and not only Palestine. The issues becomes clearer daily that Zionism seems to Arabs and Moslems the spearpoint of imperialism and foreign culture, but the east refuses to be Europeanized under the false plea that civilization intends to shape its own destiny.”
Under the subhead “Statements are Vague.” The Gleaner runs the Jaffa Arab paper Falastin at length, in its own words, including the sentence about the spearpoint.
British Officer and Six in Mob Injured in Clash at Nabulus.
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, August 24.—Protesting against the use of sealed armories in outlying Jewish villages, the entire Arab population of Palestine was on strike today and authorities feared disturbances. Military authorities have taken charge in Nabulus, where a British police officer and six Arabs were injured in a clash last night. The Arabs hurled stones at the police and the latter fired on their aggressors when they refused to disperse. Armored cars and troop reinforcements have been sent for to patrol the district. There has been rioting there for several days and a few demonstrators have been arrested, but the country as a whole has been quiet. The Arab executive called the strike, the Jewish Telegraph Agency said, after the government had supplied isolated villages with armories for their protection.”
The entire Arab population of Palestine on strike, in one sentence, in 1931 — thirty-three years before the PLO. The organization that called it is named: the Arab executive. The paper calls the stone-throwers aggressors and sources the whole thing to the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
Anti-Jewish feeling laid to scheme of Mufti, blindly aided by Zionists — politics uses fanaticism — Arabs at first apathetic to political stirring, but rise in belief shrines are threatened
Written two years after the disturbances at the Wall, and it will not let either side alone: a scheme by the Mufti, blindly aided by Zionists, with religion used as the instrument and not the cause.
A program for accelerating the growth of the Jewish homeland
Israel B. Brodie, chairman of the national executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America
“In a report to the recent Zionist Congress in Basle, Mr. Brodie, who is chairman of the national executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America and has been a student of the economic aspects of the Jewish reconstruction of Palestine for many years, presented a program calculated to accelerate the absorptive capacity of Palestine. It was in connection with the presentation of this report, which was published for the Congress in pamphlet form in English and German, that the Congress determined to separate its political and economic activities. The following is a digest of the report.—THE EDITOR.”
Absorptive capacity was the working term of the period for how many immigrants the country could take. The clipping held here is the headline and the editor’s note; the digest itself is not part of it.
A decorated picture panel: an ornamental title over a photograph of a Jerusalem inn yard, with men, women and children, horses and sheep. The people in it are not named and no story runs with the panel on this clipping.
You Never Would Have Dreamt What Happened When They Started Taking Census in Jerusalem
Revolt, bullets, weird, wild answers and keyhole interviews greeted officials on their job
By Edward Goitein, Staff Correspondent, Jerusalem
“Many an Arab took the opportunity, when he saw a representative of the government in his home, to ask for a job, jobs for his sons and jobs for his nephews in the government service. Sometimes he refused to answer questions unless assured such jobs. Others made the best of the visit by complaining about the unfair taxes and demanding a reduction.”
“Above, the Census Office in Jerusalem. Its Purpose Is Announced in Three Official Languages (English, Hebrew, Arabic). At Right, Chief Census Officer Mills.” And: “REVOLT AND PRECAUTION—The Hebrew Writing on a House in Jerusalem (Above) Reads: ‘Refuse to Be Counted.’ But as a Safeguard Census Man Marked Every House in Palestine, Even the American Consulate, as Shown in Photo at Right.”
A Sunday feature about the mechanics of counting people, run for its comedy. One photograph shows the door of the Palestine Census Office, its purpose announced in English, Hebrew and Arabic. The joke needs a population to be funny.
Palestine Citrus Industry Theme of Address Given at Kiwanis Club
“That Palestine will soon become a real competitor to other citrus producing countries was disclosed to Kiwanis club members today by facts and figures quoted by an Arabian, Taji Farouki, whose father owns 1700 acres planted to oranges. Since 1925, he said, practically all the available acreage in Palestine, whose citrus district is confined to an interior valley, has been planted to oranges. England has been the country’s best market, and Germany is coming to be a good customer… Questioning on the part of the members of the club, which he addressed on the subject of ‘Palestine Today and Tomorrow,’ brought from the speaker the disclosure that fruit which costs the grower $1.20 per box to get to market has yielded returns of around $5 a box. The annual production is now approximately four and a half million boxes… The country’s citrus industry was described as being extensive rather than intensive, which the speaker admitted was bad. His business in California, he said, was not to learn how to grow oranges, but rather how to learn about cooperative marketing. Formerly the grower realized well enough on his fruit without bothering personally about the marketing, but now the grower is handling it himself, and the opportunity is ripe to perfect a cooperative organization. Further questions developed that the navel orange proved a failure in Palestine; that water for irrigation is available with a pump lift of from 150 to 200 feet; that labor is available for 50 cents per day; that barnyard manure is the principal fertilizer used; that the rainfall averages 18 to 20 inches per annum, and that the production averages about eight field boxes (40 pounds each) to the tree… He said the differences between the Jews and the Arabs were not racial, since they are ‘cousins,’ as he termed it, but due to the fact that the influx of the Jews, principally from Russia and Poland, constitutes an unemployment problem… The older generation still opposes the education of women, he said… Politically, the younger generation realizes the necessity of working in harmony with the Jews, who are already in the land in large numbers.”
A Palestinian citrus grower’s son addressing a Kiwanis club in the California citrus belt, with costs, yields, rainfall and pump lifts. The paper calls him “an Arabian.” The line about cooperative marketing is the paper’s summary of what he said, not a direct quotation, and it is shown here in italics for that reason. Earliest record in the archive from 1933.
Citrus Is Possible Basis For Jewish, Arab Co-operation
“The ‘Near East and India,’ a publication considered as close to the Colonial Office, which has just reached this country, carries a full page editorial entitled, ‘Development in Palestine,’ where it cites the development of the citrus and other industries, due to Jewish initiative, as a growing basis for co-operation between Jew and Arab… The ‘Near East and India’ states that where co-operation is hampered or prevented, the responsibility rests on the actions of the politically-minded of the two sections of the Palestine population. On the Arab side, the paper asserts, there can be no question but that those who are most vocal in their hostility to the Jews are the spokesmen of those who are the worst enemies of the fellaheen… ‘Not the least satisfactory feature of the citrus industry is the opportunities it provides for co-operation between the Arabs and Jews,’ says the editorial, in part, ‘and there can be no question of the advantages that the Arab orange growers have derived from the example set by the Jews in all that concerns the improvements introduced into the industry-improved methods of cultivation, of packing and of marketing. The dependence of the Arabs in this respect on Jewish initiative would seem to be taken so much for granted by them that they are usually content to see the whole duty of investigation and research shouldered by the Jews in the hope, no doubt, that the bulk of the expense, if not all of it, will be borne by the latter.’”
Three weeks before this ran, a Palestinian citrus grower’s son named Taji Farouki told a California Kiwanis club that he had come to study cooperative marketing and that the Palestinian industry was extensive rather than intensive, which he called bad. That clipping is CP-1933-001, 15 June 1933. This one, quoting a journal close to the Colonial Office, says Arab growers are content to let the Jews do the research and pay for it. Both are in the archive; neither is corrected by the other.
“Jerusalem, (J.T.A.) — There are a total of 361 Jews on the Palestine police force, according to a recent statistical survey. Against that figure, there are 1,239 Arabs and 306 native Christians. The survey reveals a decided decrease in the crime which these officers have to cope with. The number of non-indictable offenses fell by more than 10,000 cases, while there were 66 fewer serious crimes compared with the preceding year.”
The force is 1,906 men. The headline counts the 361. Note also the three categories the survey uses: Jews, Arabs, and native Christians — so “Arabs” here is carrying the Muslim population alone, and the Christians of Palestine are a separate column. Ran the same day and in the same paper as CP-1933-002.
“Police today fired upon large unruly crowds of Arabs demonstrating against a recent increase in Jewish immigration, killing an undetermined number and wounding others. A number of police also were injured… A crowd armed with firearms, sticks, stones and other missiles endeavored to break through a police cordon. After making several baton charges, the police opened fire… (Palestine is under a British mandate.) Early in the forenoon the Arabs declared a general strike, closed their shops and went to the mosques.”
One Associated Press story of 27 October 1933, printed in four American papers. The copy is identical in all four; only the headline changes. Two of the four delete the police from the headline, and one paper's second line turns a protest against an immigration increase into a demonstration ‘Against Jews.’ This headline names no one as firing, and does not mention that anyone was killed.
POLICE FIRE UPON UNRULY CROWDS IN JAFFA, PALESTINE
Undetermined Number Are Killed and Others Wounded in Demonstration Against Jews.
Associated Press, Jaffa, Palestine
“Police today fired upon large unruly crowds of Arabs demonstrating against a recent increase in Jewish immigration, killing an undetermined number and wounding others. A number of police also were injured… A crowd armed with firearms, sticks, stones and other missiles endeavored to break through a police cordon. After making several baton charges, the police opened fire… (Palestine is under a British mandate.) Early in the forenoon the Arabs declared a general strike, closed their shops and went to the mosques.”
One Associated Press story of 27 October 1933, printed in four American papers. The copy is identical in all four; only the headline changes. Two of the four delete the police from the headline, and one paper's second line turns a protest against an immigration increase into a demonstration ‘Against Jews.’ This printing names the police in the headline and the dead in the line beneath it — and is the one whose second line says the demonstration was ‘Against Jews,’ where the copy says it was against a recent increase in Jewish immigration.
Several Are Killed And Wounded At Jaffa, Palestine — The Arabs Protest Against A Recent Increase In Jewish Immigration.
Associated Press, Jaffa, Palestine
“Police today fired upon large unruly crowds of Arabs demonstrating against a recent increase in Jewish immigration, killing an undetermined number and wounding others. A number of police also were injured… A crowd armed with firearms, sticks, stones and other missiles endeavored to break through a police cordon. After making several baton charges, the police opened fire… (Palestine is under a British mandate.) Early in the forenoon the Arabs declared a general strike, closed their shops and went to the mosques.”
One Associated Press story of 27 October 1933, printed in four American papers. The copy is identical in all four; only the headline changes. Two of the four delete the police from the headline, and one paper's second line turns a protest against an immigration increase into a demonstration ‘Against Jews.’ This is the only one of the four whose second line states accurately what the crowds were protesting.
Mobs After Prayer Protest Increase in Jewish Immigration.
Associated Press, Jaffa, Palestine
“Police today fired upon large unruly crowds of Arabs demonstrating against a recent increase in Jewish immigration, killing eleven or more and wounding others…”
One Associated Press story of 27 October 1933, printed in four American papers. The copy is identical in all four; only the headline changes. Two of the four delete the police from the headline, and one paper's second line turns a protest against an immigration increase into a demonstration ‘Against Jews.’ A later take, and the only printing that supplies a number — eleven or more. Its headline has no subject at all: a bare verb and the dead, with the police who fired absent from the sentence.
British Policy Now Forces It to Help Arabs Ousted From Palestine Farms
Jerusalem, Palestine
“JERUSALEM, Palestine.—The supreme irony of England’s policy in Palestine is that it must spend a good part of its energies in trying to undo its own work. British support of Zionism has so jeopardized the situation of the Arabs that the government is now engaged in trying to restore the balance between the two peoples which its own policy destroyed… So many Arabs were forced off their farms by Jewish land purchases that the government has felt obliged to set up elaborate machinery for tracing these Arabs and resettling them on other land and to prevent eviction of any more tenant farmers by future land sales. The superior capital resources of Jewish farmers were enabling them to resist crop failures and other difficulties so much better than the Arabs could that the Arab farmers are faced with almost literal extinction… The ‘register of landless Arabs’ was set up after expert British investigators reported that large numbers of Arabs were being forced off their farms by Jewish land purchases and that these Arabs were a danger to law and order and faced ultimate starvation. The register was designed to identify these Arabs with a view to settling them on other land. This program failed. The Arabs themselves solved the problem. Eight hundred twenty-one families, or about 4,500 persons, were finally registered as having lost their lands and found no other means of making a livelihood as a result of Jewish land purchases. The government then offered to sell some of these families new lands to cultivate. The Arabs refused the land offered. This stalemate has only just been broken by the Arab Youth Conference Executive, which bought land near that which the farmers had lost and offered it to them. The farmers have now accepted it. The government’s resettlement program met with bitter criticism from both Arabs and Jews. Jews protested against the use of public funds, raised by taxation of themselves, as well as of the Arabs, to help only Arabs. The government had no responsibility, Jews maintained, toward tenants who had no rights to the land they cultivated and who in many cases had actually received money bonuses from Jewish purchasers to vacate. The Arabs could find other work to support themselves, the Jews said. Arabs claimed that the land offered the landless farmers was so different from that which they had left that they could not cultivate it, that it was malarious, that it was ‘near the Transjordanian frontier and thus betrayed a government intention gradually to force the Arabs out of the country, and that the land was to be administered by a Jew.’ The conditions under which Arabs were accepted for registration were so ridiculous that only a small proportion of those entitled to help were even offered it, according to Arabs.”
A British colonial register of people who had lost their land, explained to American readers in 1934, with a number on it: eight hundred and twenty-one families. Both arguments are printed at length, including the Jewish one that the tenants had no rights to the land they farmed and had taken money to leave it. The subheadings are “Faced Literal Extinction,” “Arabs Solve Own Problem,” “Remits $967,500 in Tithes” and “Criticize Government Loans.” The column beside it is headed “Nazi Movement Finds South Africans Cold.”
“Jaffa (J. T. A.) — Negotiations have been started between Jewish and Arab orange growers in Palestine for the maintenance of standard prices on oranges during the next season. The growers have declared themselves ready in principle to destroy part of their crop, if necessary, in order to avoid a possible drop in prices, thus following the example of Brazilian coffee planters.”
The archive had nothing from 1935 before this. Four sentences, and what they describe is a joint Jewish and Arab price cartel in the citrus trade — two populations the rest of the coverage keeps apart, sitting down to agree what an orange is worth and how much of the crop to burn.
“Jerusalem.—(JTA)—‘Shirt’ movements are growing in popularity in Palestine. Recently a ‘Greenshirt’ organization was started here based on the Egyptian Wafdist ‘Greenshirts.’ Another movement is now being launched by the Palestine Arab Party which is headed by the Mufti of Jerusalem. The new organization will have a uniform of blue shirts and khaki trousers and will try to enlist Arab youth. Jamal el Husseini, well known Arab politician, and Emil el Ghoury are sponsoring the new group which will apply for government registration. It has about 300 members.”
A three-hundred-member youth organization, applying for registration, reported by a Jewish news agency without alarm. Both sponsors are named.
Palestine Communists Call for Arab-Jewish Front Against British
Theodore Repard
In the same weeks the strike began, a joint front was one of the things being publicly argued for, in print, in New York. The argument that this was never anything but two peoples against each other has to get past this headline.
Arabs in Palestine Launch Campaign of Civil Disobedience
Tension High, Though Disturbances Few; Government Still Firm in Position Towards Arab Strike
Civil disobedience, in a Jewish community paper, in the first weeks of the general strike. The words available in 1936 to describe what Palestinians were doing included that one.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Arabs and Jews in Palestine
“Racial prejudice has played a large part in history. One modern instance is Nazi Germany, where the superiority of the so-called Nordic race is a matter of faith. Another is found in the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The former claim the country as their own and resent the colonization of Jews as an intrusion. Great Britain, which holds the mandate for Palestine, has a hard task in maintaining order. The aspiration of the Jews, scattered among all the nations of the world, for a home land of their own, found expression in the Balfour Declaration, issued during the World War. This promised that they should have a safe return to Palestine, the country of their origin. It was, however, largely overrun by Arab tribes, who resented any intrusion. In all the years since, the bitterness has not diminished. The task of dealing with Muslim fanaticism, whether directed against Jews or Christians, has always been hard. Great Britain is living up to her obligations, and is sending more troops to preserve order. The Arabs are apparently unwilling to take into consideration the fact that Jewish immigration has been greatly for the benefit of the country. Thus the problem remains unsolved.”
The paper’s own unsigned voice, using colonization plainly in 1936, in the same paragraph in which it names Nazi Germany.
Blames Uprisings Of Arabs In Palestine To Landowners’ Fears
“Arabic uprisings against the Jews in Palestine are primarily a move of the landowners fearing the effect that Jewish immigration may have on the peasants who are practically their slaves, Rabbi David Polish of the Congregation of Temple Judah said Thursday noon at the Lions club luncheon at the Roosevelt hotel. At present, he said, there are approximately 400,000 Jews and 800,000 Arabs in Palestine. There have been no pitched battles of Arabs and Jews, he added, but the Jews of Palestine have been provided with ammunition that they may use to protect themselves against Arab attacks… and the Arab peasants are learning intensive farming from the Jews.”
The revolt explained as a landowners’ plot against their own peasants, at a Lions club lunch, with a population count attached.
Alongside: "Palestine Split Unnecessary, Rabbi Says" and "Jewry in Chicago Protest Partition"
Universal Service, London
“Syria Protests Plan to Slice Palestine. LONDON, July 23.—While a parliamentary move was launched here to transfer the British mandate over Palestine to the United States, Great Britain’s plan to partition the Holy Land last night headed for stormy opposition before the League of Nations. The first outside protest to the scheme to carve Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states as a means of settling age-old differences of race and religion came from Syria, herself under mandate to France. Disapproval Expressed. The Syrian government at Damascus expressed the ‘unanimous disapproval of the Syrian public of Palestine to the dismemberment scheme’ in a note addressed to the French High Commissioner for dispatch to Geneva. This note will unquestionably be taken into consideration at the forthcoming League session. The move to bring the United States into the troubled affairs of the Holy Land was made by Geoffrey Mander, liberal member of Parliament. He proposed that London turn over its authority and responsibility to Washington ‘in view of the British government’s unwillingness to continue to administer its mandate.’ Proposal Up Tuesday. Mander, in a written statement, announced he would put his proposal up to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons Tuesday as one way of extricating the government from the dilemma created by the presentation of its Palestine plan to commons for ratification last night. The House refused to vote on the measure and the government submitted to an amendment which will throw the issue into the lap of the League of Nations. Palestine Split Unnecessary, Rabbi Says. Saying he agrees that partition is not a necessary precedent to the future of Palestine, Dr. Herman Hailperin, rabbi of the Tree of Life Congregation, has added his comment to the article in last Sunday’s Sun-Telegraph by David Lloyd George, scoring the British Royal Commission report recommending division of the Holy Land into separate states for Jews, Arabs and British. ‘I Agree.’ Rabbi Hailperin said: ‘It is simple, though inadequate, to say “I agree” or “I disagree” with the statement by David Lloyd George concerning the Palestine report. A long time ago I learned neither to speak nor to write about matters that others have dealt with in a more masterly fashion.’ Dr. Magnes Right. ‘It seems correct to say that the commentary of Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, dated Paris, July 12, is the most accurate and thoroughgoing critique of the Royal Commission’s finding yet to appear. I heartily agree with him in the thought that partition is not a necessary precedent to the future of Palestine.’ Jewry in Chicago Protest Partition. CHICAGO, July 23. (INS)—A giant mass meeting to protest the proposed partition of Palestine by Great Britain will be held here Wednesday. Rabbi Abraham E. Abramovitz, of the National Zionist Organization; Maj. Gen. Frank Parker, World War hero…”
Three items on partition side by side in 1937: Syria’s protest, a Pittsburgh rabbi agreeing that partition is unnecessary, and a mass meeting in Chicago against it. Between them run a society photograph and a story about a banned flight to Moscow.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Palestine Partition Waits
“The British Government’s refusal to push through the House of Commons immediately such an important proposal as that for the partition of Palestine, as outlined by the British Royal Commission, merits thoughtful commendation… The fact that ultimate jurisdiction over Palestine affairs remains vested in the League does not prevent some British officials from insisting on the right of Britain as mandatory nation to divide the Holy Land between the Jews who consider it their national homeland and the Arabs who, with the Turks, have held sway there for 1500 years… Nor is there much hope that the final League and Commons actions will segregate the 400,000 Jews and 1,000,000 Arabs in contiguous sections of a land both claim, in anything like settled peace, at least for a long time to come.”
An editorial on the Peel Commission plan. It ends by calling the whole question “another theme of captious European controversy.”
The New Crisis in Palestine, Scene of Strife 6,000 Years
A vast international tangle raises obstacles to Britain’s plan for partition of the Holy Land — war and intrigue figure heavily in the tragic stories of the Jews and the Arabs — both people have struggled heroically to create a homeland in the barren country
Six thousand years of strife, a barren country, and two peoples struggling equally. Three moves in one subheading: make it ancient, make it empty, make it even.
Mrs. Arnold discusses laborer’s attitude respecting partition as contrasted with policies of aggressive racial leaders
Paula Arnold, foreign correspondence of The Sun, dateline Haifa
“There is the local press, both Arabic and Jewish, more vehement in its denunciation of the plan as time goes on, and it appears that all responsible Arab and Jewish bodies and persons are, or rather seem, against it.” She calls the proposed state a “waistcoat pocket state.”
A woman filing from Haifa for a Baltimore paper, reporting that both the Arabic and the Jewish press rejected partition. There was an Arabic press to report on. The scan held here is 264 pixels wide across three columns; the quotations above could not be re-read word by word against it and are awaiting a better copy.
Syria and Saudia to Support Palestine Arabs, Cairo Hears
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Cairo
“Syria and Saudia to Support Palestine Arabs, Cairo Hears. Cairo, (J. T. A.) — The government of Syria has decided to send a delegation to Geneva to join a committee in support of the Palestine Arabs’ opposition to partition, the newspaper El Mokkatam reported. King Ibn Saudi of Saudi Arabia may send his ambassador in London to Geneva for the same purpose, the paper added.”
A three-sentence wire brief, sourced to an Egyptian newspaper. The archive holds it because it records the Palestine Arabs’ opposition to partition being carried to Geneva.
British troops blew up three Arab houses in Daharia, near Hebron, in reprisal for an Arab raid yesterday on a police arsenal in which rifles were stolen. Dogs were utilized in pressing the search for the raiders and the military authorities marked more houses for demolition—the number to correspond to the number of rifles taken. They promised to spare one house for each rifle returned.
The same Associated Press dispatch the Omaha World-Herald ran that day, datelined Jerusalem, October 19. Omaha put the demolitions in the line under the headline. Here they are the seventh paragraph, below a subhead about a curfew being lifted.
“Geneva, Thursday, Aug. 12.—(UP)—A split in the ranks of the World Zionist organization over the Palestine question was threatened today by the new Zionist organization. The organization attacked the resolution passed yesterday by the Zionist congress at Zurich as a betrayal of the Jewish National Home ideal. The resolution, passed 300 to 158, empowered the executive committee to negotiate the terms for creation of a Jewish state in Palestine with possible partition of the Holy Land. The new Zionist organization claims as many members as the Jewish agency and is led by Wladimir Jabotinsky, anti-socialist Russian Jew who won fame during the World War for his part in creating the Jewish legion to aid Great Britain. The movement strongly contests the Zionist congress’ claim that it is the official representative body of world Jewry. In a statement issued here the organization denounced the resolution and promised to begin a worldwide campaign to disavow the action of the congress. The statement said in part: ‘Instead of rejecting the principle of partition, it (the resolution) only rejects the “scheme presented by the British royal commission” entrusts further negotiation to leaders who openly condemn the mandate as unworkable and openly support partition, and the action of the negotiations will inevitably tend to place the eventual “newly elected congress”, should it ever materialize, before a situation tantamount to a fait accompli.’”
The argument over partition reported from inside the Zionist movement, in 1937, with the vote count. No Palestinian appears in it.
Hopeful of Restoring Holy Land Quiet—Arabs Attack Sporadically
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
Sporadic attacks on Jews and Britons marked the week end, but stern British measures prevented any recurrence of widespread violence. An Armenian street photographer, apparently mistaken for an Arab because he wore the red fez-like tarboosh, was shot and critically wounded on a main street of Jerusalem. Shortly afterward, shots were fired at a party of Arab laborers passing through the suburbs on their way to work. One was injured. British police in motor patrols donned steel helmets for the first time since the 1936 disturbances. An Arab was shot dead here and a Jewish tailor was stabbed and seriously injured in the Keremavrahm quarter.
Datelined Jerusalem, October 18. The publication date recorded here is October 20, which the clipping itself does not show.
British troops who blew up three Arab houses in Daharia, near Hebron, in reprisal for an Arab raid Monday on a police arsenal marked more houses for demolition—the number to correspond to the number of rifles taken. They promised to spare one house for each rifle returned.
Arabs Watchful in Holy Land As Shepherds 1937 Yrs. Ago
Moslem Factions Resent British Plan for 3-Way Palestine Partition, Distrusting Jews and All Other Elements Involved
Webb Miller, United Press
By Webb Miller, United Press, Jerusalem via London, Dec. 22: “Bitter determination to resist the British Royal Commission's recommendations for the partition of Palestine into three parts is being increasingly manifest as the Christmas season approaches at the scene of Christ's birth. Rioting, bloodshed and daily assassinations have, if anything, increased in their recurrence.”
The Paducah Sun ran a shortened take of the Webb Miller dispatch; the Indianapolis News of the same date printed it at length, with the Arab case set out in ten numbered points.
Proposed Partition Of Palestine Is Bitterly Opposed By People
Webb Miller, United Press
“JERUSALEM, Via London, Dec. 23—(U.P)—Bitter determination to resist the imposition of the British royal commission’s recommendations for the partition of Palestine into three parts is being increasingly manifested as the Christmas season approaches in the land of Christ’s birth. Rioting, bloodshed and daily assassinations have, if anything, increased in tempo… Foremost Arab leaders expressed undying opposition to the plan. I talked with leaders of every shade of political opinion who are still at liberty, including several Arabs at Beirut who fled into Lebanon to escape arrest and deportation. There was surprising unanimity of opinion in refusing to agree to any form of ‘dismemberment.’… Arab rejection of partition is based chiefly on the following outstanding points: 1. Partition withholds what Arabs regard as their inalienable right to complete independence in all of Palestine’s soil, similarly to the neighboring independent Arab states. 2. In the section provisionally delimited by the royal commission as comprising the suggested Jewish state, there live 325,000 Arabs compared to 300,000 Jews. 3. The greater portion of the fertile coastal land has been assigned to the Jewish state, leaving the arid, rocky and infertile mountainous portion to the Arabs… 7. Of nearly 1,000,000 Arabs in Palestine, only about 570,000 would be included within the frontiers of the proposed Arab state.”
The paper’s own note above the story: “Herewith is the third of a series by Webb Miller on the situation in the Holy Land, torn by Jewish-Arab strife and bloodshed as the Christmas season approaches. Miller flew to Palestine and back to London to obtain uncensored dispatches.” The objections are set out as a numbered list; eight of them are on this part of the page.
Arabs Bitterly Determined to Oppose Palestine Partition
Filed beneath a year-in-review feature headed "APRIL, 1937: Hitler Talks of Nazi Need for Those Lost Colonies"
Webb Miller, United Press, Jerusalem via London
“JERUSALEM, via LONDON, December 23.—Bitter determination to resist the imposition of the British royal commission’s recommendations for the partition of Palestine into three parts is being increasingly manifested as the Christmas season approaches in the land of Christ’s birth. Rioting, bloodshed and daily assassinations have increased in their recurrence… Foremost Arab leaders expressed undying opposition to the plan. I talked with leaders of every shade of political opinion who are still at liberty, including several Arabs at Beirut who fled into Lebanon to escape arrest and deportation. There was surprising unanimity of opinion in refusing to agree to any form of ‘dismemberment.’ Extremist leaders said they intend to intensify their guerilla warfare and terrorist activities against the British and Jews, despite repressive measures, unless the partition scheme is abandoned. They proclaimed their intention of continuing armed resistance as long as is necessary to attain their basic aim of independence. Arab rejection of partition is based chiefly on the following outstanding points: 1. Partition withholds what Arabs regard as their inalienable right to complete independence in all Palestine’s soil, similarly to the neighboring independent Arab states. 2. In the section provisionally delimited by the royal commission as comprising the suggested Jewish state, there live 325,000 Arabs as compared to 300,000 Jews. 3. The greater portion of the fertile coastal land has been assigned to the Jewish state, leaving the arid, rocky and infertile mountainous portion to the Arabs. 4. The proposed frontiers would throw a barrier between Arab Palestine and Arab Syria, which are linked by bonds of blood and culture, thus constituting a barrier to Arab unity. 5. The proposed British mandatory zone passes through lands principally Arab-owned and further infringes Arabian territorial unity. 6. Inclusion of Jerusalem in the British mandate, with its 75,000 Jews, 25,000 Moslems and 20,000 Christians, would result in its eventual control by Jewish interests, which would be intolerable in view of the location there of the holy places of the Moslem faith. 7. Of nearly 1,000,000 Arabs in Palestine, only about 570,000 would be included within the frontiers of the proposed Arab state. 8. The Jewish state is over-populated with immigrants, and the result would be Jewish aspirations for expansion. 9. The Jews are a minority of intruders whose political connections in Palestine ceased twenty centuries ago, while the Arabs have maintained unbroken residence more than thirteen centuries. 10. Britain’s imperial and military considerations have been permitted to outweigh justice to the Arabs…”
An American news agency printing the Arab case against partition as a numbered list, in the correspondent’s own summary of what he was told, eleven years before 1948. Above it on the same page: Hitler talking about Germany’s lost colonies, a dog column, and a notice that Woodruff Place would hold its annual Yule program.
“The monthly meeting of the Zionist District of Paterson will be held at the Y. M. H. A., Van Houten street, tonight at 8:30 o’clock. Rabbi Kaufman, president of the district, invited all the Zionist organizations to attend and give a report of their activities. ‘The district meeting,’ says the rabbi, ‘ought to serve as the clearing house of all Zionist work, because only through coordination and cooperation can we expect to attain results in these trying times through which we are passing.’ A special program has been arranged. An outstanding speaker has been invited to address the gathering in the person of Rabbi Theodore Friedman, of North Bergen, who has chosen as his theme, ‘What Palestine Can Do for Us’… There will also be a report of the Washington Conference on Palestine, which was held recently, and which served to awaken public opinion in America among non-Jewish circles to the need of helping the Jews regain Palestine as the homeland… An exhibit of Palestinian products, consisting of the groceies, beverages and candies made in Palestine as well as the art work of Bezalel will also be displayed. Paterson Jewry will have an opportunity to examine the work of the Chalutzim in Eretz Yisroel, and purchase some for home use if they desire. ‘It should be the duty of every Jew,’ says Rabbi Kaufman, ‘to encourage the upbuilding of Palestine industries by purchasing at least some of the products. At the Sabbath meal, the table should be graced by some Palestinian-made food.’”
The third clipping in this archive where Palestinian means Jewish. A month earlier the Mount Vernon Argus advertised an exhibit of Palestinian foods and art work at a Zionist youth symposium in Westchester; seven years later a New Bedford paper introduces a Palestinian artist who turns out to have trained at the Bezalel academy. Here the phrase is Palestinian-made food, on a Sabbath table in New Jersey, meaning the produce of the Jewish settlements. The archive also holds six American clippings between 2008 and 2022 in which Palestinian food means maqluba. The paper’s spelling, groceies, is kept.
“The Youth Zionist organization held a symposium on Zionism last night with 75 guests attending. Milton Taub presided and gave a short talk on formation of the group and the work it has outlined for the future. Speakers included Kieve Skidell who reviewed the history of Palestine; Jacob Geleanter, who spoke on religious labor in Palestine; Leo Solkoff, who discussed the ideals of Zionism; Harry P. Fierst who talked on general Zionism, and Jules Freed, who spoke for the United Palestine Appeal. An exhibit of Palestinian foods and art work was conducted through the courtesy of ‘Palestine House.’”
A suburban club notice, kept for its last sentence. In 1938 an exhibit of Palestinian foods and art work at a Zionist youth meeting in Westchester means the produce and craft of the Jewish settlements. The archive holds the same usage seven years later in New Bedford, where a Palestinian artist turns out to be a Jewish painter trained at the Bezalel academy.
Arab-Jewish Conflict Becomes Great Britain's Thorniest Problem
Webb Miller, United Press, London
“LONDON, July 28 (U.P.). — Great Britain faces in Palestine perhaps the thorniest problem of her imperial history, with little hope that any formula for solution will prevent long and violent conflict between Arabs and Jews. The British wartime government made seemingly irreconcilable commitments for establishment of an independent Arab state and for creation of a Jewish nation in the same land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Both Jews and Arabs demand fulfillment of these pledges. The result has been a series of killings, bombings and other outrages approaching civil war. The 9000 troops, warships, armored cars and airplanes which Great Britain has sent to police Palestine prove futile against guerrilla warfare. Just as futile have been the investigations and recommendations of officials and commissions. I am convinced that British authorities are basing their hope for a settlement on partition of Palestine into three parts—Arab, Jewish and British—with arrangements for British arms to enforce the division. A friend in Jerusalem in touch with the British commission now studying the problem outlined to me the main points of the probable recommendation. ‘The partition of Palestine into three parts along the lines already suggested by the Peel commission but with slight alterations for strategic purposes is probable,’ he said. ‘One alternative would be to add to the Jewish state the ridges which control the Sharon valley, leaving the Negeb region undivided for development under British mandate. The Arab state would be joined to Trans-Jordania under Emir Abdullah. Since voluntary acceptance of these recommendations is improbable, they would have to be imposed by force. That probably would mean more bloodshed.’ The Jewish agency representing the Zionist movement already has officially indicated willingness to negotiate with the British regarding establishment of a Jewish state under a partition scheme. The faction known as Revisionists aims to eventual Jewish domination of all Palestine. Arabs object to the partition theory, in which they see the death knell of their aspirations to rule a territory which they regard as theirs by right of 13 centuries of occupation. An exiled Arab leader gave the following explanation: ‘We believe the British in desperation are going to try to force partition upon us. We shall never accept. Aside from the fact that the British promised us independence, we object to partition that would leave Arabs only rocky, infertile hill regions unable to support their population. Establishment of a Jewish state could not solve the problem of world Jewry because such a state could not hold more than a fraction of Jews who want to escape oppression in Europe.’”
The same correspondent who filed the ten-point Arab case in December 1937, writing from London five months earlier. An exiled Arab leader, unnamed, is given the last word, including the argument that a Jewish state could not hold enough of the Jews fleeing Europe.
HAIFA, Palestine, Aug. 3.—A curfew imposed July 25 when a bomb explosion killed at least 35 and wounded 50 to 60 persons was lifted today, indicating that authorities believed a tense situation arising from Arab-Jewish racial strife was improving.
Stability in strong Jewish state foreseen by supporters
“Because of the current conflict in Palestine, The Register is reprinting this summary of Zionist purpose and achievement as presented in a bulletin of the Zionist Organization of America.” “Before the World War, the Palestine Arabs never claimed nationhood or statehood for Palestine.” “Only two generations ago, the entire Arab population of Palestine was less than 300,000.” It credits Zionism with “the transformation of a fringe of the Arab desert into a land flowing with milk and honey.”
The Register reprinted a bulletin of the Zionist Organization of America as a summary of Zionist purpose. The words are the organization’s, printed by the paper without reply.
Close Watch On Roads. JOURNALISTS SHOWN PUNITIVE MEASURE.
Reuter and Press Association Foreign Special messages, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM, Wednesday. The strength of the British forces in Palestine at present, including military units and Air Force, but excluding police, Transjordan Frontier Forces, and auxiliary police, was officially given to-day by a military spokesman as approximately 18,500 officers and men. This figure includes the new battalion drafts which are expected here. The military are taking firm measures in northern Palestine to obtain security on the roads. These measures, which include picketing—the posting of sentries on high ground so as to keep the roads continuously under observation—were explained to-day to British and foreign journalists by Brig. J. F. Evetts, commanding the Haifa district. The correspondents were taken on a tour of several miles from Haifa, and witnessed the demolition as a punitive measure of an Arab village near Acre. Sappers expeditiously carried out the demolition. The Royal West Kents occupied the surrounding district while the demolition went on.”
A demolition arranged for the press to watch, under the subhead JOURNALISTS SHOWN PUNITIVE MEASURE. A British paper: the spellings in the transcription are its own.
ENGLISH VICTORIOUS IN GAZA, PALESTINE, WHERE SAMSON DIED
Search Historic Philistine City Whose Gates Strong Man of Bible Carried Off; Confiscate Hidden Arms
James A. Mills, Associated Press, Gaza, Palestine
“Eight thousand Arab residents of Gaza who were suspected of harboring and assisting rebels against British authority were rounded up, searched, questioned and relieved of firearms in a surprise attack at dawn… Forcing the city’s elders to guide them, 18 British searching parties entered each home… As the troops entered the historic gates the sound of the truck motors set Gaza’s dogs to barking and almost spoiled the army’s plans for a silent, surprise occupation.”
Nothing is omitted. The mass detention is in the second paragraph, plainly stated and accurate. What has been removed is that any of it is happening to anybody: the only subhead is Dogs Almost Spoil Plan, because the dogs are the story’s only jeopardy, and the person the piece is built around is Samson. A reader in Wichita was told a good yarn about the Holy Land and every fact in it was true.
Great Britain Is Caught Between Arab “Devil” and Jewish “Deep Blue Sea”
Wartime Promises to Antagonistic Peoples Come Back to Haunt England’s Diplomats
By Milton Bronner
Under the watchful eye of a British soldier in the background, Arabs of the village of Hebron, in Palestine, are forced to remove a rock barrier placed across the road by a guerrilla band of their revolting countrymen. General harassment of this sort plus a rapidly mounting casualty list from violent Arab raids has forced Britain to put a major punitive force in Palestine.
The body sets the two cases in alternating paragraphs, headed The Arabs and The Jews, including the argument over who owns the land. The Jews: Fifty-three per cent of the 320,000 acres we hold have been bought from absentee landlords and 25 per cent from rich Arab landholders. The Arabs: The Jews, with their money, are buying the choice lands and making Arabs poor and landless. The caption is the reason this clipping is here: Hebron, in Palestine, twenty-one years after the British took it.
BRITAIN MOPS UP IN HOLY LAND; 3-YEAR ARAB REVOLT PUT DOWN; PEACE SESSION IN LONDON NEAR
Casualties Estimated at 2,000 Dead, 3,000 Wounded in Greatest Uprising Since World War
Correction: {'pub': 'The Daily Notes', 'date': '1939-01-13', 'note': 'two captions arrived swapped; “3-year Arab revolt” dates this to the 1936-39 revolt, not 1917'}
Palestine Has Made Vast Strides Despite Stubborn Racial Conflict
Improvement in physical and cultural condition of both Jews and Arabs is a modern miracle which inspires the hope that another generation may find way to peace, although the elements in the present political situation point to continued strife
May 1939. A generation was going to find the way to peace. The revolt had been running for three years and the war was four months off.
“JERUSALEM, (UP) — The first Arab woman to serve sentence under the emergency defense regulations, Mrs. Sathij Nassar, is serving a three-month term in a concentration camp after her arrest at Haifa. Mrs. Nassar, 48, the granddaughter of Abbas, founder of the universal Bahai religion, was alleged to have aided and abetted Arab rebels and to have contributed inflammatory articles in El Carmel, Arabic weekly of which she was co-editor. News of her arrest was suppressed for a week in the interest of public security, but it spread rapidly and brought numerous protests. Arab women societies planned a series of public demonstrations in protest. Mrs. Nassar lived in Balad esh Sheik village, near Haifa, with her 60-year-old Arab husband, Najib Nassar. She was widely known as a worker among women’s organization. Last year she attended the All-Arab Women’s Congress at Cairo to discuss the Palestine question as a member of the Palestine delegation. She was elected permanent secretary on the standing executive committee of the congress.… She was accompanied by Maiman[…]ah, daughter of the late Sheik Izzeddin Kassam, founder of a secret order whom Arabs regard as the herald of armed resistance to Zionist aims. Mrs. Nassar received her primary education in the home of her grandfather, Abdul Baha Abbas, at Acre. Then she completed the English High School for girls at Haifa. In her teens she was regarded as the prettiest of her town and at the age of 20 she married a cousin who died a few years later. Her marriage with Najib Nassar, proprietor of El Carmel, in 1926, was the romantic culmination of some previous years of ‘literary acquaintance,’ a phenomenon in Arab harem society. It started by her contributing articles on social subjects to his paper. She professed Bahaism, a religion that reveres three great faiths, and Najib Nassar was a Christian. The Nassars have a 10-year-old son named Farouk, because his birthday coincided with that of King Farouk of Egypt. Mrs. Nassar has always preferred to serve behind the scenes in her various organizations, refusing to accept leadership. In speeches she has propagated the theme that Zionism does not limit its program to Palestine, but looks forward to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and eventual domination of the Arab and Moslem East.”
A Palestinian newspaper editor imprisoned for what she printed, and the paper reporting it says so plainly: the arrest was suppressed for a week, and Arab women’s societies organized demonstrations when it came out. The detention is called a concentration camp, in 1939, by United Press. The emergency defense regulations she was jailed under are the same body of British law that the Communist Party of Israel names in this archive in 1967, when Mahmoud Darwish is among those arrested under it. Her name is more usually written Sadhij Nassar; the spelling here is the paper’s. The story runs on two pages and both scans are held. The jump carries her whole life: the Bahai grandfather at Acre, the English High School for girls at Haifa, the years of “literary acquaintance” with the editor she married after writing for his paper, the son named for the king of Egypt, and the line that she refused leadership of the organizations she worked in. Her companion at the Cairo congress is identified as a daughter of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.
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.