Arab American Writers, the Mahjar Press, and the Palestine Issue

Abstract

This article reviews the attitudes of leading Arab Americans, as expressed in the Arab press in the United States (Sahafat Al-Mahjar as well as various anthologies in Arabic or English) toward Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, and the idea of a Jewish home in Palestine. The noted literary figure Mikhail Naimy sounded the alarm in 1915 (two years before the Balfour Declaration was issued) that moves were afoot to convert Palestine into a Jewish state, at the expense of the Palestinians, who, to his surprise, were strangely silent on the issue at the time. Another celebrated man of letters, Amin Rihani, was deeply engaged with the subject, and looked for avenues of reconciliation with variants of Zionism, except for “state-Zionism.” Rihani and others rose to the defense of Palestinians, particularly when they came under attack in the US press. Interestingly, one can trace an evolution in the thinking of the best writers among Arab Americans from total rejection of the Balfour Declaration toward the acceptance of a Jewish home in Palestine so long as it did not aspire to transform this haven (which appeared to have come into existence by the late thirties) from a refuge into a Jewish state.