The Zionist attitude to the Arabs 1908–1914

Abstract

A good deal has been written about the beginnings of the Arab national movement, its cultural background and early teachings. A certain amount has been written about its political manifestations in the period before World War I, the different groups and societies and their various inclinations and aspirations. However, one aspect of this movement has received very little attention, namely its relations with the Zionist movement and Jewish activity in Palestine, one side of which will be discussed in this article.1 As early as 1905 a number of Arab nationalist and antiZionist manifestations drew the attention of the European press and of Zionists to the Arab national movement. In that year Negib Azoury published Le Reveil de la Nation Arabe which demanded the establishment of an independent Arab empire from the Nile to the Euphrates. He indicated the danger to the fulfilment of the project inherent in the Zionist movement, the ultimate aim of which, according to Azoury, was the revival of the ancient Jewish state at its most expansive.2 An article on the Arab movement devoted largely to an analysis of Azoury's book, was the first of three articles published on the subject in the Jewish nationalist periodical Hashiloah. The article discussed 'the Arab movement, that has just come to light and attracted the gaze of all the peoples of Europe'. The writer pointed out that while there was as yet no real Arab nationalist movement, and although the Arab was still living in a state of ignorance, serfdom and religious fanaticism 'in history it is the movements, not the