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particularly their leadership were an overwhelmingly literate, edu-
cated community, and so it was natural for ruppin’s palestine office to
turn toward a written, textual source such as newspapers as it sought
to assess arab views. Second, the press was easily and inexpensively
accessible. the palestine office simply needed to pay for subscriptions
and hire a translator to evaluate arab sentiments from throughout the
region and across the various demographic sectors. at a time when—
notwithstanding al- Khalidi’s perception of infinite Zionist capital—
funds were limited, this was a more economical option than deploy-
ing a team of interviewers and investigators. third, several of the
arabic- speaking Sephardic intellectuals to whom the palestine office
appealed, such as Malul, were themselves already active in the general
arabic press in egypt, Syria, or palestine; it is thus unsurprising that
these Zionist agents believed strongly in the power of the press and
argued that the Zionist establishment should take it seriously. Indeed,
the writers in ha- Ḥerut and the officials in the press Bureau imagined
that the arabic press did not reflect arab views so much as the press
created (or, at least, strongly influenced) those views.
While there was widespread Zionist agreement that the advent of
this anti- Zionist arabic press constituted a significant threat to the
movement, the appropriate reaction to the threat was less clear.^31 ex-
posing it, by means of translation, was deemed to be a necessary part
of the response; for most, however, exposé was not sufficient. one way
in which Zionists hoped to improve their portrayal in the arabic press
was financially to assist sympathetic arabic newspaper editors. the
paper that appears to have received the greatest Zionist financial sup-
port was an- Nafīr, edited by the Christian arab Iliya Zakka.^32 In 1910
ha- Ḥerut’s editor, avraham elmaleh, alerted his readers to the fact that
“there is in Jerusalem an Israel- loving arabic newspaper edited by the
young, talented writer Iliya Zakka, who disagrees with al- Karmil and
all of the enemies of Israel.” In recognition of Zakka’s “beautiful ar-
ticles in support of israel” (and by israel, elmaleh meant the Jews),
ha- Ḥerut called on its readers to subscribe en masse to an- Nafīr. “Let us
create for him just one hundred subscribers, and through him we will
be able to respond,” elmalah wrote, to the slander printed about the
Jews and Zionism.^33
(^31) For a useful early scholarly article on the subject, see roʾi, “Nisyonoteihem shel
ha- mosadot ha- ẓiyonim lehashpiʿa ʿal ha- ʿitonut ha- ʿarvit be- ereẓ yisraʾel ba- shanim
1908– 1914.”
(^32) On Zakka’s an- Nafīr, founded in alexandria and then moved to Jerusalem and then
haifa, see Yehoshuʿa, Tārīkh aṣ- ṣiḥāfa al- ʿarabiyya fī filasṭīn fī al- ʿahd al- ʿuthmānī, 1908–
1918 , 50– 53.
(^33) ha- Ḥerut 2:98 (May 25, 1910), 1– 2.