LOcATING THe ZIONIST-ARAB eNcOUNTeR • 25abdul hamid II in 1908 was designed rather to reinstate the Ottoman
Constitution and parliamentary system that had been created more
than three decades earlier, at the end of the tanzimat period in 1876
just before they were suspended when abdul hamid II ascended as
the new sultan. The precise aims and true effects of the revolution are
sources of sustained scholarly debate.^35 During the period itself, how-
ever, many perceived a turkist ethno- national particularism among the
revolution’s leaders and ideologues, even as the revolution promised
“Liberty, equality, Fraternity, and Justice.”^36
When, for instance, the Young turk intellectual Yusuf akçura iden-
tified the ideological options he saw available to the Ottoman ad-
ministration in 1904 (namely, pan- Ottomanism, pan- Islamism, and
pan- turkism), he insisted that it would be best “to pursue a turkish
nationalism based on race.”^37 Between 1904 and 1907, the Young turk
journal Türk published a plethora of articles on race theory and the
turkish race, and its editors used the language of race in arguing for
the turkishness of various turkic groups.^38 In 1907, for instance, the
journal noted that “currently some learned azerbaijanis comprehend
that they are racially Turkish, and that sectarian differences, such as
those between the Sunni and Shiite sects” had been exaggerated by op-
portunistic Muslim rulers.^39 though the platform of the Young turk po-
litical party, the Committee of Union and progress (CUp), guaranteed
“complete liberty and equality irrespective of race and sect,”^40 Muslims
not of turkish origin, let alone Christians and Jews, were disturbed by
what they saw as the cUP’s true agenda of “Turkification.” Regardless
of whether these suspicions were warranted, race- thinking was part of
the Ottoman discourse, especially in the years surrounding the Young
(^35) For a clear, concise narrative of the revolution, see Masters, The Arabs of the Otto-
man Empire, 211– 13. For a study of the effects of the revolution on the Jewish, Arme-
nian, and Greek Orthodox leaderships and communities of Jerusalem, see Der Matossian,
“Administrating the Non- Muslims and the ‘Question of Jerusalem’ after the Young Turk
Revolution.”
(^36) Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, 150; Campos, Ottoman Broth-
ers, 82. On the hopes of certain arab proponents of Ottomanism (including ruhi al-
Khalidi) in the immediate wake of the Young turk revolution, see abu- Manneh, “arab-
Ottomanists’ Reactions to the Young Turk Revolution.”
(^37) Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, 147. On the “national and
racial outlooks” associated with the rise of Turkish nationalism, see Kushner, The Rise of
Turkish Nationalism, 1876– 1908 , 41– 49.
(^38) Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 297. According to Hanioğlu, after the rev-
olution the Young turks ceased discussing race in public as they shifted their rhetoric
to Ottomanism, but in private correspondence race remained central to their thinking.
(^39) Türk, no. 158 (March 14, 1907), 1. Cited in ibid., 68.
(^40) Cited in Campos, Ottoman Brothers, 82.