Defining Neighbors. Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter - Jonathan Marc Gribetz

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Hugo),^10 and al-­Muqaddima­fī­al-­masʾala­ash-­sharqiyya (Introduction to
the eastern Question)— wished to understand more deeply the phe-
nomenon of Zionism.^11
Gottheil’s twenty- one- page encyclopedia entry offered al- Khalidi a
unique window into the world of this movement. It was at once the
work of a man deeply involved in and therefore familiar with the history
of Zionism and, at the same time, an ostensibly nonpolemical account
of the movement’s historical, religious, and political underpinnings.^12
Having read Gottheil’s article and numerous other works on Judaism
and Jewish history, al- Khalidi set out to write his own book— in Ara-
bic— on Zionism, and Gottheil’s encyclopedia entry would serve as one
of his central sources. Taking seriously Gottheil’s claim that “the idea
of a return of the Jews to Palestine has its roots in many passages of
Holy Writ,” al- Khalidi looked to the ancient history and texts of the
Jews as he worked to understand and analyze Zionism. during the
final years before his untimely death in 1913 at the age of forty- nine,
al- Khalidi crafted a book manuscript that, while titled “as- Sayūnīzm ay
al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” (Zionism or the Zionist Question), is actually
an extended account of and commentary on the history of “the Israel-
ites” from the Bible until al- Khalidi’s own day.^13
Al- Khalidi’s manuscript provides the historian with a veritable trea-
sure trove of insights into the ways in which a native Muslim Arab of

(^10) First published in 1904; republished in 1912. This book is actually a collection of
articles al- Khalidi wrote in the journal al-­Hilāl between 1902 and 1904. As Brugman
notes, “despite its pretentious title, the work chiefly dealt with Victor Hugo, apart from
some passages about the Arabic balāgha and about the literary connections between
Arabic literature and the French and english literatures.” Brugman, An­Introduction­to­
the­History­of­Modern­Arabic­Literature­in­Egypt, 331. See also Kasmieh, “Ruhi Al- Khalidi
1864– 1913,” 135– 36.
(^11) despite its hagiographic tone, Kasmieh’s article offers useful insights on al- Khalidi’s
varied interests. See “Ruhi Al- Khalidi 1864– 1913,” 132.
(^12) Though Shuly Rubin Schwartz is correct in pointing to Gottheil’s reference to Herzl
as “a martyr to the Jewish cause” as evidence of Gottheil’s “decided slant in favor of the
modern political movement [Zionism] to which he was devoted,” the bulk of Gottheil’s
article on the history of Zionism is written more dispassionately. See Schwartz, The­Emer-
gence­of­Jewish­Scholarship­in­America.
(^13) In the scholarship on the Arabs and Zionism, al- Khalidi is best known for his public
broadside against Zionism in the Ottoman Parliament in May 1911. In response to an
earlier speaker’s demand that the national and religious beliefs of all groups within the
empire must be respected, al- Khalidi began by asserting that he was not an antisemite
but simply an opponent of Zionism. He proceeded by offering a brief history of Ottoman
Jewry since the Jews’ expulsion from Spain and then continued with an exposition on the
intellectual roots of Zionism from the Bible onward. Al- Khalidi’s speech, the few others
that supported it, and the general resistance his views encountered among the other Ot-
toman parliamentarians, were widely publicized in the contemporary Arabic press. See
Mandel, The­Arabs­and­Zionism­before­World­War­I, 112.