“CONCerNING Our ARAb QuESTIOn”? • 115but rather by “the religious hatred that they have for the Jews.”^84 In
another issue of ha-Ḥerut, a reader sent a letter to the editor concerning
the oft- repeated proposal for a Jewish- edited arabic- language newspa-
per. “It will be the responsibility of the newspaper,” writes this reader,
“to show the source of the hatred” against the Jews of palestine. the
paper would have “to explain that it is not the benefit of the nation and
the land”^85 that motivates the new enemy press, but rather “Christian-
ity’s hatred of Judaism.” “It will be possible to prove this,” the reader
concludes, “from the fact that the Muslim arabs, who are far from re-
ligious hatred, understand the benefit that the Hebrew settlement has
brought.”^86 In other words, Christian arabs oppose Zionism because of
their religion’s hatred of Jews’ religion. Muslim arabs, members of a
faith that, according to this author and others in ha-Ḥerut, is by nature
tolerant of other religions, acknowledge the supposed material benefit
that Zionism bestowed on palestine.
recent scholars have questioned the claim commonly expressed by
Zionists during the Ottoman period (and later) that Palestine’s Chris-
tians were more resistant to Zionism than were their Muslim coun-
terparts.^87 We might further wonder whether any differences that did
exist stemmed from religion or, alternatively, from Christians’ socio-
economic status as competitors with palestine’s Jews or from a more
developed nationalist consciousness engendered by european- style ed-
ucation. Nonetheless, in the minds of many Zionists, the Christians’
motivation for opposing Zionism was religious.
One wonders to what degree Zionists may here have been projecting
their own religious hostility onto others, as evidence in the hebrew
press suggests that among some of palestine’s Zionists, there was in-
deed religious antipathy against Christianity. Take, for example, an
article provocatively titled (in large, bold letters) “Jesus of nazareth
Never existed” in a March 1910 edition of ha-Ḥerut.^88 “neither a fire
nor an earthquake nor even a plague could inflict such terror and fear
upon the Christians of Germany as did the actions of professor arthur
Drew[s],” a German intellectual who enraged and scandalized many
within Germany and the broader Christian world with his claims that
Jesus had actually never lived, that is, that there was no historical
(^84) ha-Ḥerut 3:43 (January 30, 1911), 3– 4.
(^85) Here, as throughout the literature of this period, the definition and thus referent of
the terms “nation” and “land” are ambiguous. the context of the letter suggests broad
definitions of both, namely, the Ottoman “nation” and the Ottoman Empire, respectively,
but other interpretations might be reasonable as well.
(^86) ha-Ḥerut 2:100 (May 30, 1910), 2– 3.
(^87) See Khalidi, PalestinianIdentity.
(^88) ha-Ḥerut 2:67 (March 2, 1910), 2.