traNSLatioN aND coNqueSt • 233a more sympathetic view of Judaism and Jewish history (to combat
antisemitism that was, itself, spread through translation).
In concluding this chapter, I should note a revealing irony that has
emerged, especially in the study of the figure of Nissim Malul. Malul, to
be sure, was not a political leader of the Zionist movement, neither in
palestine nor elsewhere. he was, however, highly influential in shap-
ing the views of Zionists— both the leadership and the broader read-
ership of Zionist periodicals— as regards their understanding of arabs’
perceptions of them.^179 Whether through his writing for ha- Ḥerut in pal-
estine and ha- Shiloaḥ in Odessa or his press reports for the Zionist of-
ficials in Jaffa, constantinople, and Berlin, Malul’s assessment of arab
views of Zionism in the Late Ottoman period was broadcast throughout
the Zionist world. Given his central role in informing Zionists of how
they were viewed by arabs (or, more precisely, how he thought Zionists
were viewed by arabs), we should consider how Malul’s assessment of
arab perceptions of Zionists accords with the argument of this book
about religion and race. Concerning race, Malul says little, though in
his call for Zionists to embrace the arabic language as a basis for de-
veloping the hebrew language and “a real hebrew culture,” he refers
to the Jews as a “semitic nation” (leʾum shemi) that, through arabic,
can reinforce its “semitic nationhood” (leʾumiyuteinu ha- shemi).^180 this,
however, concerns his understanding of the Jews, not how he believed
they were viewed by arabs.
the question is still more complex concerning religion. On the one
hand, Malul would seem to have recognized the importance of religion
in how arabs viewed Jews and Zionism; after all, he wrote a book
about religion in his effort to defend them. on the other hand, in his
own book about intercommunal tension and persecution ostensibly
motivated by religion, he insists that religion is never the “true” mo-
tivator behind the hostility and that what is really underlying the in-
tolerance and violence is economic jealousy. For Malul, as for Moyal,
religion— when “properly” understood— would naturally unite people
within individual religions as well as across different religions. prob-
lems arise only when religion is misunderstood. that actual substan-
tive differences between religions could themselves cause hostility
between practitioners of the respective religions was unfathomable.
For some Zionists— then and since— it was perhaps easier to imagine a
(^179) Cf. Yoav Gelber’s dismissal of rashid Khalidi’s reference to Malul as having
“played an important role in the Zionist movement.” See Khalidi, The Iron Cage, 103;
Gelber, “the Iron Cage.”
(^180) ha- Ḥerut (June 19, 1913), 2. See also Behar and Ben- Dor Benite, Modern Middle
Eastern Jewish Thought, 69.