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those for whom belief in the afterlife, resurrection, and retribution is
central to their self- identity but as part of the project of explaining to
the reader the biblical basis of Zionism, and, consequently, the gravity
of the dangers it portends.
Indeed, as noted, al- Khalidi quotes the Hebrew Bible, in Arabic trans-
lation, frequently and extensively in his manuscript.^129 The remarkable
line above about Jews’ religious joy in “using foreigners to cultivate”
the land of Zion, for example, is duly supported by al- Khalidi’s subse-
quent excerpt from the sixty- first chapter of the book of Isaiah (verses
not cited in Gottheil’s encyclopedia article). comforting the mourners
of Zion, Isaiah predicts that they “shall build up the ancient ruins, they
shall raise up the former devastations.” Isaiah offers a promise to Zion’s
mourners (which al- Khalidi underlines) that “strangers shall stand and
feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines;
but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named minis-
ters of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their
riches you shall glory” (Isaiah 61:4– 6).^130 While this Israelite prophecy
may have been received in its biblical day as a fantasy of righting injus-
tice and exacting revenge, to an Arab of Palestine in the early twentieth
century it was understood as a threat of the gravest proportions. Zion-
ist Jews have come not only to settle Palestine, al- Khalidi apparently
concluded, but to exploit its population and use the Jews’ great wealth
to do so. Isaiah’s prophecy was coming to pass before al- Khalidi’s own
eyes: al- Khalidi had systematically surveyed the Jewish colonies and
was intimately familiar with the Zionist moshavot (especially those that
are known, in retrospect, as First Aliyah colonies) that depended on in-
expensive Arab labor.^131 The fact that, in his reading, the Hebrew Bible
and the Jewish religion conceived of divine justice and religious satis-
faction as enacted solely in the theater of Palestine had consequences
too real and immediate to ignore.
(^129) The Khalidi Library holds more than ten copies of various Arabic translations of
the Hebrew Bible. By comparing al- Khalidi’s quotations from the Hebrew Bible to the
various available Arabic versions, I have found that al- Khalidi used an Arabic Bible pub-
lished in Beirut. The title of this pocket- sized volume reads: al-Kitābal-muqqadasaykutub
al-ʿahdal-qadīmwa-l-ʿahdal-jadīd (The Holy Bible, i.e., The Books of the Old Testament
and the New Testament). Beneath the title, a note indicates that this Bible was “trans-
lated from the original languages, namely, Hebrew, chaldean, and Greek.” On the his-
tory of Arabic translations of the Bible, see Griffith, TheBibleinArabic. Though Griffith
focuses on premodern translations, see 204– 7 on the nineteenth- century versions.
(^130) These lines are underlined in both al- Khalidi’s original draft and the copyist’s ver-
sion. al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [author’s version], 4; al-
Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 12.
(^131) See Shafir, Land,Labor,andtheOriginsoftheIsraeli-PalestinianConflict,1882–1914;
Morris, RighteousVictims, 39.