Campos 255loyal sons to our land and our dear homeland, bring your powers for the
good of the state in peace because her peace is also peace for you. Be loyal
to our religion and our holy Torah and be with your Ottoman brothers
in brotherhood and friendship so that your names will be blessed and
Jerusalem will boast about you!”^52
oon after, however, against the backdrop of the broader imperial S
tensions among the empire’s constituent groups and the very real strains
under which the Ottomanist project was suffering, an unnamed Christian
newspaper defamed a Jewish doctor in Jaffa who had volunteered to serve
as a military doctor, saying that he had volunteered purely for personal
financial gain. In his defense, “Ottoman Jew” from Jaffa blamed “the usual
Christian jealousy,” claiming that the Christians had done this “at a time
when their doctors are fleeing to Egypt.”^53
e uneasy hybridity of the Ottomanizing public sphere illus-Th
trated in the conscription case was repeated throughout the four-year
period from 1910–14 as dozens of mutual recriminations among Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim writers, editors, and citizens accused the press of
libel or defamation on the individual, communal, and religious level. Jews,
Muslims and Christians used the Ottoman court system and censor as an
arbitrator, seeking group legitimacy from the government that their activi-
ties were, unlike their opponents’ activities, compatible with Ottomanism.
The legal proceedings against the Palestinian press (Christian, Jewish,
and Muslim newspapers) often centered on this discourse of the public
good and unity of the nation. Falastin was shut down several times, once
due to the governor’s opinion that it “sows discord among the elements of
the country.”^54 On another occasion, in April 1913, the government shut
down the paper for “dividing between the races.”^55
e Jewish newspaper in Palestine lodged such a complaint against On
the Haifa-based newspaper al-Karmil, but instead al-Karmil came back
with its own accusation of anti-Ottomanism. According to al-Karmil,
their paper was founded to protect human rights and Ottoman unity, fos-
ter assimilation of its peoples, and warn the government of the ambitions
of foreign residents. The aims of the Jews, according to al-Karmil, can
only damage the advancement of the Ottoman Empire and its success.^56
Angered by this depiction, ha-Herut declared, “Enough! Enough of your
publishing such news that brings bad tidings to the umah and the state!”^57