"IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT OTTOMAN": MENASHE MEIROVITCH, ʿISA AL-ʿISA, AND IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP IN PALESTINE. (27th April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dolbee, Samuel; Hazkani, Shay
• Is Part Of: International journal of Middle East studies. Volume 47:Number 2(2015:May)
• Page Start: 241
• Page End: 262
• Publication Date: 2015-04-27
• Subjects: Middle East -- Periodicals; 915.603305
• DOI: 10.1017/S0020743815000033
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-7438

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="normal"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>This article explores a covert partnership between a prominent Zionist agronomist, Menashe Meirovitch, and the Christian Arab editor of the newspaper <italic>Filastin</italic>, ʿIsa al-ʿIsa, a founding father of Palestinian nationalism. Under the literary guise of an Arab Muslim peasant called Abu Ibrahim, the two men produced a series of Arabic-language columns in 1911–12 that exhibited imperial citizenship par excellence, demanding political and agrarian reforms in Palestine in the name of strengthening the Ottoman Empire. The article explores their short-lived political alliance to interrogate historiographical uses of the press as a source for social history. Moreover, it challenges the portrayal of cooperation between Jews and Arabs as "collaboration" in its pejorative sense. Far from a simple story of betrayal or corruption, the partnership between the two men demonstrates how a shared commitment to Ottoman modernism brought them together more than nationalism, language, or religion pulled them apart.</p> </abstract>