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“IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT OTTOMAN”: MENASHE MEIROVITCH, ʿISA AL-ʿISA, AND IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP IN PALESTINE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2015
Abstract
This article explores a covert partnership between a prominent Zionist agronomist, Menashe Meirovitch, and the Christian Arab editor of the newspaper Filastin, 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.
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NOTES
Authors’ note: Our deepest gratitude to Ahmad Amara, Ali Adeeb, Beth Baron, Lauren Benton, Jane Burbank, Michele Campos, Frederick Cooper, Jeffrey Culang, Leena Dallasheh, Evelin Dierauff, Danielle Drori, David Engel, Gennady Estraikh, Nitzan Goldberger, Akram Khater, Zachary Lockman, Fredrik Meiton, the NYU Empires Seminar, Graham Pitts, Sara Pursley, Salim Tamari, Arianne Urus, Alex Winder, and four anonymous IJMES reviewers for patient archival, editorial, and translation support.
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51 Meirovitch, “Maʿseh Yashan, aval Tamid Hadash,” ha-Or, 1912, reprinted in Hevley Tehiyah, ed. Avineri and Meirovitch, 104.
52 Ibid., 103–5.
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54 Qustandi Shumali lists only 5 articles under ʿIsa al-ʿIsa's name before 1927. Fihris al-Nusus al-Adabiyya fi Jaridat Filastin 1911–1967, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Jamʿiyyat al-Dirasat al-ʿArabiyya, 1992), 338–39.
55 Al-ʿIsa, “Le texte: Min dhikrayat al-madi–souvenirs,” 132.
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60 Filastin, 18 August 1912, no. 167.
61 Filastin, 25 August 1912, no. 169.
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63 Tadros Khalaf, Les mémoires de ‘Issa al-‘Issa, 113.
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66 Ibid.
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68 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 89–93.
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70 Menachem Kapeliouk and Menashe Meirovitch, “Biluyi ba-ʿItonut ha-ʿArvit lifney 30 Shanah” [unknown publication], clipped in CZA A32/28.
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72 Menashe Meirovitch, “Michtavim me-Eretz Yisraʾel: Nituah ha-Gzar-Din shel Mar Meirson,” Voskhod, 1899, reprinted in Hevley Tehiyah, 22; Menashe Meirovitch, “ha-Toʿelet she-ba-Kriʾot le-ʿAm,” Speech Delivered in 1899, reprinted in Minhat ʿErev, ed. Meirovitch and Yanovski, 41–42.
73 Nissim Malul and Shimʿon Moyal contributed columns to Arabic newspapers (including Filastin) and also established their own Arabic newspaper. Jacobson, Abigail, From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem between Ottoman and British Rule (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 114–16Google Scholar.
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75 Ibid., 214.
76 Minutes of the meeting of representatives of the Judea colonies and the Jaffa politicians from 6 February 1911, in CZA L2/44.
77 Al-ʿIsa, “Le texte: Min dhikrayat al-madi – souvenirs,”137.
78 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 16 October 1911, in CZA L2/167.
79 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 27 October 1911, in CZA L2/167.
80 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 14 November 1911, in CZA A32/31.
81 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 16 October 1911, in CZA L2/167.
82 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 27 October 1911, in CZA L2/167.
83 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 29 February 1912, in CZA L2/167.
84 Letter to Meirovitch, 25 February 1912, in CZA L2/167.
85 Meirovitch to Ruppin, 12 March 1912, in CZA L2/167
86 See numerous examples in Meirovitch, Hevley Tehiyah.
87 Filastin, 23 July 1911, no. 57.
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89 Filastin, 1 October 1911, no. 77.
90 Ibid.
91 Filastin, 5 November 1911, no. 89.
92 There is no evidence to suggest that Meirovitch's son volunteered in the Ottoman army.
93 It is unclear what al-‘Isa thought about mushaʿ. Tadros Khalaf writes somewhat cryptically that al-ʿIsa “seems to have not missed an occasion to apply his gifts as an administrator, whether it was in the distribution of communal lands or familial lands.” Tadros Khalaf, Les mémoires de ‘Issa al-‘Issa, 116.
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98 Ibid.
99 Filastin, 21 January 1912, no. 108.
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106 Filastin, 25 January 1912, no. 109.
107 Ibid.
108 Filastin, 11 August 1912, no. 165.
109 In fact Meirovitch did speak with the governor personally, when the latter visited Rishon LeZion on 6 August 1912. They discussed issues very similar to those in the petition. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I, 134; Haviv-Lubman, Avraham D. and Haviv, Zerubavel, Korot Rishon le-Tsiyon: Mi-Yom Yisudah ʿad Perots Milhemet Sheshet ha-Yamim (Rishon LeZion: s.n., 1971), 84–85Google Scholar.
110 Meirovitch sent a similar petition to the Ottoman Commission for the Improvement of Agriculture in Palestine in 1911. Meirovitch, “Igeret Ptuha,” 52–53.
111 In a letter to Ruppin from October 1911 Meirovitch explained that in Filastin “articles that speak energetically about the Jewish question are making some trouble so for Jewish questions I approached the editor of al-Nafir with an offer to work together.” Merovitch to Ruppin, 16 October 1911, in CZA L2/167.
112 Roi, “Nisyonoteyhem shel ha-Mosadot,” 224; Yehoshua, Jacob, Tarikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya fi Filastin (Jerusalem: J. Yehoshua, 1974), 52Google Scholar.
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114 Zakka thanked Meirovitch for sending over a column and promised to publish additional articles. Zakka to Meirovitch, [Date unclear], in CZA L2/167.
115 Meirovitch, “Likhvod ʿOrekh ʿIton ha-Nafir,” Letter from Abu Ibrahim to Zakka, circa 1912, reprinted in Minhat ʿErev, ed. Meirovitch and Yanovski, 26.
116 Ibid., 27.
117 Campos, Ottoman Brothers, 222, 228.
118 Menashe Meirovitch, “Nikmatenu ve-Nehamatenu!” ha-Or, 1913, clipped in CZA A32/28.
119 Campos, Ottoman Brothers, 161–62.
120 “Rassail-el-Felah” handwritten draft column, undated, in CZA A32/32.
121 Ibid.
122 Meirovitch, “Likhvod ha-Vaʿada ha-Malkhutit, Yerushalayim,” Meirovitch to the Royal Commission, 28 December 1936, reprinted in Minhat ʿErev, ed. Meirovitch and Yanovski, 57.
123 “Tshuvat ha-Vaʿada ha-Malkhutit,” Secretary of the Royal Commission to Meirovitch, undated, reprinted in Minhat ʿErev, ed. Meirovitch and Yanovski, 58.