Front page

What else were they supposed to call their country? Israel? It didn't even exist then.

  • AstroStelar [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    This is what the linked article on "Palestinian press" says about it:

    Ottoman period (1908–1916)

    Three of Palestine's leading newspapers of the pre-World War I era were Al-Quds (Jerusalem) established by Jurji Habib Hanania in Jerusalem in September 1908; Al-Karmil (Carmel after Mount Carmel) in Haifa by Najib Nassar in December 1908; and Falastin (Palestine) by the cousins Issa El-Issa and Yousef El-Issa in Jaffa in January 1911. These three newspapers voiced Arab aspirations and were all published by Palestinian Christians, showing the early role they played in Arab nationalism. In particular, Al-Karmil and Falastin were opposed to Zionism. It was in this early period that the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinians" were being increasingly used by the press.

    These early Arab Palestinian newspapers saw Ottoman Jews as loyal subjects to the empire, but condemned Zionism, and grew fearful of it due to the waves of European Jewish immigrants to Palestine, who built settlements relying on Jewish labor and excluded Arab ones. Thus, Arab editors began a public awareness campaign, warning that once the Zionist project was fulfilled, the Arab majority and their lands in Palestine would be lost. A common theme in the press of this early period is a criticism directed towards the European Jewish immigrants who failed to integrate, or bother learning Arabic. The Arab editors preferred to raise the issue to the public's attention rather than the Ottoman authorities, so that the public can be active in preventing land sales to Jews, which caused Arab peasants' eviction, and their subsequent loss of work.

    The readership of the newspapers in this early period was limited, but it had been expanding. Literacy rates were relatively low; however, social centers where created, such as libraries, the town cafe and the village guesthouse, where men would read aloud articles from newspapers and engage in political discussions. "Newspaper breaks" used to take place in some factories. There was also recorded instances of newspapers sending a copy of their newspaper to villages in the surrounding areas, namely Falastin. Articles from Falastin and Al-Karmil were often reprinted in other local papers and national ones in Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo.

    It's ultimately a nothing-burger, which makes its featuring on "Did you know?" even more confusing. I couldn't find who nominated it and why, it seems too fresh to be archived so far.

    • AstroStelar [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Today's "Did you know?" also has this:

      Show

      And a previous one felt like propaganda, like "Did you know... Russia bad?":

      Show