The Oddity of Being Anti-Zionist is Becoming Anti-"Palestinian"

Just under 100 years ago, Albert T. Clay,  professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University, published an article in The Atlantic Monthly in its February 1921 issue.

It was so good that the author of a piece in Current Opinion a month earlier quoted him approvingly. That author (I was not successful in identifying him) had this opinion about Zionist leaders:

Clay thought that

this scheme for a Jewish state not only accentuates and increases the animosities that have always existed, but invites another tragic chapter in the history of the Hebrews."

Clay held there were 

three aspects of Zionism, namely, the religious, economic, and political aspects.

and defined them so:

Religious Zionism is an expression used to represent the belief of orthodox Judaism that the Jews are the chosen people of the one and only God; that a Messiah will be sent to redeem Israel; and that Jehovah will gather his people, restore the Temple and its service, and reestablish the priesthood and the Jewish  kingdom...Economic Zionism, so-called, has as its object the amelioration of the deplorable conditions in which Jews have lived in certain lands, where they have been outrageously persecuted...Political Zionism...claimed that the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth would become an active force, by bringing diplomatic pressure to bear upon the nations, to secure protection for Jews in all lands. A clannish sense of pride in the Jewish race, however, seems to be uppermost in their minds. They apparently think that their status in society will be enhanced everywhere if a Jewish nation exists in Palestine. This phase of Zionism is the crux of the whole Palestine problem.

Political Zionism, Clay continues, seeks to

foist upon the intelligent public the idea that the population of this land is made up of Bedouins, or even of Arabs, is a deliberate attempt to deceive it.

They are not?

No.

The inhabitants of the land should be called Syrians — or Palestinians, if Palestine is to be separated from Syria. True, there are many Arabs living there, more, for example, than Greeks, Germans, or Latins, because of the proximity of Arabia; but these are not the real Palestinians, nor do they represent the bulk of the substantial part of the nation...There can be no question that the blood of the present Palestinian, or Syrian, includes that of the Jew as well as of the Amorite, Hittite, Phoenician, Philistine, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Arab. Such a fusion is not unlike that found in the veins of many Americans whose ancestors have lived here for several generations. When the whole population of Palestine became Mohammedan, there is little doubt that a large percentage of the Jews were also forced to accept this faith; their descendants are now classed by the Political Zionists as ‘Arabs.’...it is a deliberate misrepresentation to classify the inhabitants as ‘Arabs.’... if we are to decide the question of actual ownership of the territory, the Palestinian who has continuously lived there surely has a clearer title than the Jew. 

For some on my posts on the "Palestinians" actually being Southern Syrians, see:

here.

here.

here. 

and here.

Clay continues:

In order to be ready to give useful information before the [King/Crane] Commission, branches of the Moslem and Christian League were formed at Jaffa, Gaza, Hebron, Djenin, Nablus, Acre, Haifa, Safed, and other places. All branches worked under a constitution approved by the Military Governor of Jerusalem. It was decided to draw up three resolutions to be presented to the Commission:
1. The independence of Syria, from the Taurus Mountains to Rafeh, the frontier of Egypt.2. Palestine not to be separated from Syria, but to form one whole country.3. Jewish immigration to be restricted.
The entire Christian and Moslem population agreed to these resolutions.
It should be said here that there is no justification, from an ethnological or geographical point of view, for dividing Syria into the northern part under the French and a southern part, namely Palestine, under the British. This has already been pointed out by the greatest authority on the history and geography of Palestine, Sir George Adam Smith. One race, the Syrian, or Palestinian, is dominant throughout the territory, from Aleppo to Beersheba; and there is no natural frontier that can divide the two halves of this land...The question arises then, why should the land and people be separated, and two separate administrations be established, with all the expense that this implies? For the entire territory, from Aleppo to Beersheba, is only about 400 miles long and 100 miles wide — about the length of Pennsylvania, and one third its width? Why divide this small land and its people? 

There is no real "Palestine" and if it weren't for Zionism, we would never have heard of such a country or a nationality.

^

l