The establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine is...

The establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine is unanimously explained by Arab nationalists as an imperialist plot against the Arab nation, designed to retard Arab unity and to fritter away Arab resources in the struggle with the Zionist enemy'. This explanation fails to account for so many aspects of the question that it can only be deemed of mere propaganda value.

The Arab nationalists cannot explain why the attempts at setting up Israel started when Palestine was still a part of the 'Uthmani State. Instead, it is Sultan 'Abd al-Hamid's rebuff of these attempts that can explain the encouragement given to the idea of Arab nationalism by anti-caliphate, foreign powers at the time (the French in Lebanon, for instance).

There was no 'Arab nation' at that time to justify the fiendish imperialist plot but there was rather an 'Islamic nation' to be torn to pieces by the colonial and Zionist schemes in which Arab nationalism itself featured prominently. But this view is, of course, uncomfortable to the nationalists. More importantly, they cannot explain, let alone come to grips with, the religious nature of the Jewish nationalism which has been planted by their secular Western mentors in Palestine.

They have been taught by the West that nationalism is built on material and cultural ties that do not include religion. In fact, nationalism replaces religion as a locus of allegiance and has priority over it in the life of an individual or a nation. This principle was shattered to pieces before the uncomprehending eyes of the Arab nationalists as they confronted the Israeli case.

For here material considerations such as unity of race or original homeland did not exist and the Jewish religion is the constitutive element of the Israeli-'nationalism'. Religious observances and symbols play such a vital part in the state's affairs that it is impossible to deny the essential religious character of Israel. The only response that the Arab nationalists could bring to this situation was to invent a famous dichotomy distinguishing the Jewish' from the Zionist'.