ABSTRACT
Historians discussing Ottoman–Zionist relations during the early months of World War I relied primarily on the Zionist movement’s records, as well as Western diplomatic dispatches, while utilizing few if any Ottoman records. In his ground-breaking study on the period, Isaiah Friedman argued that Ottoman–Zionist relations had initially been reasonably good. They deteriorated significantly, however, following the appointment of a new sub-district governor to Jaffa. Allegedly, Bahaeddin Bey succeeded in instigating the powerful military commander of the region, Ahmed Djemal Pasha, against the Zionist movement. According to Friedman, the Fourth Army commander entertained xenophobic ideas which were coupled with Islamist passion. The Ottoman central authorities appeared not have shared Djemal Pasha’s views but, nevertheless, accepted the claims of the Jaffa governor following his return to Istanbul. Before his mission to Jaffa, Bahaeddin Bey had experienced the Ottoman defeat in the Balkans. Thus, he was receptive to overtures from Arab members of the Ottoman Parliament who were scheming against the Zionist movement. The latter had convinced the sub-district governor that Jewish immigration was detrimental to the Ottoman government’s interests. 2 In a recent study on Ottoman population policy, Fuat Dündar offered an alternative to the conspiracy theory. Discussing Ottoman strategies in regard to Zionist settlement projects in Palestine, he argued that the expulsion of Jewish enemy aliens was a “demographic” operation. In other words, the Jews formed an integral part of an Ottoman government agenda which targeted several non-Turkish communities. M. Talha Çiçek challenged this view in a study on Syria during World War I which analyzed Djemal Pasha’s policy and its impact on various communities. Çiçek argued that the Fourth Army commander “aimed at the control of Zionist activities, rather than any Turkification of Palestine inspired by ethnic engineering.” Instead, he sought to centralize the administration by eliminating communal intermediaries, including Zionist leaders, from local power structures. 3
