Pyke 1

Michelle K. Pyke
University of Washington
Honors 231 B
Professor Karam Dana
Response Paper #1
Edward Said, a Palestinian-American scholar and writer, studied the misguided

perception of the Arab world within the United States until his death in 2003. During an

interview produced by the Media Education Foundation, he introduced the notion of Orientalism,

a framework that is used to understand the unfamiliar (the Middle East in this case.)1 According

to Said, the U.S. is guilty of applying unrealistic depictions of Arabs to assert the political

agenda of the majority, especially through investigative journalism pieces, the arts, and other

sources intended for public viewing. Said also described a phenomenon known as “The Timeless

Orient.” Although the progression of time, by definition, results in change, the culture of the

Arab world is mistakenly regarded as uncivilized and far from achieving the same growth as the

Western world. In other words, the history of the Arab world is confined to its violent, internal

struggles rather than a story of its people. In response to Said’s studies about anti-Arab sentiment

in the United States, I would like to further explore how the U.S. developed a close relationship

with Israel during the 20th century. I argue that the repercussions of aligning Zionist interests

with U.S. foreign policy significantly undermine the natural rights of Arab Americans.

The desire for a Jewish homeland existed long before the years leading up to the creation

of Israel as a state in 1948. Zionism, a Jewish nationalist movement, originated in the late 19th

1
Sut Jhally, director. Edward Said on 'Orientalism'. Produced by Sanjay Talreja, Media
Education Foundation, 1998.
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century in eastern and central Europe.2 According to American historian Howard Sachar, the root

of Zionist thought lies in the beliefs of two European Rabbis, Judah Alkalai and Zvi Hirsh

Kalischer.3 Both figures emphasized the need for Jews to return to the Holy Land, a site that is

claimed by Palestine. In response to the massacre of Jews in 1881 in Russia, up to two million

Jews fled to seek sanctuary. The vast majority set their sights on the U.S. while others chose

Palestine. Relations between the native Arabs and the Jewish settlers were slightly tense due to

the changes in land availability and the treatment of the former by some Zionists. This would

only become worse once international politics were more involved.

The U.S. presidential election of 1944 was a tight race. The three key states that could

potentially swing the election were home to over 4 million Jews.4 To take advantage of this,

both the Republican and Democratic candidates appealed to Zionists. They held some political

authority during the time within Congress and were promised a free and independent Jewish

commonwealth in exchange for votes. The displacement of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust

became a rallying cry to regain human dignity. The justification for a Jewish territory is further

complicated by the Holocaust, but the inhumane extermination of Jews was a European-led

enterprise and Palestine did not have any role in this. However, at the time, the U.S. was no

longer accepting refugees, so the alternative, much like it was in 1881, was Palestine. A 1946

Hebrew investigative commission reported that 96.8% of Jewish refugees in Europe were keen to

2
Ruth Selwyn and Tom Selwyn. “Zionism.” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe,
vol. 26, no. 1, 1993, pp. 28–34.
3
Mike Berry and Greg Philo. “Zionist Roots and the First Wave of Jewish Immigration into
Palestine.” Israel and Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 1–2.
4
Mike Berry and Greg Philo. “American Politics and the Settlement of the Holocaust
Survivors.” Israel and Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 19–23.
 Pyke 3

settle in Palestine.5 The fate of Jewish refugees became political leverage to secure political

power. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, publicly supported the settlement of displaced

persons within Palestine in 1945, which may not have been mentioned if the Jewish vote had not

been decisive in the New York election. In fact, the American State Department official William

Eddy suggested that Truman had directly spoken with American ambassadors to the Arab world.

Truman allegedly informed them that he had “to answer to hundreds of thousands who [were]

anxious for the success of Zionism” and that “hundreds of thousands of Arabs” were not “among

[his] constituents.” Essentially, those who harbored justified concerns over the creation of Israel

were ignored.

With the approval of the United Nations in 1948, Israel was established as a sovereign

state.6 The U.S. immediately recognized Israel’s territorial sovereignty and President Truman

secured the support of Zionists within America. However, Arab Americans became the invisible

minority. After 1948, Arab Americans faced an unsettling future that lacked any assurance of

progress in terms of political and social rights despite what was outlined and protected, in theory,

by the U.S. Constitution.

Abdeen Jabara, an Arab American political activist and lawyer, became the president of

the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1986.7 In his interview with Joe Stork,

Jabara described how Arab Americans had to defend themselves in a psychological sense due to

5
Berry and Philo. “American Politics and the Settlement of the Holocaust Survivors.” pp. 19–23.
6
Mike Berry and Greg Philo. “The United Nations Debates the Future of Palestine.” Israel and
Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 24–28.
7
Abdeen Jabara and Joe Stork. “Political Violence against Arab-Americans.” MERIP Middle
East Report, no. 143, 1986, pp. 36–38.
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the intense anti-Arab sentiment that emerged once Israel became an ally of the U.S. By the mid-

century (post-1945), a majority of Arab Americans identified themselves “as white/Caucasian,

anglicized their names, replaced Arabic with English, and restricted their ethnic identity to the

private sphere.”8 Americanization was intended to protect Arab Americans in a sense, but even

with the papers to support such a transformation, physical appearance was still an open invitation

for racial discrimination in the U.S.

“The Timeless Orient,” as Said puts it, 9 has one face to represent the people of Palestine

and that is an injustice that must be ratified in the coming years. By tying the fate of Israel to

U.S. foreign policy, Arab Americans are mistaken as enemies to the state. Said quotes Italian

philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, in his discussion about what must be done in the future to address

American Orientalism: “History has left us in an infinity of traces. The task is to compile an

inventory of the traces that history has left in us.” What I have ultimately attempted to do in this

paper is begin such a task. Although there are paths that I have left untouched, I hope that the

words of Said and his colleagues live on because unlike the Arab Americans of the past, they

will be heard.

8
Nadine Naber. "Ambiguous Insiders: An Investigation of Arab American Invisibility." Ethnic
and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, 2000, pp. 37-61.
9
Sut Jhally. Edward Said on 'Orientalism'. 1998.
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Bibliography

Berry, Mike, and Greg Philo. “American Politics and the Settlement of the Holocaust
Survivors.” Israel and Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 19–23.

Berry, Mike, and Greg Philo. “The United Nations Debates the Future of Palestine.” Israel and
Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 24–28.

Berry, Mike, and Greg Philo. “Zionist Roots and the First Wave of Jewish Immigration into
Palestine.” Israel and Palestine: Competing Histories, Pluto Books, 2006, pp. 1–2.

Jabara, Abdeen, and Joe Stork. “Political Violence against Arab-Americans.” MERIP Middle
East Report, no. 143, 1986, pp. 36–38.

Jhally, Sut, director. “Edward Said on 'Orientalism'.” Produced by Sanjay Talreja, Media
Education Foundation, 1998.

Naber, Nadine. "Ambiguous Insiders: An Investigation of Arab American Invisibility." Ethnic

and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, 2000, pp. 37-61.

Selwyn, Ruth, and Tom Selwyn. “Zionism.” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe,
vol. 26, no. 1, 1993, pp. 28–34.