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This essay was published by Ben-Kiki nearly four years after the British had issued the Balfour Declaration and at a time when the rising Palestinian-Arab national movement was becoming increasingly hostile to Zionism. Ben-Kiki wrote this essay in response to hesitant calls from various Zionist quarters to reach out to the Arabs in Palestine. His title was pointedly almost identical to that of an essay published in 1919 by Yitzhak Epstein (1863–1943), an educator and advocate of the use of Hebrew, and Ben-Kiki’s essay was framed as a direct response to that earlier essay. The origin of Epstein’s work was a speech he had delivered at the Zionist Congress of 1905. In 1907 he had published an essay in the Odessa-based journal Ha-Shilo’ah titled “She’ela ne‘elama” (A hidden question). That essay warned the leaders of the Zionist movement about what Epstein saw as dangerous “writing on the wall”—that is, the Yishuv’s disregard of the Arabs of Palestine and its disgraceful treatment of them. “The existence of the Arabs in Palestine is invisible because the leaders do not want to see them,” exclaimed Epstein. Praising the Arabs’ love of Palestine, he continued: “We must not cause any harm to any people, particularly to a great people whose hatred toward us [might be] very dangerous.” Jewish ignorance about Arab life and culture, Epstein maintained, was a “shame” [herpa]. He urged the Zionist leaders to change their policies toward Arabs and to take measures “that no Jew” had thus far undertaken to learn and teach the Arabic language and culture. Epstein was not alone in voicing such criticism, yet his was the fiercest of his day. Consequently, he was widely attacked for “encouraging assimilation between Jews and Arabs” as well as “weakening the national Jewish standing.” In 1919, after tensions between Jews and Arabs had worsened, Epstein published his essay in a longer format, this time with a new title: “The Question of all Questions: Concerning the Settling of the Land.” This time the essay was published in the Land of Israel (then Palestine) itself. By this time, attitudes had changed somewhat , and Epstein’s ideas were better received than in 1907. Yet during this entire period, the debate over this crucial Arab Question was situated exclusively within European Zionist circles—first in Odessa and then in Palestine. 18 | On the Question of All Questions Concerning the Settling of the Land Hayyim Ben-Kiki, “Al She’elat Ha-She’elot be-Yishuv Ha-Aretz,” Do’ar Hayom, August 30, 1921. On the Question of All Questions | 103 Ben-Kiki’s intervention, in response, emphasized that something crucial was missing altogether from Epstein’s analysis. Ben-Kiki was in agreement with Epstein ’s diagnosis and proposed policies that urged Arab and Jewish “integration.” Ben-Kiki also warned the new Zionist migrants that their harsh treatment of the Palestinian peasantry was inflaming the situation. Yet Ben-Kiki’s response to Epstein ’s essay was chiefly triggered by the fact that Epstein had utterly ignored the presence of a large Middle Eastern Jewish population—in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East—that was already culturally integrated with the Arabs and knew them and their culture. Ben-Kiki found Epstein’s thinking lacking, since it betrayed insufficient understanding of the deeper problematic that governed the Zionist attitude toward Arabs. Ben-Kiki felt that what lay at the core of this attitude was outright hubris—arrogance (yehirut)—toward everything, and everyone, non-European. The Arab Question—with which the youngsters born in this Land [the Sephardim of Palestine] have been familiar for many years, and because of which they were subject to disgrace and ridicule by the prominent men within the Yishuv—has now settled in the minds of the higher echelons of the Yishuv’s leaders, who see it as most crucial. More are now of the opinion that the deliverance of the Yishuv is entirely dependent on the solution to this Question. Before the War [the Great War, World War I], the Nationalists [Zionists] viewed our Land as destroyed and deserted, awaiting our industrious hands. They believed that the Land’s inhabitants, whether they wanted to or not, would have to accept us. The desolate Land must be built on. Humanism itself demands it! And we, only we—can carry out this task, and only we have the right to do so. No maligning or criticism could override this historical human...

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