Herzl and the Palestinians
editAccording to Derek Penslar Herzl's attitude to the Arab population of Palestine is subject to dispute between scholars.[1] At the time of Herzl's activism, the Palestinian population formed overwhelming majority in the territories where he placed his vision the future state of Israel; according to Ottoman records, a total population of 462,465 resided in 1878 in what is today Israel/Palestine. Of this number, 403,795 (87 per cent) were Muslim, 43,659 (10 per cent) were Christian and 15,011 (3 per cent) were Jewish[2] Herzl description of Palestine's Arabs as mixed "multitude of beggars" or as "potential drainers of swamps for Jewish settlers" has been criticized by Walid Khalidi, who also takes note of Herzl public flattery of Ottoman Sultan and his private notes where he describes him in vicious caricature. Derek Penslar notes that another scholar criticizing Herzl is Zachary Lockman who accusses him of shutting out Palestinians from his vision and promoting an idea of "dispossesing and displacing Palestine's Arab peasentry" based on the contents of his Journal entry from 12 June 1895. Penslar notes that Muhammed Ali Khalidi writes about alleged contempt Herzl had for Palestinian population and his ideas about removing Arab villages from future Jewish state which he infers from description of "pristine" landscape in his novel Altneuland. Penslar does note that Herzl in his project also envisioned eviction of Jewish settlements as part of overall social engineering project.[3] Penslar states that pro-Zionist scholars on the hand emphasize the mult-ethnic character of Herzl's vision presented in his novel Altneuland;while this is accepted by Ali Khalidi, he notes that in this state, Arabs aren't the indiginous people but merely one of the accepted minorites in otherwise Jewish state.