Abigail Jacobson. Israel Studies. Volume 18, Issue 1, Spring 2013.
This article discusses American involvement in Jerusalem during WW I, focusing on two American institutions active in the country and city at the time: the U.S. consulate and Consul Dr. Otis Glazebrook, and the American Colony in Jerusalem, an unofficial but important American institution. By examining these official and unofficial American “agents”, this paper argues that the American involvement in the city can shed light on America’s “welfare politics” in Palestine, whose traces can be tracked down until today. The “politics of welfare” offer many insights not only on war-time conditions in Jerusalem, but also provide a glance into American motivations of support and involvement in other areas in the Middle East. Using a variety of sources from the records of the American consulate and the American Colony, this paper analyzes the close connection between welfare, power, and political influence, demonstrated by the American case.
Introduction
On 22 January 1915, the office of consular services at the U.S. State Department sent a dispatch regarding the money Rose Kaplan, an American nurse, deposited at the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem. Rose Kaplan was sent to Palestine in 1913 together with a fellow nurse, Rachel Landy, as representatives of the newly founded Hadassah Women’s Organization, in order to set up a nursing program in the country. In March 1913 the two nurses set up a small public health and welfare station in Jerusalem, began providing maternity care and a training program for midwives, and established a program in Jewish schools for the treatment of trachoma, the eye disease that was common among children in Palestine. Kaplan and Landy set the foundations of the future work of the Hadassah Women’s Organization in Jerusalem. However, WW I and the blockade of Palestine temporarily ended the program, and in November 1915 Rachel Landy returned to the United States. Rose Kaplan moved to Alexandria, Egypt, to assist the Jewish refugees there. She died there of cancer in 1916.
Why was the case of Rose Kaplan of interest to the U.S. State Department? The answer can be found in the rest of the correspondence. The work of the two nurses was funded by a donation made by Nathan and Lina Straus and the Zionist Committee, which was deposited at the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Palestine. During the war, the Anglo-Palestine Bank was forced by the Ottoman authorities to cease its work in Palestine. As a result, the money deposited at the bank, including that which was donated to the nursing work in Jerusalem, was seized by the Ottoman authorities:
“I dislike to see money contributed by Americans for charitable purposes seized by the authorities without, at least, bringing the matter to their attention and making an effort to have the money returned,” the writer of the dispatch concluded.
This dispatch, and the case of Rose Kaplan, demonstrate in a nutshell some of the issues that the U.S. consular services were concerned with during WW I in Palestine: charitable work, money donations, relations with the Ottoman authorities, and the conditions and welfare of U.S. citizens residing in Palestine at this time of crisis. U.S. presence was very much felt during the war, especially with issues concerning charity and relief work that were conducted mainly in Jerusalem.
This article focuses on the American involvement in Jerusalem during the war through the lens of two American institutions that were active in the city at the time. The first is the American Consul Dr. Otis Glazebrook and the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, the official American representative in Palestine. The second is the work of the American Colony in Jerusalem, an unofficial but important American representation. By examining these official and unofficial American “agents”, I argue that the American involvement in Jerusalem and Palestine can shed light on America’s “welfare politics” in Palestine. The politics of welfare offer many insights not only on war-time conditions in Jerusalem, but also provide a glance into the relations between the Ottoman authorities in Jerusalem and the various American representatives who were operating in the city. As such, the American case presented here demonstrates the close connection between welfare, power, and political influence, and adds to our understanding of the more general project of humanitarianism in other regions of the Middle East. Moreover, the traces of the “Politics of Welfare”, in a different context and with different agents, of course, can in some ways still be located in the Israeli/Palestinian realities today, in relation to the important role played by the United States in the region.
Diplomats, Evangelists, and Others: American Presence and Involvement in Late Ottoman Palestine
American presence and involvement in Palestine did not begin on the eve of war, as links and connections between Americans to the “Bible Lands” existed many years earlier. The earliest testimony of an American visiting the Holy Land is traced back to George Sandys’ trip to the Middle East in 1610, whereas the first commercial activities of American Puritan settlers in the area had already taken place in 1676. The exposure of the American public to Palestine and its population during the nineteenth century came through the diverse lenses and accounts of missionaries, tourists, colonists, archeologists, biblical scholars, and, starting in 1844, also consular and diplomatic representatives. Many of their accounts are documented in the form of different books and travelogues, including Mark Twain’s famous Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim’s Progress, published in 1869. Many of these travelers and explorers, especially those driven by religious protestant motivations, are part of what Hilton Obenzinger calls “a Holy Land Mania”, which considers the Holy Land as a terrain for religious and cultural exploration, imagination and fascination in different ways and forms.
American presence and interest in Palestine should be examined in light of and in the context of the overall American involvement in other regions of the Levant, and especially in the Ottoman-ruled areas of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which started sending missionaries to Syria in 1819-1820, is important in this respect. The work of American protestant missionaries was aimed mainly toward educational endeavors, in the context of evangelical work, with one of their most important projects being the establishment of the Syrian Protestant College in 1866 (later the American University of Beirut, 1920).
The U.S. diplomatic and financial involvement in Palestine during WW I, motivated in part by concern for the American missionaries and relief workers who were present in different parts of the Middle East, was not exactly part of the “Holy Land Mania” described by Obenzinger. The scale of American presence in Palestine and its intervention with missionary, relief, and educational work was smaller than that seen in Beirut or Istanbul, for example, but was still very significant in the context of war, especially for the Jewish community in the country.
The United States remained neutral in the war until relatively late, and finally declared war against Germany only in April 1917. Because of U.S. neutrality until 1917, the U.S. consulate was among the few remaining foreign consulates that operated in Jerusalem throughout most of the war, and hence was able to be more involved with local affairs in comparison to other foreign powers. With the departure from the city of the allied consular representatives, such as those of Britain, Russia, France, and later Italy and Greece, the U.S. consul in Jerusalem, Dr. Otis Glazebrook, became the representative of their citizens and proteges and the protector of their property, institutions, and interests in the country. Another consul who remained in Jerusalem during the war was the Spanish Consul Conde de Ballobar, who would protect U.S. interests after Glazebrook left Jerusalem in 1917.
The first U.S. consul in Jerusalem was Warden Cresson, appointed in 1844. A permanent consular presence in the city was established in 1857, with the appointment of Dr. John Warren Gorham as the U.S. consul in the city. The official opening of the consulate in Jerusalem was influenced by the Crimean War, as well as by the growing religious and historical interests of America in the Holy Land. On the eve of WW I, the consulate moved from its previous location outside the old city to a new location, and eventually bought the house that still serves as the U.S. Consulate in West Jerusalem. Interestingly, despite its religious, political, and cultural importance, the population figures for Jerusalem on the eve of WW I are somewhat ambiguous and unclear, and vary according to the sources used. They range between a total of 60,000 to 80,000 inhabitants, with a majority of Jews (ranging, according to different estimations, between 45,000 and 60,000 people). The overall population of Palestine is estimated to have been between 689,000 and 800,000 peopled.
U.S. Consul Dr. Otis Allan Glazebrook was a religious man and a freemason, who had served in different missionary positions for several years before arriving in Palestine. He was a personal friend of President Wilson who appointed him to his post on 10 February 1914. Glazebrook arrived in Jerusalem in April 1914, and started working soon thereafter. In a note he sent at the beginning of May 1914 to the State Department, Glazebrook reported that he found the consulate in perfect condition and praised Samuel Edelman, the vice consul, for the work he did while replacing the consul in the city. Glazebrook left Jerusalem in April 1917, when the United States entered the war, and returned to the city only in December 1918, after the war ended. He continued serving as a consul until December 1920, when he was assigned to serve as the consul in Nice.
The U.S. consulate in Jerusalem was in charge of a variety of issues. It maintained records of U.S. citizens and protected nationals who resided within the consular jurisdiction, including U.S. proteges; registered births, marriages, and deaths of its citizens; issued passports; and provided a variety of services to the American missionaries and Christian settlers in Palestine. It also provided services to American pilgrims and tourists who visited the Holy Land. Many of those enjoying a status of protege and the protection of the U.S. consulate were Jews. The increase in the number of Jews under the protection of the consulate, together with the growing influence of American Zionists in the United States, placed the consulate in a special position of protecting and assisting the Jewish community during the war as well. The importance and centrality of the consulate increased dramatically during WW I, when it continued to operate as one of the only foreign consulates in Jerusalem under the conditions of American neutrality.
The American Colony offered a different type of American agency in Jerusalem. Driven out of Evangelical Protestant motivations, and explaining their pilgrimage from Chicago to the Holy Land in spiritual and messianic terms, the group of Americans, led by Horatio Spafford and his wife Anna, arrived in Jerusalem in 1881. Living a communal life, the first group of 19 Americans was joined in 1896 by a group of 77 Swedes and Swedish-Americans, who arrived in the city driven by religious motivations and impressed by the charisma of the leader of the colony at the time, Anna Spafford. The colony, numbering at this point more than 150 people, moved from the Muslim Quarter to a building in Nablus Road, which was first rented and later purchased from the Muslim notable Hussayni family. It soon developed a number of economic enterprises, which included agriculture, a dairy farm, a bakery, a guest house, tourist shop, and a commercial photography studio. After the passing of Horatio Spafford it became a matriarchal community, led first by Anna Spafford, and, after her death in 1923, by her daughter Bertha Spafford Vester, who married Fredrick Vester in 1904.
The matriarchal nature of the Colony became one of the issues that caused tension between the Colony and the American consulate. Two U.S. consuls in particular, Selah Merrill and Edwin Wallace, were very critical of the work and lifestyle of the American Colony’s residents. Merrill, who served as the consul for three terms until 1907, detested the colony’s messianic nature and its communal style of living. He also directed his criticism toward the influence and centrality of women in the Colony, the Colony’s gender norms that defied traditional patriarchal family structure by living communally and forbidding marriage (until 1904), and accused the members of the American Colony of sexual perversion. Another issue of confrontation and tension with the American consulate, as well as with the British and Protestant communities in Jerusalem, was over the issue of religious conversion. The Spaffords and the rest of the American Colony’s members refused to participate in proselytism or missionary activity. This attitude created much tension between the various Christian missions (the American missionary activity in Jerusalem was very limited, in comparison to the Anglican mission, for example) active in Jerusalem in the late nineteenth century, and the American Colony, which was perceived by the missionaries as a group of people with strange and eccentric religious motivations and beliefs.
During the war years, however, it seems that the previous tension between the consulate and the American Colony eased following the challenges facing the official and unofficial American representatives in Palestine. Consul Glazebrook, as well as the American Colony, led by Anna Spafford and later her daughter Bertha, were highly engaged and involved in different forms of charity and aid work in Jerusalem (through the work of the American Colony) and Palestine (through the work of the consulate), for the support of the local people of all religious and ethnic communities who suffered as a result of the war crisis. The analysis of the different forms and strategies of relief, as well as the examination of the complex relationship the consulate and the American Colony had with the Ottoman authorities, can shed light on the politics of relief and welfare practiced by America in Palestine at this time of crisis.
The American Consulate During World War I
From the time of his appointment as the U.S. consul in Jerusalem in 1914 until he left the city in 1917, Dr. Otis Glazebrook reported with great detail on the events taking place in Palestine, the effects of the war and the socioeconomic crisis on the different communities living in Jerusalem, as well as on the political developments taking place in the country. His reports serve as an important source for learning about events taking place in the city and country during this time of crisis, although one should remember the context in which he operated. The influence of American Zionists grew significantly during this period, and many of them enjoyed access to American policymakers and Jewish philanthropists. The main figure behind much of the support and relief efforts to the Jews in Palestine during the war was Louis Brandeis, who was also a close advisor to President Wilson. During a period in which the Ottoman authorities tried to restrict land sales to the Jews, and later, during the war, threatened (and carried out) the expulsion of foreign (non-Ottoman) citizens from Palestine, the support of American Jews in particular proved crucial for the Jewish community in the country. The main motivation of America in aiding Palestinian Jews was humanitarian, and not purely political, although the connections that President Wilson and other policy makers had with Jewish Zionists in the United States played a significant role in the way the American consulate operated.
One of the early concerns of Glazebrook as the Jerusalem consul was the fate of the Anglo Palestine Company, the main financial institution for the Jewish colonization work in Palestine. The bank provided credit and financial assistance to the Jewish colonies and to various associations and businesses, in an effort to economically support the Jewish community in Palestine and enhance Zionist work in the country. The Anglo-Palestine Company was one of the foreign institutions that were shut down by the Ottoman authorities at the beginning of the war. In January 1915 the military authorities in Jerusalem ordered all people who held in their possession registered checks to present them to the local authorities. According to the instructions, the government’s treasury would confiscate money from the bank’s branches, and the company would be liquidated within ten days under the control of governmental officials. Branches would be closed, and offices evacuated. However, the bank’s directors got ready ahead of time and made sure that most of the cash and checks would not be found in the bank’s offices.
The interest of the U.S. consuls in Jerusalem and Istanbul in the bank’s destiny was due to large American deposits in the bank, made mainly to Jewish-led relief organizations in Palestine, as the case of Rose Kaplan mentioned above demonstrates. Glazebrook himself deposited money in the bank for the Jewish Relief Fund, as he reported to the bank in October 1914. Less than a month later, Glazebrook reported to Ambassador Henry Morgenthau in Istanbul about the closure of the bank by the Ottoman authorities, expressed his great concern about it, and stated that he is taking steps in order to release the money deposited in the bank. The American support and pressure on the Ottoman authorities, together with the acts taken by the bank’s administrators, contributed to the continuation of the bank’s operations under cover throughout most of the war, and to the financial support and assistance it provided to the Jewish community.
During the war, Glazebrook reported regularly on the situation in Jerusalem and Palestine. His reports were very detailed, and often included not only information on the U.S. citizens or proteges, but also analysis and assessments on the general population in the consular district of Jerusalem. They bring to light the degree of American involvement in local life and conditions in the country. A report from March 1915, for example, focuses on the effects of war and mobilization on the markets and economic conditions in Palestine. According to this report, after the declaration of war all prices went up, and some articles, such as lentils, rice, sugar, flour, and petroleum, completely disappeared from the local market, or were sold secretly at very high prices. Instead of rice, which is a staple food but could not be found in Palestine due to the war, it was reported that the local population ate different substitutes. The consular district of Jerusalem was heavily dependent on exports of different goods to foreign markets, such as oranges from Jaffa, souvenirs from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and barley to Gaza. However, the report continued, due to the sea blockade, export stopped, and the growers, who had to rely on the local population, received very low prices for their commodities.
In another report from November 1915, Glazebrook summed up the economic situation in the district of Jerusalem following the sea blockade, the famine, and the locusts. He provided a list of articles and demonstrated the increase in their prices following the war and locust plague. In the report, he also mentioned the support of the “generous people of the United States, chiefly the Hebrews”, and thanked them for the delivery of food supplies to Palestine. He ended his report by saying that “It is the unquestioned belief of the entire community that the Food Relief accomplished an unprecedented good, materially and morally, not only relieving extreme bodily want, but creating a feeling of good will and fellowship manifested in a spirit of friendly reciprocity never before existing in this city and consular district? This last sentence may allude to the way Glazebrook viewed the mission of America during this urgent time—aiding the needy in accordance with the American spirit and tradition.
The Jewish American community played a significant role in providing war time aid and support to the residents of Palestine, which proved to be especially crucial for the survival of the Jewish community during the war. The money raised by American Jews, organized by the “Joint Distribution Committee for Jews Suffering from the War”, was at first delivered to Palestine on several U.S. vessels, which brought both food products and money to the country. The estimations regarding the exact value of this support vary. Dr. Jacob Tahon, the head of the Eretz Israeli/ Zionist office in Jaffa, argued that between October 1914 and April 1917 the Jewish American community sent support in the value of $500,000, as well as additional substantial support of food and medications. Another estimation mentions $700,000 worth of support that arrived in Palestine in 13 shipments, and Henrietta Szold mentions support worth $615,000. According to Eliezer Hoofien, the American support continued to reach Jerusalem after American Consul Glazebrook left the city in 1917. Between August 1917 and May 1918 the support reached $500,000, and was facilitated by the Spanish Consul De Ballobar.
One of the most important food deliveries arrived in April 1915 with the ship Vulcan, which carried on it 900 tons of food. The Vulcan shipment was not distributed only among the Jewish community. Overall, 55% of its products were handed to the Jewish community, which distributed most of them in Jerusalem (60%), and the rest to different cities and settlements. The Muslims in Palestine received 26% of the products, and the Christians 19%. The Muslims and Christians used the products to support their communities in Jerusalem and Jaffa.
Glazebrook was personally involved in the distribution of food among the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities in Palestine. Each community had its own distribution committee, and Dr. Glazebrook received reports on their decisions and the people appointed to serve in them. While explaining to David Yellin the nature of the shipment, he said that,
It is to be remembered that the spirit and purpose of this benefaction are unlike those of the Halukah”—that this is an emergency fund to meet the immediate needs of a present distressed condition—that it is to be administered independent of creed, race or nationality. It is reasonably expected, therefore, that neither precedence nor prejudice will interfere with carrying out the wishes of the donors.
By this Glazebrook used his power and influence to address tensions that surfaced in the Jewish community regarding the distribution of aid among different Jewish organizations and groups.
Glazebrook and U.S. Ambassador in Istanbul Henry Morgenthau were also very concerned with the issue of Ottomanization, the naturalization of Jews of foreign nationalities and their adoption of Ottoman citizenship, and with the status of minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Morgenthau tried to pressure the Ottoman authorities, and mainly Cemal Pasa, the Ottoman commander of the 4th army, not to expel Jews who did not adopt Ottoman citizenship. However, between December 1914 and September 1915, and again in April 1917, Camal Pasa ordered the expulsion of thousands of Jews who held foreign citizenships, mainly Russians and citizens of other enemy countries. Many of these deportees were transferred to Alexandria on U.S. vessels. Despite this initial tension between Cemal Pasa and the U.S. representatives, the Ottomans did not harm the general interests of the United States in the Middle East, and even the American missionaries were relatively well treated. However, following the U.S. declaration of war against Germany, the relationship between the Ottomans and the United States was severed, and Glazebrook was eventually asked to leave Jerusalem in April 1917.
Unofficial Representation: The American Colony in Jerusalem
The American involvement in support and relief efforts in Palestine did not end with the support offered by the American Jewish community, or the U.S. consulate. Unlike the official work done by the consulate, the American Colony consisted of unofficial American representation in the city, which, as mentioned above, was sometimes in conflict with the consulate (mainly in the pre-war years). During the war, the American Colony in Jerusalem was engaged in various philanthropic and charitable projects, and aided the local population of all communities. Before and after the war, its members were also involved in the urban development of Jerusalem, and took part in various projects that were organized by the municipality and the Ottoman (and later British) authorities.
The relationship of the American Colony with the Ottoman authorities and their German allies (German forces were present in the city as well during the later part of the war) is also an interesting issue to consider, especially in comparison to the U.S. consulate. During the war, the American Colony enjoyed a special status vis-a-vis the Ottoman authorities in Jerusalem, especially before the United States joined the war. Its members were able in many cases to use their connections with the local authorities, and within the leadership of the various communities, to support their charity work. With the Germans, however, their relationship was more ambivalent.
The American Colony considered itself as approaching all communities and ethnic groups in Jerusalem. Already in 1906, a representative of the Colony stated that “We can count on the Mohammedans [Muslims] as our sincere friends. The same is also true of the very many Jews with whom we are acquainted, as also of the Latin, Greek, Armenian and other Christians.” This inter-communal involvement was also apparent in the institutions that the Colony members supported or were involved with (as described below), such as the Muslim Girls’ school, the Rothschild Jewish Girls’ school, the girls’ school of the American Colony in the Old City, as well as three other Jewish and Armenian boys’ schools in the city. The Colony became a neutral meeting ground in Jerusalem, where people of different nationalities could meet and interact. This notion of the American Colony as a somewhat exterritorial space in Jerusalem remains until the present day.
Although the Colony members began their humanitarian activity upon arriving in Jerusalem, they had a special contribution in providing relief to all communities in Jerusalem during the war. The power and influence that women had in the Colony, discussed above, greatly affected the nature of the relief work with which the Colony was engaged.
The situation in Jerusalem during the war is described in various reports that the Colony members submitted to the State Department, to different news reporters, as well as to possible donors. One of the main challenges facing the residents of Jerusalem was the draft and mobilization to the army, and the difficulty of paying the high military redemption fee (Badl Askari). The number of deserters from the army rose, and it is reported that in the Jerusalem district there were at least 20,000 deserters. The draft, the lack of manpower, the locust plague, and the socio-economic crisis, brought people to a state of poverty and despair. Women especially were placed in great difficulties, as they were left alone when their husbands were drafted and were forced to support their families. Women sold their babies to get money or bread, or left their babies in front of the American Colony, it was reported. Moreover, girls and women “went to the wrong with German and Turkish troops because they had not enough to live from,” alluding to the growing phenomenon of prostitution, one of the effects of the war on women.
In order to collect money for its relief operations in the city, the American Colony started approaching possible donors, mainly its supporters in the United States. In 1916, for example, the colony asked for a donation of $5,000 to support its operations. In a letter explaining the need for donations, Bertha Spafford wrote that money was needed for the operation of the soup kitchen, especially for Muslims and Christians. She mentioned that the Jews asked for the support of the Colony as well, despite the money that was donated especially for the poor Jews. Only a few records of the money donated to the colony were kept, probably due to the fear of spies and the military restrictions on the colony. The files that were kept document several deliveries of money, for example $1,000 sent in December 1916 for the operation of the soup kitchen, and $550 sent in February 1915 to the Colony. The money was sent to the Colony through the State Department.
One of the main support institutions of the American Colony was the large soup kitchen, which fed up to 2,450 women, men, and children of all communities in Jerusalem, who received a dish of soup daily. The Khaskie Sultan (al-Takiyya) soup kitchen was operated during the war by the American Colony as well, and fed, according to reports, 4,000-6,000 people daily. This feeding institution continued to be active after the British forces arrived in the city.
The American Colony also helped operate two hospitals and a clinic, in cooperation with the Ottoman Red Crescent Society, which treated around 1,020 severely injured patients. It is described as providing very good treatment to the sick and wounded; patients coming from the Red Crescent Society’s hospital were in fairly good condition, whereas patients coming from other hospitals in Jerusalem were dirty and in bad shape, it was claimed. In order to aid women and girls, the Colony operated a sewing room where 400 women were employed in making garments. The American Colony’s Aid Association also conducted a school of handicrafts and dressmaking, whose aim was to help young girls support their families’ income through handicrafts.
The relationship between the American Colony and the Ottoman and German authorities in the city were complex. According to John Whiting, a central figure in the Colony, the American Colony had no sympathy for the Ottomans, but still had good relations with them for more than 30 years. An example of this is the Colony’s offer to help treat the wounded Ottoman soldiers who flooded Jerusalem after the Suez Campaign. Many Ottoman soldiers were treated in the hospitals operated by the American Colony. This cooperation with the authorities benefited the American Colony when the Germans, led by General Falkenhayn, assumed military command of the city from Cemal Pasa towards the end of 1917. The Germans wanted to confiscate the animals owned by the American Colony, mainly horses and cows, and also threatened the Americans with deportation from the city, but Cemal Pasa confronted Falkenhayn and allowed them to remain in Jerusalem, even after the U.S. consul left the city. The work of the American Colony, then, was hardly interrupted, despite the U.S. declaration of war against Germany and the halt in diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and the United States. The fact that the Colony was considered an unofficial American representative worked, in this case, to its benefit.
Welfare Politics: Philanthropy, Humanitarianism, and Power
Welfare involvements and activities can never be removed from the political, social, or economic contexts, claim Nefissa Naguib and Inger Marie Okkenhaug in the introduction to their book on the politics of welfare and relief in the Middle East. “Global politics of welfare involve not only the uneven allocation of access to humanitarianism, but also moral and political impact and involvement in what is seen by many as a merging of aggression and humanitarianism in the name of freedom and faith,” they argue. A somewhat similar argument is offered by Keith Watenpaugh, in his discussion of the work of the League of Nations in the rescue efforts of survivors of the Armenian Genocide during the post-war period. Watenpaugh distinguishes between two forms of humanitarianism, its early phase (eighteenth-nineteenth centuries), which was motivated by an ethic of sympathy and was used as an instrument for religious conversion, versus the modern form of humanitarianism (embedded, in the case he discusses, by the League of Nations), which was perceived as a transnational, institutional, and secular regime for understanding and addressing human suffering. Modern humanitarianism, claims Watenpaugh, is in close symbiosis to colonialism, and the relationship between them ought to be examined critically.
The relief operations offered by the two American agents, the U.S. consulate and the American Colony, I argue, demonstrate the link between religious motivations, philanthropy, humanitarianism, and power. The position of relief providers, and their central role during the war, provided America with a position of power and influence in the country during this time of crisis. Through the relief operations the U.S. consul, for example, was even able to intervene with local dynamics within the Jewish community, or intervene vis-a-vis the Ottoman authorities regarding the faith of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. In a different way, the American Colony was able to position itself as a “neutral ground” in the city during the stormy period of war and crisis, and as such assist the local population of different communities. In many ways, in the local context, this role of the United States has remained as such and strengthened in later years, with different agents than the ones described here. In fact, we can still find some elements of the “politics of welfare”, in the form of financial support, in today’s relationship between the United States and the Middle East in general, and Israel in particular. The motivations and context are of course very different than the ones described here, but the way “support” is being used and utilized and the power relations between the support providers and receivers is still evident in many ways. The traces of this relationship may be tracked back to the period discussed here, in which welfare politics started playing a role in the local political, social, and diplomatic arenas.
Can we also think of the American involvement described above as another demonstration of the way the notion of American Orientalism has played out in the local context? The Saidian concept of Orientalism means a lens through which the “West” viewed, studied, and conceptualized the Orient, the discourse that distinguished between “us” (the Occident) and “them” (the Orient). Orientalism, according to Edward Said, is a discourse and a mode of operation that produced institutions, vocabulary, scholars, and scholarship by which the West and its representatives managed, organized, made sense of, and produced the Orient politically, ideologically, militarily, and scientifically. Understanding the relations between the Orient and the Occident as a relationship of power and domination is hence essential for understanding “the West,” according to Said.
Drawing on the Saidian concept, the term “American Orientalism” has been used in various contexts in relation to the representation of the Orient in the eyes of Americans, mainly in the forms of popular cultural representations of the Orient, religious work, and education, and, in some cases, a sense of a “civilizing mission”. Kathleen Christison claims that,
U.S. Orientalism had elements of both religion and politics about it. The nineteenth-century impulse to extend U.S. influence to the Orient was based on a desire to bring Christianity and “civilization” to the benighted infidel native populations of the Orient.
This is partly true in the case discussed here, as the religious notion of contributing to the needy people was indeed present in the work of both consul Glazebrook and the American Colony. The “civilizing mission” that Christison alludes to, however, was not present to a great extent in the Palestinian context, where the effect of American missionaries was minimal, especially in comparison to the work of American missionaries elsewhere in the Middle East. The American Colony, despite its strong religious motivations, rejected any forms of missionary activities as such and did not agree to cooperate with any forms of proselytism.
There are other difficulties in borrowing the Saidian concept in full to describe the way Americans viewed and represented the Middle East. In this respect, there are two problems in particular, according to Melani McAlister. The first is the perception of the West as a homogenous entity, which stands against the Orient. In the case of America, claims McAlister, there was no single homogenous “us” but a multicultural nation, very fractioned at times. Moreover, the use of femininity and masculinity in Said’s argument, the former describing the “East” and the latter the “West”, also does not apply in the American context, where gender serves a different role in the way citizenship and nationalism play out. Hence, McAlister argues, it is important not to assume that the idea and concept of Orientalism can be fully borrowed and automatically applied to the American context, but rather to carefully distinguish when it is at work, and how. American involvement in the Middle East positioned itself differently than European imperialism, and hence offered an alternative form of power and domination on the Middle East. McAlister discusses the post-WW II period and forms of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. However, her reservations are applicable to the period discussed here as well.
In the local Palestinian context, the American involvement in the form of Welfare Politics does not fully demonstrate the notion of American Orientalism, nor does it represent a direct form of colonialism, as offered by Watenpaugh in his analysis of modern forms of humanitarianism, though it is of course also not divorced of power dynamics. This is not merely a civilizing mission or a cultural project of the Americans who were present in Palestine at this time, but rather an attempt to carry out the notion of compassion and support of the needy, while taking advantage of the political position of neutrality. However, the power dynamic that plays out in this notion of compassion is apparent, while considering the role of the American Jewish community in providing aid, and putting pressure on numerous politicians and decision makers. American humanitarian and welfare involvement would continue right after the war with the activities of organizations such as the Near East Relief, operating in the post-WW I era in the eastern Mediterranean, or the work of Hadassah in Palestine.
The position and role played by the United States during the war would not translate immediately into political influence, as the British were the dominant political power broker in Palestine until the 1940s (although, interestingly, the Americans did try to intervene in the political arena right after the war, in the form of the King Crane Commission). Despite this, I suggest that the Politics of Welfare played out by the American representatives in Palestine had two major effects. The first was the gradual strengthening of the American position in Palestine (and other parts of the Middle East as well), which would contribute to its powerful position in years to come. The second was the influence of the Jewish American community on the Jewish community in Palestine at this time of crisis, which in turn contributed to the strengthening of the Zionist movement in the country, at least from a financial point of view. This involvement affected, directly and indirectly, the political realities in the country. In some ways, then, the traces of the “Politics of Welfare”, and the link between philanthropy, humanitarianism, and political power, can still be located in the Israeli realities today.