bickering was commonplace among the Arabs but upsetting to the Jews, who had been brought up differently. The inroads made by the Bedouins, who have made sporadic attacks on the villages of Palestine since the dawn of history, further aggravated the situation. But on the whole, no real hostility developed. Most Jewish settlers looked upon the Arabs as a part of the landscape without much significance, as occasional laborers, as the ones who brought the fruit to town. Most Arabs must have considered the Jews curious additions to the landscape, too few to make any great difference. It was only when the relationship started to reach the political level that the shape of things to come emerged.
At the beginning of the century a new spirit was abroad throughout the Turkish empire. The Turkish Sultan Abdel-Hamid, who foresaw that nationalism would break up the multi-national empire of the Ottomans, and who therefore brutally suppressed any nationalistic manifestations of the Arabs, was repudiated by the rising of the Young Turks; these were Turkish nationalists. The succcess of the Young Turks gave hope to the Arab nationalists. They believed that Turkish reformers would change the structure of the Ottoman Empire, giving the Arabs at least some form of autonomy and national expression. These hopes were quickly dashed. The Turkish generals and politicians who took over the moribund empire, vainly trying to heal the Sick Man of Europe, had no intention whatsoever of recognizing any nationalism but their own.
It was at that time that the first political contact was established between Arabs and Zionists. By itself a small and passing phase, its significance was profound.
* * *
The intrigues and struggles within the Ottoman Empire provided the Zionist leadership with their first real choice. Should they support the Arabs against the Turks, or the Turks against the Arabs? Among those Zionist function¬