Palestine: Editorial Reflections of Michel Chiha 1944-55

Israel s guilt will not screen from our view the guilt of others who permit Israel to commit such grave offences Chiha, October 1953 The subject: Palestine, cradle of Christianity in the geographic heartland of the Islamic world. The author: Michel Chiha, polemicist, political journalist and one of Israel s fiercest critics. This collection of Chiha s reflections spans the volatile years of 1944-54, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1949: a time when many of the seeds of modern conflict were sown. Although at times provocative (and invariably controversial), Chiha s writings retain at heart his staunch advocacy of an open, liberal and cosmopolitan culture, and the economic fruits that flourish in such an environment. Lebanese and ardently patriotic Chiha proves a candid analyst of Lebanon s shortcomings, often tracing these to the partition of Palestine in 1949, and the creation of its Zionist state. Chiha was one of the earliest critics of US foreign policy, writing in 1948: America continues to bring its considerable weight to bear in influencing countries for the benefit of Israel. Since these early writings, Michel Chiha has become something of a public intellectual. The pieces collected in Palestine reveal a writer and events at their freshest, but remaining undiluted in their relevance by the passing of over half a century.