The 1911 Founding of 'Filastin': Journalism and Palestinian Identity

Before the British Mandate, before the Nakba, there was a newspaper that dared to speak for the Arab people of Palestine. In January 1911, two cousins from Jaffa—Issa al-Issa and Yousef al-Issa—launched a biweekly called Filastin. It was one of the first explicitly Palestinian nationalist newspapers, and its pages chronicled the last years of Ottoman rule, the rise of Zionist immigration, and the everyday struggles of farmers and merchants in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. This episode dives into the story of Filastin: how it was founded, how it faced constant censorship and legal harassment from Ottoman authorities, how its editor was exiled to Anatolia during World War I, and how it re-emerged after 1918 to become the voice of the Arab Palestinian movement. We explore the paper's role in shaping a collective identity, its battles with land dealers and the Anglo-Palestine Company, and its ultimate silencing during the 1948 war. Featuring details on Issa al-Issa's prison sentence in 1912, the paper's circulation in Jaffa coffeehouses, and its rivalry with the Haifa-based al-Karmil, this episode sheds light on a crucial but often overlooked pillar of Palestinian history: the written word as resistance.

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