Summary
American theologian and cultural authority, Said’s first case of the liberal West’s identification with Zionism: signatory of the November 21, 1947 New York Times letter for partition, and author of a 1946 Spectator article on Palestine.
Details
- Niebuhr and six other notables, in the letter quoted by Said, held that American interests dictate speedy modernization of the Middle East, that Jewish Palestine is the only one vanguard of progress and modernization in the region, and that Christian Lebanon is a second island of Western civilization in an otherwise hopeless Arab-Moslem picture (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.51 / printed p.30).
- In A New View of Palestine (The Spectator, August 6, 1946, p.162 as printed), as quoted by Said, Niebuhr held Arab opinion limited to a small circle of feudal overlords, the masses too poor for opinion to be other than an impossible luxury, and the technical and dynamic civilization the Jews might introduce something that would have to be imposed provisionally on the Arabs (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.52-53 / printed p.31-32).
- Said: Niebuhr never discussed, much less supported, Arab rights; his remarks speak for millions of Muslim Arabs while effacing them, and would not have been tolerated about South Africa or the American South (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.51-54 / printed p.30-33).