The Third Reich and the Palestinian Press

This study presents the viewpoints expressed in the Palestinian press on the Third Reich in the light of its domestic and foreign policy – focusing on its racial and anti-Semitic policy which directly affected the persecution of the Jews in Germany and Europe before and after the outbreak of World War II in concordance with the Nazi forces' successes on the battlefields. After a brief introduction upon the historical Arabic – including Palestinian – perception of Germany and an attempt to explain its positive stereotype, the study discusses to what extend the Palestinians understood the German policy and perceived it to be dangerous or having a negative or positive impact on themselves. The study is based on the Palestinian newspapers which represent different political trends inside the Palestinian society and contributed to the formation of this society in a stage when Palestine was still under the control of the British Mandate whose aim was to establish a "national home for Jews in Palestine". These newspapers are: - 1 - The newspaper al-Karmel, an independent national newspaper. - 2 - The newspaper Palestine, an independent national newspaper. - 3 - The newspaper The Arab League, which represented the Palestinian leadership (the "Council members") during that period. - 4 - The newspaper The Defense, which represented the movement of Palestinian opposition during that period. - 5 - The newspaper al-Arab, which represented the nationalist movement and the "Independence Party". - 6 - A number of editions from the newspapers Forward and The Struggle of the People which were mouthpieces of the Palestinian Communist Party. The study will focus on the period prior to World War II, when the Mandate authorities granted these newspapers a sphere of freedom of expression whereas they came under strict control and censorship after the outbreak of the war as soon as martial law was declared and the published opinion in Palestine could, in general, only be opposed to Nazism and Fascism and thus fully consistent with the policy of the British Mandate government.