Palestinian author Sabri Jiryis, witness to 1948 Nakba, subject of profile on Zionism foundations

Middle East Monitor profiles Palestinian author and researcher Sabri Jiryis, who witnessed the 1948 Nakba at age 10 in Fassouta village in the Galilee and was among 160,000 Palestinians who remained in the region. Jiryis later worked at the Palestinian Research Centre in Lebanon researching the Zionist movement, producing his 614-page book 'The Foundations of Zionism,' which draws on Hebrew sources to construct Zionism's history from within its own ideology. The book, translated to English by his daughter Fida Jiryis and published by Ebb Books in 2025, traces Zionism from the mid-19th century through 1923, examining how European antisemitism, colonial thinking, and alliances with Britain culminated in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and eventual establishment of Israel.

Sabri Jiryis Nakba witness

• ▪The Foundations of Zionism includes a conclusion which analyses what came after the Nakba up to Israel's genocide in Gaza.
• ▪Sabri Jiryis witnessed the 1948 Nakba in the village of Fassouta in the Galilee at the age of 10.
• ▪The Foundations of Zionism was published by Ebb Books in 2025.
• ▪Sabri Jiryis was expelled to Safad after attempting to run for the 1965 Knesset elections.
• ▪The Foundations of Zionism was translated to English by Fida Jiryis, the author's daughter.
• ▪Sabri Jiryis became involved with al-Ard, which sought the return of Palestinians and their land.
• ▪Sabri Jiryis was one of 160,000 Palestinians who remained after the 1948 Nakba.

Zionism European colonial origins

• ▪The UN endorsed the Partition Plan in 1947, 50 years after the First Zionist Congress.
• ▪Antisemitism in Europe contributed to the rise of Zionism, as support for Jewish immigration to Palestine rose out of opposition to integrate Jews in the countries where they resided.
• ▪The Foundations of Zionism discusses the history of Zionism from the mid-19th century up to 1923.
• ▪Theodor Herzl wrote after the First Zionist Congress that in 50 years everyone would perceive that he had founded the Jewish State at Basel.
• ▪Zionism as a political and social concept started in the late 1830s.
• ▪Several Zionist organisations were established to strengthen Zionist colonial plans, which would later play a major role in establishing colonial settlement expansion in Palestine.
• ▪The First Zionist Congress in 1897 decided that the Jewish state should be established in Palestine.

European facilitation Palestinian land sales

• ▪The British intervened to purchase land in Jaffa to transfer for Jewish settlement in the late 1880s.
• ▪The German consulate in Jaffa helped Zionists to establish settlements in Yehud village in the late 1880s.
• ▪Romanian authorities said they would facilitate emigration of Jewish people and help to establish a kingdom in Palestine in the late 1880s.
• ▪Land registration in the second half of the 19th century did not favour Palestinian peasants.
• ▪The weakening Ottoman Empire in the late 1880s made it easier to purchase Palestinian territory for Jewish settlements.
• ▪High levies forced onto Palestinian peasants in the second half of the 19th century forced land sale, much of which was later sold to wealthy families who eventually sold to Jewish people.

British Balfour Declaration illegitimacy

• ▪Hungarian Jewish writer Arthur Koestler wrote about the Balfour Declaration that one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.
• ▪The Balfour Declaration was issued at a time when Britain had no authority, practically or legally, over Palestine.
• ▪The Balfour Declaration of 1917 supported the Zionist call for a Jewish National Home but failed to take into consideration Zionism's demand to establish a Jewish National home in the entirety of Palestine.
• ▪Zionism's careful alliance with the British government after World War I eventually resulted in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
• ▪Britain did not have the right to speak on behalf of Palestine's Arab population nor to take any decision regarding their fate when issuing the Balfour Declaration.

Hebrew source research methodology

• ▪Sabri Jiryis worked at the Palestinian Research Centre in Lebanon where he turned his attention to researching the Zionist movement.
• ▪The Foundations of Zionism constructs the history of Zionism from within the Zionist ideology itself.
• ▪Sabri Jiryis realized that Palestinians with no knowledge of Hebrew had no way of learning about the colonial ideology that dispossessed them.
• ▪The Foundations of Zionism draws upon Hebrew sources, some of which are quoted in detail throughout the book.

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