Arab American Midwestern Inter-Religious Unity and Palestinian Liberation, 1936-1954

This paper argues that Arab American Midwesterners, both Christians and Muslims, identified inter-religious unity as a foundation of Arab American solidarity with Palestine from the time of the Palestinian revolt in 1936 until a more confessional politics overtook Arab Midwestern civil society in the 1950s. Using the writings of many Arab American Midwesterners as well as news articles published in the Indianapolis-based Syrian Ark newspaper, I show how Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism were presented as an inter-religious concern among Muslim, Orthodox, and Melkite leaders of the mainly Syrian-Lebanese Americans of the Midwest. In addition, this presentation asserts that a commitment to Palestine was not in tension with Arab Midwesterners' local, regional, and national identities but was in fact generative of communal solidarity and homemaking in all of these domains.