I was born on May 20, 1886 in the Christian Village of Ram Allah, Palestine only ten miles from Jerusalem. My parents were Arabs and belonged to the ancient Greek Orthodox Church. Before I was born, however, they joined the Society of Friends under the minstry of two Quaker tourist missionaries from Maine, Eli and Sibyl Jones. That made me a birth-right member of Friends, which membership I have always prized and maintained all my life. As Friends do not practise the sacrament of baptism, my parents did not baptize me. To orthodox Christians that was scandalous. To be a Christian, according to their thinking, a baby had to be given infant baptism; otherwise he might as well be a Moslem or a Jew. Again, there was the matter of salvation, for the unbaptized was doomed to the fire of hell. Last but not least was the weighty matter of my being the first boy after my parents had the dire misfortune of having seven girls hence, no chance could be taken. so unbeknown to my father and mother, I was trundled on donkey-back by my uncles to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and there I was properly baptized in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

I received my early education in the Friends Schools of Ram Allah and Brummana, Lebanon, then came to America for further study. At first, I spent two years at Oak Grove Seminary, a co-educational Friends boarding school at Vassalboro, Maine, then attended Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was graduated with a degree of A. B. in the class of 1911. The following year was spent at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York and the degree of Master of Arts was obtained.

In the autumn of 1912 I returned to Palestine to become principal of the Friends Boys School at Ram Allah. The country was then a part of the Turkish Empire. In 1909 the Sultan Abd al Hamid's tyrrany was ended and the Young Turks who replaced him made attempts at reforming the empire. One of the reforms was the drafting of Christians into the army, and that meant me. As the Turkish Government, however, needed gold as well as men, draftees could buy themselves out of the army at the price of 70 gold pieces, which was then the equivalent of about $350. This large sum, my father paid, which released me from three years of military service. That enabled me to proceed with my educational career. But it was not as simple as that, for there was the matter of three months active service with the colors. Hardly had I settled in my position when I was rudely placed in uniform and in the Turkish barracks. That was a period of Turkish defeat and humiliation, first at the hands of the Balkan States, who practically drove the Turks out of Europe, and then on account of Italian unprovoked aggression which dispossessed Turkey of its territory in Tripoli and Libya. With the completion of three months of military service in and about Jerusalem, I was faced with a further term as a reserve. It looked as if my life was no longer mine but that of the Turkish army. That was in 1914 when the Austrian Archduke was assasinated in Sarajevo and black clouds were gathering. As by a miracle I managed to skip the country under the nose of the Turkish police. A British boat landed me in Greece whence i took a German-Loyd ship to New York. In those days it was simple to travel as passports, visas and quotas were unknown.

After President Wilson declared war on Germany, I served with the United States Forces as a Y.M.C.A. secretary in France, first with the 19th Engineers and later with the 79th Division.

After the war, way was again open for me to serve the land of my birth. With a British regime I thought the Holy Land was facing an era of hope and prosperity. So in 1919 I returned to Palestine and took the position of principal of the Men's Training College in Jerusalem, whose function was the training of teachers for the newly established system of education. This institution later became the Government Arab College. I kept that position for six years until Lord Balfour's fated visit to inaugurate the Hewbrew University on Scopus, close to the Mt. of Olives. Being the author of the hated Balfour Declaration, he was naturally an unwelcome guest to the Arabs. There were strikes and violence galore. With all his prestige as a former prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in England, the Arabs would not permit him to visit their historic Mosque of Omar built on the site of Solomon's Temple. In Damascus public fury reached such a pitch against him that the French authorities had to smuggle him to a French boat lying in Beirut harbor in order to save his life.

Schools in Palestine went on strike. In fact November 2, which is Balfour Day, has always been observed as a strike day by the Arabs. My students and some of my teachers struck and urged me to join them. My attitude to Arab strikes, which are too frequent and usually futile, was negative. I preached strenuous toil for the Arabs and not strikes, if they wished to stand up to the Zionists. I told them that every day's loss of work was permitting the Jews to get ahead of them by just that much. I would not join in the noisy mob in the streets nor march with the demonstration. The students went to such extremes of violence that my college was temporarily closed. The mob was after my scalp as a traitor to the Arab Cause. Like Pontius Pilate, the British authorities let me down in order to appease the crowd who cried, "crucify him, crucify him!" That was my reward for sticking to my principles, for faithfulness to real Arab interests and incidentally for loyalty to Government orders which were issued to its officers in writing forgbidding the strike. But of course, that was not an unusual performance on the part of the British politicians or politicians of any other country either.

I resigned and accepted a fellowship at Columbia University to work on the Contributions of the Arabs to Education. In 1926 I received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and published my dissertation on Arab Education.

For the thrid time I turned my face toward Palestine, as I loved the country and was happy in its service. Soom after my return I was invited to take the principalship of Friends Boys School, which I accepted, a position which I kept for seventeen years.

During an educational career of about twenty-five years with and for the Arabs, I was overwhelmed with the political, economic and social problems confronting them. Having known America and the West, I was consumed with the passion of doing my bit towards the creation of a new Arab World. Arab life needed an infusion of new blood. A new mutuality was needed, a fresh outlook and a modern approach. It was as clear as crystal from the very beginning that the Arab way of life could not compete with the new life brought in by the Zionists. While the Arabs talked, quarrelled among themselves and went on strikes, the Jews were gaining. Jewish gains were consistent and irresistible. In and out of season I preached to the Arabs to learn from the Jews, to improve their soil, to change their ways and to march with the times, but to no avail. The catastrophe finally came. Through their own drowsiness and the aggression of their foes they lost everything.

My last 25 years in Palestine coincided with the British Mandate, as I was there from 1919 to 1944. I never tired of telling my British friends that their policy in the Holy Land was wrong and opportunistic. They followed expediency rather than principle, with the result that their Palestinian experiment proved to be one of the most disgraceful, in not the most disgraceful, episodes in their colonial history. While forever endeavoring to win the friendship of the Arabs and Jews and reconcile their hostile aims, they lost the confidence and respect of both.

In 1932 I was invited by the American Academy of Political and Social Science to be co-editor with Hary Viteles of a volume of Palestine: A Decade of Development. I was responsible for the securing of Arab contributors and editing their articles. In 1934 the Friends Yearly Meeting of Syria and Palestine delegated Daniel Oliver and me to attend the London Yearly Meeting of Friends and place before them the question of Palestine. Although we talked to the Colonial Minister at Whitehall, saw many members of Parliament and other influential people, we accomplished nothing. England, including the English Quakers, were so sympathetic with the Zionists viewpoint, that our visit made no impression. The Jewish terror against Englishmen in Palestine finally opened their eyes.

In 1937 I was invited to appear before the Royal Commission in Jerusalem. My statement before Lord Peel and his colleagues declared that the Arabs of Palestine were entitled to their own country of which population they constituted the overwhelming majority. The report of that Commission recommended the partition of Palestine.

Besides teaching, lecturing all over Palestine, attending to the administration of the school and making two trips to England and three to America in the interest of Palestine, I took time to share with colleagues the writing of books in Arabic on the History of Jerusalem, the History of Palestine and the Geography of Palestine.

In 1944, my wife, Eva Marshall, and I came to the United States in order to live here permanently and to look after the education of our three children. From 1945 to 1950 I was Executive Director of the Institute of Arab American Affairs in New York City. In 1946 I was proud to become an American citizen.

• The Contribution of the Arabs to Education; dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, 1926
  (republished by Gorgias Press. Available at: http://www.gorgiaspress.com)
  
  
• Co-editor with Harry Viteles of "Palestine: A Decade of Develeopment" Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, November, 1932. Publication No. 2545a. Author of "Education in Palestine", pp. 155-166.
  
  
• Arab Progress in Palestine, 1946.
  
  
• Introducing The Arabs to Americans, The Institute of Arab American Affairs, New York, 1948.
  
  
• Dynamite In The Middle East, Philosophical Library, Inc., New York, 1955.
  
  
• Incomplete, unpublished manuscript, Palestine Illustrates the Bible.

Author and co-author of the following works in Arabic:

• History of Jerusalem
• History of Palestine
• Geography of Palestine
• Arab Education

Articles:

• Asia Magazine
• The Forum
• The New Leader
• Al-Hilal, Cairo, in Arabic
• Al-Mktalaf, Cairo, in Arabic

Lectures in the United States and Canada include:

Foreign Policy Association, Boston Forum, Town Meeting of the Air, American Forum, (radio and television) and many local radio stations. Also addressed colleges, women's clubs, churches and service clubs.

Appeared before:

The Royal Commission on Palestine, 1937.

The Anglo-American Commission, Washington, D.C., 1946