Eliyahu Zeˋev Levin-Epstein, a Russian Jew who immigrated to Palestine in 1890 and was one of the founders of Rehovot Colony. He was the head of the colony during its early years when the conflict erupted with their Bedouin neighbors.

Abu-Ḥaṭaba was a Muslim Ottoman, the mukhtar and elder of the Abu-Ḥaṭaba Bedouin tribe who sent the petition to Grand Vizier in Istanbul in response to the Jewish activity.

Yusuf Khalidi, a member of the prominent Palestinian Khalidi family and mayor of Jerusalem between 1899 to 1907. Khalidi was interested in the Zionist cause and was warning against its possible implications.

Theodore Herzl, was Viennese Jew and a journalist. He was the founder of the Zionist Movement and of the World Zionist Organization advocating for the creation of a Jewish state.

Wasif Jawhariyyeh, a Christian musician was born in the old city neighborhood of Saadiya in Jerusalem and was a famous composer, oud player, poet and chronicler. His diaries provide a record of urban daily life in the city during the late Ottoman period.

Albert Antebi was a Jew from Damascus who relocated to Jerusalem in 1896 to became the head of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. He was an educator, a philanthroper and a go-between the Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine.

Manya Shochat was a Russian Jewish political activist who came to Palestine in 1882 with BILU. She was one of the leaders of the collective settlement movement in Palestine, the Kvutazah, which later became the Kibbutz.

Khalil al-Sakakini was a Palestinian Orthodox Christian. He was the teacher of Wasif Jawhariyyeh among many others. He founded the Constitutional School based on humanist principles and introduced new educational methods. He was also an Arab nationalist who voiced concern over the growing Zionist activity in Palestine.

Ruhi Khalidi was a member of the notable Palestinian Khalidi family, a writer and teacher. He was the nephew of Yusuf Khalidi who had the letter exchange with Herzl in 1890. Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, …

Arthur Ruppin was a Jewish German sociologist and statistician who relocated to Jaffa in 1907 to work for the World Zionist Organization. Ruppin headed the Palestine Office and was in charge of buying land for Jewish Settlement in Palestine.

Najib Nassar was a Palestinian journalist and intellectual from Lebanon and the founder of Al-Karmil newspaper in Haifa, launched in 1908. The paper, with Nassar’s lead, voiced opposition to the Zionist activity, and in 1911 he published the first book in Arabic on Zionism.

Al-Isa was a Palestinian Greek-orthodox journalist and intellectual. In 1911 together with his cousin, he founded the newspaper Filastin in Jerusalem. The paper represented Arab Nationalism and opposition to Zionism.

Nissim Malul was a Sephardic Jew from Tunisia. He was a historian, writer and journalist who advocated Jewish-Arab coexistence in the Ottoman Empire and advocated that Jews learn Arabic. He also wrote about Zionism in the Arab press and translated Arabic publications in Hebrew.