Cinematic Forms of Resistance in Palestine Before the Nakba

Most of the literature on the resistance of Palestinian cinema concentrates on this phenomenon after the 1948 Nakba, on the basis that any cinema discussion in pre-Nakba Palestine must be a reference to Zionist cinema. This is due to the belief that cinema work in pre-Nakba Palestine was either exclusively Jewish, managed by Jews, or financed by Jewish organizations. But this supposition is incorrect. And also, the hegemonic perspective assumes that Palestinian resistance in general arose as a natural reaction to the occupation of Palestinian territory by the Zionist militias in 1948, and it's incorrect neither.
In this paper, I try to illustrate that the forms of cinematic resistance in Palestine started concomitantly with the inception of cinema in Palestine and escalated after the release of the notorious "Balfour Declaration" in 1917. One of these manifestations of cinematic resistance was the intentional use of adjectives "national" or "patriotic" to refer to Palestinian individuals or institutions, by way of contrast with the designation of European immigrants or Zionist groups as "Jewish" or "Zionist.".
Thus, accordingly, one would find that "Luna Park Cinema," established in 1922, had been a Palestinian-owned or a Palestinian-managed national cinema quite different from that of "Zion Cinema," which was devoted to the implementation of Zionist doctrine and whose management and ownership were in Zionist hands. Similarly, other national cinemas were developed with "Beitan Cinema," inaugurated by Abdul Rahman Al-Tubji in 1926, and with "Apollo Cinema," established in 1928.
One of the most important acts of cinematic resistance was the actualization of a Palestinian national cinema project called "The National Cinema Company in Palestine," which was envisioned in 1933 and accomplished with the launch of "Al-Hamra Cinema" in 1937. Parallel to this project, there were other national efforts in the field of cinema, along with a movement of national film criticism that engaged in resisting Zionist efforts at promoting their falsely misleading argument that Palestine is "a land without a people." The present study primarily utilizes the utilization of contemporary Palestinian newspapers as central sources, including the reproduction and examination of a range of cinema advertisements. The archival records constitute the most robust counter-evidence to Zionist arguments and the clearest illustration of their constructed discourses, thereby verifying that there was cinematic resistance in Palestine in various manifestations even before the Nakba