From Neutrality to Criticism: The First Shift in Filastin's Position on Zionism
Almost a year and a half after its inception, however, Filastin began to change its attitude towards Zionism. At the outset of this shift was the article "The Immigrants and the High Costs of Living", in which Yüsuf al-isa discussed why the cost of living had increased in his hometown. First he dealt with general causes and then proceeded to the particular situation in Jaffa: "We believe that the greatest reason for our contemporary hard life here is the continuous increase in the number of Israelite immigrants among us." The author immediately emphasised that the goal of this report was not to attack the Israelites and said that "they have the right to live how they want and in any country they want,” He thought that the general increase in population was a positive development, but only if the immigrants integrated with the native population, which was not true of Israelite newcomers. They lived separated from the natives, did not go to the shops owned by them and had taken over many local businesses."They are receiving two natural consequences of the population growth, I mean high living costs and increased earnings, while we are only facing one consequence: high living costs." The subsequent editorial "We Are Silent and They Make Us Speak" is crucial in order to understand the thinking of Yüsuf al-Isa regarding Jews in general and Zionist colonisation in particular at this time. He wrote it in response to a harsh rejoinder to his article on rising living costs by Abraham Ludvipol.  The editorial column begins as follows: "Some of our Israelite brothers promised to lie in wait for everyone who dared in his writing to mention the name of their religious community, even if it was a trivial remark. They gaze at a friendly remark and rage at moral criticism. They ask us to put on 'gloves' when we talk about them." Then he returns to the editorial on high living costs and summarises its content. Its goal was to conduct "a social study", not to attack anyone. Yusuf al-Isa included the translation of Ludvipol's letter, which was written in French, in his editorial: "due to what was said in the article mentioned above, we can only declare that the motive for writing this abovementioned article is hatred of the Jews". Then Ludvipol criticised the editor-in-chief for not understanding the real reasons for rising living costs. He concurred that the "high number of Israelite immigrants" was one of the causes. Nevertheless, he refuted the allegations of economic exclusiveness of the Israelites and their boycott of non-Israelite shops and extolled the benefits brought to the natives by the three settlements, Petah Tikva, Rehovot and Rishon le-Zion, where thousands of non-Israelites were employed. In addition, he accused the editor-in-chief of being "filled with hatred of Jews and that this view of anti-Semitism follows him wherever he turns". Yüsuf al-Isa thought that the harshness of the response resulted from a mistranslation of his editorial.
“We are not permeated with hatred of the Jewish race, as the author assumes, because we do not recognise and do not want to recognise the existence of a Jewish race, but we only acknowledge that there is an Israelite religion which we honour and esteem [...] and that among the sons of this religion are those [who belong to] Turkish, Indian, Russian and Arab races, just as to the Christian religion belong the Bulgarian, French, Serbian and American.“
…
 “In conclusion, our Israelite brothers will allow us to say that the vehemence of this sensitivity which overcomes them every time when their name is mentioned in a civilisational subject makes a man doubt and think that there is something fishy. You should be content with our respect towards you as the adherents of a divine religion and not try to force us to consider you a secular race in spite of the diversity of languages, races and citizenships of their members”