While residing temporarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife's brother's family, Diab wrote for Kawkab America, the United States' first Arabic language newspaper.

[4] In 1902 the Ottoman Government issued a warrant for his arrest, confiscated his property in Lebanon and sentenced him to death in absentia citing his editorials as encouraging revolution in the Empire.

[9] Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Diab, in 1919, opposed a French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and was strongly against France's perceived role as speaking on behalf of the region at the post World War I Paris Peace Conference.

[10] In the early 1920s Diab's editorials in Meraat-ul-Gharb focused on encouragement of an increased Arab nationalist identity based on non-sectarian divisions, and non-intervention by the European nations.

"[11] He called for a republic in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, writing in 1928, "…the nations of the East, which have tasted the bitterness of individual rule in the past need no proof of its harmfulness.