The American Colony Hotel was founded in Jerusalem by Christians from Chicago in 1902 in the villa of a member of the
al-Husseini family. On December 9, 1917, the Turkish governor of Jerusalem
took a white sheet from the hotel, then serving as a hospital, and
used it to surrender to the advancing Allied armies. Today, it is a
popular haunt for foreign journalists and is known as a good place
to gather information regarding the Palestinians.