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Jewish Political Elite During the British Mandate

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Jewish Political Elite During the British Mandate Journal of Literature and Art Studies, September 2016, Vol. 6, No. 9, 1085-1099 doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2016.09.011 D DAVID PUBLISHING Social Background and Elite Composition: Jewish Political Elite During the British Mandate Taysir Nashif United Nations, New York This article, which utilizes the quantitative social-background approach, sets as its objective to empirically discern correlations between the behavior of the Jewish political elite, embodied in the Jewish Agency for Palestine in the period from 1921 to 1948, and the following social-background variables: age, foreign travel, occupation as a path to political power, regional affiliation, ideology, and political opportunity, of the JAE membership. Diversity of the social-background variables and, particularly, the multitude of languages they knew, explain, to a considerable extent, firstly, the wide variety of their social, political and economic views, and, secondly, the elite’s resort to direct contact with Western governments and peoples in communicating and promoting their political ideology, thus facilitating the realization of the Zionist project. Keywords: elite communication, circulation, Jewish elite, mandate over Palestine, politics, regional affiliation, Zionism Historical Background As a political movement, Zionism was launched in the 1880s by Jewish European intellectuals. These individuals and their successors were successful in providing the Zionist movement with effective leadership and organization (Khouri, 1971, p. 3). The World Zionist Organization (WZO), in particular, emerged as an important and powerful international body (Cohen, 1950, p. 312). To establish the Jewish national home, Zionist leaders envisaged the promotion of Jewish immigration to, and settlement in, Palestine, the unification of world Jews, the fostering of Jewish national consciousness and the taking of steps to secure various governments’ support for the Zionist goals (Patai, 1971, p. 114). The Allied forces completed the occupation of Palestine in 1918. On 25 April 1920, the Allied Supreme Council of the Peace Conference in San Remo assigned to Great Britain the mandate over Palestine, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration, promising British support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Article 4 of the mandate provided for the recognition of a Jewish agency for Palestine to co-operate with the mandatory power in creating a Jewish national home. It also provided that “the Zionist Organization … shall be recognized as such agency” (Patai, 1971, pp. 757-758). The Arab population of Palestine, both Muslim and Christian, amounted in 1918 to 644,000 persons, whereas the Jews numbered about 56,000. Taysir Nashif, B.A. in Arabic Language and Literature, Hebrew University; M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, University of Toronto; Ph.D. in Political Science, State University of New York at Binghamton. He served as a Professor of sociology at the University of Oran, Algeria, and taught Arabic at Temple University, PA. Dr. Nashif has been a member in several professional associations, including Middle East Studies Association and Association of Third World Studies. 1086 SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND ELITE COMPOSITION Organizationally, the highest organ of the World Zionist Organization was the biennial Congress. It decided on general Zionist policy and elected the General Council (Actions Committee), the Executive, and the president. The Executive was charged with implementing the Zionist policy adopted by the Congress and the General Council. In 1929, the Jewish Agency was expanded to include not only the Zionists, as was the case until then, but also the non-Zionist Jews with a view to enlisting the financial support of the wealthy non-Zionist Jews in the United States and other countries. However, for a variety of reasons—including political disagreements between the Zionist and non-Zionist members of the Jewish Agency Executive (JAE), and the considerable destruction of the European Jewry (1939-1945)—the principle of parity of representation on which the enlarged Jewish Agency rested was not adhered to. In fact, the Zionist component became predominant. The British ruled Palestine from 1917 until 1948. The main actors in the Palestine environment during this period were the British Government, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv), and the Arabs of Palestine. The Yishuv enjoyed the status of a partially autonomous entity, a state-in-the-making. Its main governing bodies comprised the Vaad Leumi (the National Council of Palestine Jews) and the Executive Committee of the Zionist organization, which was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine. The British Mandatory authorities entrusted to these institutions certain functions of self-government (Lenczowski, 1975, p. 164). In 1947, the United Nations Special Committee recommended a partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone of Jerusalem. Keen to keep the country undivided, the majority of the Palestine Arabs rejected the partition plan. On 14 May 1948 Israel’s independence was proclaimed by the Jewish National Council, representing the Jewish community in Palestine and the Zionist movement. This independence took effect concurrently with the termination of the British Palestine Mandate on the following day. The Jewish National Council declared that it would act as a Provisional Council of State until elected permanent authorities were established under a constitution. The Provisional Council of State designated the JAE, headed by David Ben-Gurion, as the Provisional Government of the state. Identification of the Political Elite In identifying the Jewish political elite, the article employs the institutional approach. The JAE members are considered the Jewish political elite of the world Zionist movement. The JAE is of a special interest because it was the main forum for Zionist politics and the main arena in which its members acted and interacted. This article covers nearly twenty-seven years, beginning with 1921, year in which the Executive of the WZO was elected by the 12th Zionist Congress and a year after the San Remo Conference decided to grant the mandate under the League of Nations to Great Britain. The study ends with the termination of the British mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. Twelve Jewish Agency Executives, numbering 64 individuals, were elected between 1921 and 1948. Age All the members of the Jewish Agency Executive (JAE) got politically involved in early life, well before taking up their first political office. In many cases, their political involvement came during boyhood and early student life. As Table 1 indicates, the average age of the JAE members at the beginning of first political office stood at 31 years, which is, in absolute and relative terms, young. This average age would have been lower SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND ELITE COMPOSITION 1087 were it not for the inclusion in the JAE of 12 members who, when assuming their first political office, were in their 40s and 50s. Moreover, the youth of the JAE members at the first political office kept their average age at first membership in the JAE relatively young—45.9 years. Table 1 Age of JAE Members: Aggregate Count Years Average age of the Jewish elite members at time of first political office 31.0 Average age of the Jewish elite members at first JAE membership 45.9 As set forth, the JAE is the subject of study as of September 1921, the year in which the 12th Zionist Congress was convened in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad). It should be noted that two members of the JAE were elected by Zionis Congresses that preceded the 12th Zionist Congress. One of them, Menahem Ussishkin, was elected to the Zionist Executive at the 7th Congress in 1905, while the other, Nahum Sokolow, was elected to the Zionist Executive at the 10th Congress in 1911. In calculating the average age of the Jewish elite group at the first JAE membership, those two dates were taken into account. Analysis over time of the average age data of the JAE shows a significantly high rate of circulation of the Jewish political elite. As Table 2 shows, though tending to be on the higher side, the average age of each of the JAEs was not that high. It shows that each JAE comprised both young and middle-aged members. The average age of the members grew from 46.4 years for the 1921 JAE to 52.6 years for the 1946 JAE. The average age of the JAE was characterized by marked fluctuations. In terms of general trend, there was an unmistakable, though slow, rise in average age. The age of the 1921 JAE averaged 46.4 years. The average age rose uninterruptedly in subsequent years, reaching a high of 50.8 years for the 1929 JAE. After this high, a decline set in in average age, reaching an all-time low of 45.2 years for the 1931 JAE. Comparatively young non-Zionist recruits to the 1931 JAE account for the lower average age of the Jewish elite. After an all-time high of 54 years for the 1935 JAE, the average age of the 1946 one stood at 52.6 years. There was a difference of over six years between the first 1921 JAE and the last one of 1946. Table 2 Average Age of the Jewish Elite by Each JAE Average age JAE No. (in years) September 1921 15 46.4 August 1923 13 46.4 August 1925 15 49.9 August-September 1927 9 51.0 July-August 1929 13 50.8 October 1930 10 49.7 July 1931 12 45.2 September 1933 13 49.6 August-September 1935 15 54.0 August 1937 20 51.0 August 1939 26 51.4 December 1946 21 52.6 1088 SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND ELITE COMPOSITION Unquestionably, the over-six-year rise was a product of the aging of the older recruits, and it would have been at a faster rate had it not been for the admission of new younger recruits to the political elite group.
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