Palestine a Modern History

PALESTINE A MODERN HISTORY DR. ADULWAHAB AL KAYYALI Chapter One SETTING FOR A CONFLICT: 1881-1908 At the same time of the Russian pogroms of the early 1880s and the ensuing first Jewish aliya (immigration), Palestine lay wholly within the Ottoman Empire. On the West of the Jordan, it comprised the independent Mutasarrifyya /Sanjak) of Jerusalem (Quds-i- Cherif) to the south and part of the Vilayet of Sham (Syria) to the north. In 1883, the Vilayet of Sham was reorganised and the northern part of Palestine; namely, the Sanjaks of Acre and Nablus (Balqa') were made part of the Yilayet of Beirut. The Sanjak of Jerusalem was independent and directly linked to the Minister of the Interior in view of its importance to the three major monotheistic religions. It comprised the greater part of the territory of Palestine and more than three quarters of its population.(*1) The total number of villages was 672 with an estimated population of 457,5922 (*2) (not including the Beduins). The number of educational establishments in Palestine amounted to 956 most of which were primary and elementary schools. The overwhelming majority of the population was Sunni Muslim. Small numbers of Shi'a and Druzes existed, while around sixteen per cent of the population was Christian, mainly Greek Orthodox, Latin and Creek Catholics. Arthur Ruppin put the number of Jews living in Palestine in 1880 at 25,000. (*3) Both Jews and Christians were free to practice their religions and enjoyed a degree of autonomy through the Millet system.(*4) The majority of the Muslim population was engaged in agriculture and lived in villages. Apart from the peasants there was a considerable number of unsettled beduins, particularly in the vicinity of Beersheba. The urban population, both Muslim and Christian, was engaged in commerce, the crafts and modest agricultural industries, and some people held government posts. Prior to 1880 almost the entire Jewish population of Palestine lived in its Four Holy Cities': Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safad and Hebron. A sizable proportion of Palestine's Jewry was supported to a very large extent by the challukah system; the organised collection of funds in the Diaspora for the support of the pious scholars in Palestine. Never- the less, piety was not the sole characteristic occupation of Jews in Palestine. As early as 1851, the British Consul in Jerusalem reported that Jews are the majority of artisans - which included the glaziers, blacksmiths, watchmakers, tailors, shoemakers, book-binders.(*5) In addition they almost monopolised money-lending and the limited banking business in the country. Under Turkish rule Palestine was dominated by the leading Arab families who, principally on the strength of their long established local position,were recruited into the governing class of the Ottoman Empire. It was a kind of feudal system consisting of a small number of land-owning families and a backward peasantry, whereby the 'Ulama' (interpreters of Muslim laws and traditions) occupied a strong position, for they alone could confer legitimacy on the Ottoman government acts. In his excellent study, Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables, Mr Albert Hourani analysed the relations of mutual dependence between the monarch and the notables; a concept which had far-reaching implications not merely under the Ottomans but throughout the period under study. The political influence of the notables rests on two factors; on the one hand, they must have access to authority, and so be able to advise, to warn and in general to speak for society or some part of it at the ruler's court; on the other, they must have some social power of their own, whatever its form and origin, which is not dependent on the ruler and gives them a position of accepted and "natural" leadership .(*6) The Ottoman attempt to reform administration - the Tanzimat (1856) - tended to strengthen the position of the notables rather than limit their role: ... Notables became patrons' of villages, and this was one of the ways in which they came to establish their claims to ownership over them.(*7) Palestine and the Great Powers The effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire were not confined to the growth of the power of the notables. As the Ottoman state became increasingly dependent on foreign protection vis a-vis other foreign powers as well as ambitious vassals, the European powers sought to establish direct links with the various populations of the Empire. Thus, France became the 'protector' of the Catholic communities in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, while the Orthodox Christians came under Russian protection. The British Government's interest in Palestine was aroused by Napoleon's Palestinian Campaign (1799) which posed a threat to the British overland route to India. When Mohammad Ali of Egypt occupied Palestine and Syria and defeated the Ottoman armies, even threatening Constantinople itself, the British Government adopted a course of military intervention and was instrumental in driving the armies of Ibrahim Pasha (son of Mohammad Ali) back to Egypt. It was during that period (1838) that the British Government decided to station a British consular agent in Jerusalem and to open the first European Consulate in March 1839. Mohammad Ali's advance into Syria opened the 'Syrian Question'. New British policies were formulated as a result. To begin with, Britain sought to emulate the French and the Russian approach in the area. It was during the 1840s and 1850s that the British Government, which had no obvious proteges of its own, established a connection with the Jews in Palestine, the Druzes in Lebanon and the new Protestant churches. "Behind the protection of trade and religious minorities there lay the major political and strategic interest of the powers."(*8) From its start, British presence in Palestine was associated with the promotion of Jewish interests. Albert Hyamson stated, ". .this question of British protection of Jews became, however, and remained for many years the principal concern of the British consulate in Jerusalem".(*9) In a dispatch to the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Viscount Palmerston explained why the Sultan should encourage Jewish immigration to Palestine over and above the material benefits: .. the Jewish People if returning under the Sanction and Protection and at the Invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil Designs of Mehemet Ali or his successor.(*10) The Rise of Political Zionism Modern political Zionism could be said to have been the outcome of the failure of the era of liberalism and equality which had been heralded by the French Revolution, on the one hand, and the growth of nationalist and colonialist ideas and aspirations in nineteenth- century. Europe on the other. For in spite of Rothschild's ascendancy in European finance, that of Disraeli (a converted Jew who gloried in his origins) in British politics and that of Lassalle in the leadership of German socialism, the Haskalah, the "Enlightenment" or Jewish assimilationist movement, was not a complete success. This partial failure could be explained by "the obvious inadequacy of the assimilationist view of anti-Semitism, the fact that bitter Jew-hatred persisted even where its objects were most completely de-Judaized."(*11) The reaction to this failure took the form of a call for a national Jewish entity, preferably a national return to Zion. Thus, Zionism, with its inherent implication of loss of hope in the future total acceptance of the Jew as an individual by the majority society, did not begin to find its way to popular appeal and acceptance until after the Russian pogroms of 1881, which set a mass exodus of millions, in eastern and western Europe, into motion. There were a number of attempts to create Jewish agricultural communities in Palestine prior to 1881. But philanthropy, not nationalism, was the basis of the London Hebrew Society for the Colonization of the Holy Land, founded by Jews in 1861.(*11) The same year witnessed the establishment of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, an institution for the protection and improvement of the Jews in general and of those in Europe and in the Muslim lands in particular. In 1870, the Alliance established the Agricultural School Mikveh Israel near Jaffa, obviously aiming at the settlement of Jews in Palestine on a considerable scale. Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and the ensuing pogroms in Russia, the enthusiasm for Haskalah collapsed al its place was taken by a new movement Hibbath (also, Hovevei) Zion (The Love of Zion). Societies were formed in Jewish centres where the question of settling in Palestine as an immediate practical prospect and the study of Hebrew as a living language were discussed. The first Jewish colonists belonged to an organisation of Russo-Jewish students formed at Kharkov for the colonisation of Palestine known as Bilu. The growth of Jewish nationalism coincided with the rise of Arab nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab Awakening In his well-known book, The Arab Awakening, George Antonius traced the pioneering manifestations of political consciousness in the Yilaye of Syria: It was at a secret gathering of certain members of the Syrian Scientific Society (1868) that the Arab national movement may be said to have uttered its first cry."(*13) There is no need to go into the question here in great detail. Suffice it to say that after centuries of political inertness the Arab East began to experience a certain political awakening and the beginning of a consciousness of a common Arab identity. On 13 December 1875, the British Consul in Beyrout (Beirut) reported: For some years past there has existed amongst certain classes, especially the Mohametans, of the population of Syria tendency to desire annexation to Egypt which has gradually grown in intensity.(*14) On 28 June 1880, the British Consul-General in Beirut reported the appearance of "revolutionary placards in Beirut."(*15) In subsequent telegrams the British Consul reported the main points of the first recorded statement of an Arab political programme (1880): (1) the grant of independence to Syria in union with the Lebanon.

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