Jerusalem’s Other Voice I dedicate this book to the memory of Ragheb Nashashibi. Jerusalem’s Other Voice Ragheb Nashashibi and Moderation in Palestinian Politics, 1920-1948 Nasser Eddin Nashashibi Ithaca Press Exeter Jerusalem Studies Series © Nasser Eddine Nashashibi 1990 First published in 1990 by Ithaca Press, 8 Richmond Road, Exeter EX4 4JA Produced by Imprint, Oxford Typeset at Oxford University Computing Service Printed and bound in England by Biddles Ltd., Guilford and King’s Lynn British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Nashashibi, Nasser Eddine Jerusalem’s other voice: Raghib Nashashibi and moderation in Palestinian politics, 1920- 1948—(Jerusalem studies series). 1. Palestine. Political Events I. Title II. Series 956.9404 ISBN 0-86372-117-6 Contents Note on transliteration vi Acknowledgements vii P reface ix 1 Jerusalem and the Nashashibi connection i 2 The man and the family 14 3 Jerusalem’s mayor, 1920-34 22 4 End of an era 31 5 The plight of the moderates 46 6 The adversaries 61 7 Fakhri Nashashibi: adventurer and politician 81 8 Moderation v. extremism, 1935-48 91 9 The absence of Arab institutional development, 1922-39 123 10 The frivolous inter-Arab conflict, 1939 148 11 Musa Alami: another moderate, another victim 163 12 Arab leadership in decline, 1939-47 188 1 3 We lived under Zionist terror 202 14 Exile and return, 1948-51 212 15 The last chapter 227 Appendices 235 Bibliograpy 256 Index 264 Note on Transliteration In general I have given proper names and words of Arabic origin in their Arabic form except those which commonly appear in Western publications. Thus I have used the better known version of the name of Gamal Abdel Nasser rather than Jamal Abd al-Nasir, (King) Farouk rather than Faruq, (King) Saud rather than Sa'ud and Nahas (Pasha) rather than Nahhas. I have also dropped the Arabic indefinite article a l in two names that are frequently used, namely Nashashibi and Alami. I have used ( ') to indicate an 'ayn and ( ’) to indicate a hamza where they occur in the middle of a word, and have used the letter q for the Arabic qaf. For simplicity, diacritical marks have been omitted. Acknowledgements In writing this book I owe gratitude to many friends and colleagues. I would particularly like to thank Sir Harold Beeley who so generously gave of his time and offered valuable comments for the entire manuscript. I am grateful to my publisher Nadim Shehadi of Ithaca Press for his co-operation and assistance. I would like to thank Jonathan Livingstone and John Cooper who helped prepare the work for press. I also extend my heartfelt appreciation to Teddy Hodgkin, Stewart Perowne, Robin Chancellor (the son of Sir John Chancellor, British High Commissioner for Palestine between 1928 and 1931), Professor Muhammad al-Shush of Alberta University in Canada, Professor Hasan al-Karmi, and Paul Lalor of Oxford University. My thanks also go to Janice Turner, Rosemary Wootton, Miles Copeland, Elizabeth Bardin, Raghid al-Solh, Huda Imam, John and Linda Snuggs, Miray Molecey, Haniya Husain, Amal Zebdeh, Amal Nashashibi, Medhat Nashashibi, and Khozen Merchant. Khalil al-Silwani, the present Palestinian Attorney General in the occupied territories, was most helpful in clarifying a few points of historical interest. I am also grateful to Aharon Sarig, Director of the Municipality of Jerusalem, and Ali Khamis, a most obliging member of his staff. I should like to express my thanks to the staff of the Public Record Office, London, the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and the library of Rhodes House, Oxford. I acknowledge the writings on the subject of this study by such notable Arab authors as Akram Zu* ay ter, Bayan Nuweihed, Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali, Manuel Hasasian, Sa'ud Ateyyah, and Izzat Darwaza. I particularly want to express my deep appreciation for the most valuable help and sincere co-operation given to me by my friend Adel Kamal in the preparation of this book for publication. Most of all, my gratitude to one man in particular is greater than I can adequately express. Albert Hourani, one of the great scholars of our time, despite the many demands made upon him by his students, found time to go through my manuscript with great care and made very VIH Jerusalem’s Other Voice valuable suggestions. I have known Albert Hourani for over forty years, but every time I meet him I am struck by his moderation in all things, his unimpeachable integrity and his unswerving loyalty to his friends. Special thanks go to my dear wife for allowing me the time to pursue this venture. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for any inaccuracies that remain and for the views and sentiments expressed. Preface This book is not a systematic narrative of the history of Palestine or Jerusalem but a collection of portraits and sketches of individuals that have set the scene, the pace, and the course of the contemporary history of Palestine: from the mandate to the present day. This work is not to be regarded as a textbook but as a complement to much that has been written on Palestine, for it deals largely with the personalities of the leading players in this political drama. This is a personal account of the Palestine story during the period of the mandate and beyond with frequent references to the disharmony in political perception between the two principal leaders of the two principal Arab families in Palestine, Ragheb Nashashibi and Haj Amin al-Husaini, and to the eclipse of moderate policies by the forces of radical extremism. In telling this story I was much influenced by numerous conversations I had with my uncle, Ragheb, and Musa Alami. I also had interesting conversations with Haj Amin al- Husaini whom I met several times in Beirut, Cairo, and Jerusalem. Other eminent Arabs like Abd al-Latif Saleh, Ya'qub Ghusain, and Jamal al-Husaini were kind enough to spare so much of their time talking politics to me when I was still a boy. I must add that I have no intention of glorifying the Nashashibis in this book, or of maligning their Arab opponents, though a measure of parti pris in my case is inescapable. M y intention is simply to speak my mind about a unique and intractable problem, to describe historical events and personalities from first-hand experience and original material in my possession—letters, tape recordings and diaries—as well as from official documents and private papers. I also intend to recount stories hitherto untold, correct distortions, express opinions and, occasionally, reminisce. In writing this book I tried to be as objective as is humanly possible for a man with my background and experience. I am a Palestinian Arab of the Nashashibi family, whose uncle was Ragheb Nashashibi, the voice of moderation in Palestinian politics from the early twenties until the late forties. It is a matter of deep regret for me that this voice was not allowed to be as widely heard as I would have wished. <> I <> Jerusalem and the Nashashibi Connection I had always dreaded the day when I should have to leave Jerusalem, but the reality was sharper than I had ever dreamed. Sir Ronald Storrs, Orientations (1937) King Juan Carlos of Spain told me in 1980 that among the many titles he carries was that of King of Jerusalem, and that he was very proud of it because he saw in it the ‘greatness of history’. For the same reason the Palestinians are proud of their country and their great city Jerusalem. For centuries, Jerusalem has been subjected to conquests from East and West because of its political, strategic and uniquely spiritual value, and all those who have lived there have had to pay a price for being Jerusalemites. They have paid with their safety, with their property, and often with their lives. Jerusalem was called the city of peace. In the Bible it was called Salem. In Egyptian and Babylonian literature it is called Yuoshalimio from which the Hebrew Yuroshalime comes. But this city never saw peace. Throughout its history the city has been captured twenty-five times. Round about the beginning of the first millenium BC, King David took the city and made it the capital of his kingdom. In 587 BC it was captured by the Babylonians. From then on until the Romans took the city in 63 BC, it was conquered many times by foreign invaders such as the Persians and the Greeks. As the Jews revolted against the Roman government, the second Temple was destroyed and the Jews driven out by Emperor Titus in AD 70. In 638 Jerusalem fell to the Arabs. The Crusaders under Godfrey de Bouillon took the city in 1099, but in 118 7 they were driven out by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, and in 1517 the Ottoman Turks occupied Jerusalem. On 9 December 1917 Jerusalem fell into the hands of General Allenby. It remained under British occupation until 14 May 1948, but 2 Jerusalem’s Other Voice part of it was soon occupied by the newly established state of Israel. In June 1967 the Old City was invaded and has remained annexed to Israel to this day. It was in AD 638 that the second Caliph of Islam, Omar Ibn al-Khattab, entered Jerusalem riding a white camel and received the surrender of the city from the head of the Byzantine Church, the Patriarch Sophronius. Since then Jerusalem has been a city sacred to all Muslims all over the world—indeed, it was originally towards Jeru­ salem, not Mecca, that the faithful were instructed to turn in their prayers—and for almost all that time, except for the brief interval of the Crusaders’ kingdom (less than a hundred years) and during the thirty years of the British mandate, until its occupation by Israel in 1967, the city has been in Muslim hands and its population predominantly Arab.