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The Origins of
the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute
Chapters 11 & 14 in James Gelvin’s
“The Modern Middle East”
notes by Denis Bašić
First World War
notes by Denis Basic
WWI and the
Middle East State
System
based on James Gelvin, chapter 11
“The Modern Middle East: A History”
Basic info on WWI
The emergence of the powerful German Empire in
1871 disrupted the European balance of power
June 28, 1914 the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife
Sofia assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Prinzip (20
yo) - a young Serbian nationalist from Bosnia
Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war to Serbia - the
Russian (Orthodox Christian) ally. Russia becomes
involved in the issue.
German Empire was allied with the AustroHungarian Empire
Germany decided to attack France, the ally of
Russia at the time, and to do so it decided to go
via Belgium first
Britain was committed by treaty to Belgian
independence, so it declared war on Germany
World War One had started
The French and British called the war “the Great War”
German military strategists understood that the war was
being waged among rival empires with worldwide interests.
These empires depended on their colonial possessions to
maintain their strategic position and economic well-being.
Colonies were also indispensable for the French and British
military efforts.
There are many theories that try to explain the cause of WWI.
The most quantifiable one is the theory that the war was
caused by Imperialist Rivalries [see: Origins of WWI (part 1
and part 2)]. The trigger [not the cause] of the war was the
Sarajevo assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Alliances before WWI
TRIPLE ALLIANCE
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy
TRIPLE ENTENTE
Britain, France, and Russia.
Alliances during WWI
CENTRAL POWERS
Germany, Austro-Hungary, Ottoman empire, and Bulgaria
ENTENTE POWERS
Britain, France, and Russia. From 1915, Italy. From 1917, the
US. Associated forces were also Australia, Canada, Indian
Empire, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa;
Belgium, Greece, Japan, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Portugal,
Romania, Serbia.
NEUTRAL STATES
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Losses during the WWI
Per capita, losses in the Ottoman Empire and Persia
among the highest of all nations.
Germany lost 9% of its population
France lost 11% of its population
Ottoman Empire lost almost 25% of its population or 5
million people out of 21 million
4/5 of Ottoman victims were non-combatants
Causes for casualties
Many casualties suffered by the Ottoman Empire and Persia
succumbed to famine.
In Mount Lebanon, famine killed upward of half the population.
This tragedy still plays a central role in the Lebanese national
narrative, which claims that the (Muslim) Ottoman government
intentionally created the famine by requisitioning agricultural
products and tools from the largely Christian population.
While requisitioning certainly aggravated the problem, it was in fact
the French and British blockade of eastern Mediterranean ports that
had created the famine.
Armenians
Among these Ottoman victims are also 1.5 million
Armenians who died of starvation and ethnic
cleansing
Armenians believe that the Ottoman government
planned the atrocities and call them “genocide”
Turkish government still claims that the tremendous
losses of the Armenians were a result of the
unfortunate accident of war
Although Persia was officially neutral, it had
approximately the same losses like the Ottoman
Empire
3 aspects of new political order brought to
the Middle East by WWI
1. Creation of the current state system in the region:
States built by decree :
Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine / Israel
States built by revolution and conquest :
Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt
2. Emergence of Middle Eastern nationalisms
NATIONALISM - ideology binding together people into political
communities based on shared experiences and (alleged)
distinguishing traits
Turkish nationalism, Arab nationalism, Syrian nationalism Egyptian
nationalism, etc.
3. Recognition of Zionist (Israeli nationalist) movement by Britain in
November 1917 - the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
State-Building
by Decree
after WWI
France and Britain constructed Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine/Israel, Jordan, and Iraq
Guided by their own interest and
preconceptions, Britain and France partitioned
what had once been the Ottoman Empire and
created states where states had never existed
before
The wishes of the inhabitants of those
territories counted for little when it came to
deciding their political future
desired war spoils
Russia had its eyes on two prizes
1. claim to the Turkish Straits - Bosporus
40 % of the Russian export goes through the straits
2. claim to the Ottoman Palestine
to protect the interest of the Orthodox Christians
against Catholics whose interests were backed by
France
France claimed to have the “historic rights” in
the region of Ottoman Syria (including
Lebanon and Palestine)
as a protector of Lebanon’s Maronite Christians
but also due to its investments in local
railroads and silk production
Britain, at first, was a bit flustered about the spoils of
war, for they had been the staunched defender of the
Ottoman integrity just to oppose the interests of
Russia.
However, later the British appointed a special
committee to make a list of the war spoils that would
secure the British investment and trade routes in the
region.
The Brits claimed Persia, later also Iraq due to its
expected oil wealth, and Palestine due to its
proximity to the Suez Canal.
Entente Secret Treaties
CONSTANTINOPLE AGREEMENT
(March 18, 1915)
France and Britain recognized Russia’s claims to the Turkish straits
(Bosporus and Dardanelles) and some surrounding territory.
Istanbul was supposed to become a free port.
In return France should get control over Syria (territory never
precisely defined)
The British should get control over Persia.
What makes this agreement important is that it established the
principle that Entente Powers had a right to compensation for
fighting their enemies and that at least a part of this compensation
should come in the form of territory carved out of the Middle East.
other secret treaties
Treaty of London (April 26, 1915)
Sykes-Picot Agreement (May 16, 1916)
Treaty of Saint-Jean de Maurienne (April, 1917)
All these treaties applied the principle of compensation.
Sometimes the treaties stipulated that compensation
should take the form of direct European control over
territories belonging to the Ottoman Empire.
At other times, the Entente powers masked their
ambitions by promising each other rights to establish or
maintain protectorates or to organize zones of indirect
control.
The new Bolshevik government of Russia not only
renounced the claims of their predecessors, but it also
embarrassed the other entente powers by publishing the
texts of the secret agreements signed by the previous
Russian government.
conflicting promises
and secret treaties
the British offered to shelter Muhammad ibn Saud
within a “veiled (secret) protectorate” if he only stays
out of conflict between the British and the Ottoman
Empire.
simultaneously, they promised ibn Saud’s rival, Sharif
Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca, gold and guns and the right
to establish an ambiguously defined Arab “state of
states” in the predominantly Arab areas of the Ottoman
Empire in exchange for a revolt against the Ottoman
Empire.
Arab Revolt of 1915
... was initiated by the Sherif Hussein ibn
‘Ali with the aim of securing independence
from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a
single unified Arab state spanning from
Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.
This revolt was set in motion by the coup in
1908 in which the Turkish nationalist reform
party Young Turks seized power from the old
Sultan Abdülhamid II. The Arab leaders felt Sharif Hussein bin Ali,
King of the Arabs and
discriminated against in terms of
King of the Hijaz
parliamentary representation and state’s
1853-1931
language policy.
The Ottomans joined the Central Powers in
World War I in 1914.
On the other side, Sherif
Hussein, as the head of the
Arab nationalists, entered into
an alliance with the United
Kingdom and France against the
Ottomans in 1916. The Arab
forces were led by his sons,
Abdullah and Faysal. The
British government in Egypt
immediately sent a young
officer to work with the Arabs,
this man was Captain Thomas
Edward Lawrence, better
known as Lawrence of Arabia.
Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935)
Australian Light-horse troops marched unopposed into Damascus
on September 30, 1918. Captain Thomas Edward Lawrence and the
Arab troops rode into Damascus the next day to receive an "official"
surrender. At the end of the war, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force
with the help of their Arab allies had seized what is today Israel,
Jordan, Lebanon, large parts of the Arabian peninsula and southern
Syria.
The United Kingdom promised in the Hussein-McMahon
Correspondence that it would support Arab independence if they
revolted against the Ottomans.
On the other side, under the 1916 Sykes-Picot secret agreement, the
United Kingdom, France and Russia divided the area in ways
unfavorable to the Arabs.
Yet, further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917,
which promised support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.
Too many promises and secret agreements for a geographically
limited space produced the seed for future conflicts.
Cairo Conference 1921
To pacify the dissatisfied Hashemite Arabs who
felt betrayed and tricked by the British, they
carved the state of Trans-Jordan out of
Palestine and gave it to ‘Amir ‘Abdallah to
rule.
For his brother, ‘Amir Faysal, a new state was
constructed. That was Iraq made of three
Ottoman provinces - Basra, Baghdad, and
Mosul.
Abdulah I of Jordan
King Abdullah I of Jordan (1882 –
1951) (‫ول‬#‫ ا‬%‫)('& ا‬, also known as
Abdullah bin al-Husayn was,
successively, ‘Amir of Trans-Jordan
(1921–1946) under a British Mandate,
then King of Trans-Jordan (1946–1949),
and finally King of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan (1949–1951). He is
also frequently called King Abdullah
the Founder ()*+,‫ ا‬%‫)('&ا‬, since he
was the founder of Jordan.
Jordan
... solved the political problem for the British in
1921; however, it created an economic nightmare.
(Trans-)Jordan was a country with virtually no
economic resources.
Foreign subsidies have maintained Jordan since
1921 when the British started paying Abdallah a
yearly stipend of 5,000 pounds.
Foreign subsidies increased steadily for the next
half century and by 1979 they provided over 50% of
government revenue (the figure now is little over
20%.)
Iraq
Faysal’s party at the Versailles Peace Conference 1919
T.E. Lawrence is behind Faysal to the right
Faisal bin Husayn (1883-1933) (-.. . . . . ./.0 1.. . . . . .2 3.4.5. . . . . . 6 ) was for a short
while king of Greater Syria in 1920 and king of Iraq from 1921 to
1933. He was a member of the Hashemite dynasty.
The majority of the population of Iraq were Shi’a Arabs and
the foreign-imposed ruling elite - Faisal and his cronies were Sunni Arabs.
The legitimacy and reputation of the Hashemites in Iraq
could have been only drawn from the fact that they
belonged to the reputable Meccan clan of Banu Hashim.
The Hashemites trace their ancestry from Hashim ibn ‘Abd
al-Manaf (died c. 510 CE), the great-grandfather of the
Prophet Muhammad.
The British granted Iraq independence in 1932.
Faisal’s successors led the Kingdom of Iraq until 1958.
Some Useful Movies
1. Origins of WWI (part 1 and part 2)
2. Treaty of Versailles by BBC Two
3. Treaty of Versailles by Mojo
4. Blood and Oil: The Middle East in WWI
Focus on Palestine &
the Jewish Homeland
Some statistics
Israel’s population is about 7.5 million, which is less than 10%
of the population of Turkey (80 mil), Iran (79 mil) or Egypt (84
mil).
There are approximately 4 million Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza (roughly the population of Chicago)
Estimates for total number of Palestinians in the world run as
high as 9 million.
Since 1948, wars between Israel and its neighbors have
claimed upward of 150,000 casualties.
As a comparison, during the Iraq-Iran war from 1980-88,
there were 500,000-1 million deaths and 1-2 million wounded.
See: Israel-Palestine: Population statistics
The essence of the dispute
The so-called Arab-Israeli dispute has
gone on for such a long time and has been
a subject to so much heated debate that it
is easy to lose sight of the fundamental
issues involved.
The dispute is, simply put, a real estate
dispute.
Zionism
ZIONISM is a national movement that defined a
religious community - Jews - as a national
community.
The word "Zionism" itself is derived from the
word "Zion" (Hebrew: ‫ציון‬, Tziyyon), one of the
names of Jerusalem, as mentioned in the Bible.
It was coined as a term for Jewish nationalism
by Austrian Jewish publisher Nathan Birnbaum
in his journal Self-Emancipation in 1890.
Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)
... is perhaps the most important
figure in the early history of Zionism.
Herzl received a secular education
and acquired doctorate in law.
As a journalist for a Viennese paper,
he went to Paris to work there as a
correspondent and to report on the
Dreyfus Affair, which captured
attention of Europeans in 1894.
Dreyfus Affair
was a political scandal which divided France during the
1890s and early 1900s. It involved the wrongful
conviction of Jewish military officer Alfred Dreyfus for
treason.
Dreyfus was put on trial in 1894 and was accused of
espionage, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison
on Devil's Island. In September of 1899, he was offered a
pardon from the president of France, which he declined.
It was not until 1906 that Dreyfus was exonerated of the
charges and readmitted into the army. He was also made
a knight in the Legion of Honor.
He served his nation with distinction beyond his natural
retirement age.
Herzl and Zionism
The Dreyfus Affair demonstrated to Herzl that if France
could play host to virulent anti-Jewish sentiments, Jews could
not be secure anywhere.
Though initially an anti-Zionist, after the Dreyfus Affair,
Herzel himself started advocating that Jews needed a
homeland of their own in which they would form a majority
of citizens.
He imagined this “Jewish home” (not yet state) in Argentina
or in the western United States.
Other Zionists were not so ambivalent and wanted the Jewish
national home to be built in Palestine, the place remembered
in Jewish holy texts and rituals.
World Zionist Organization
In 1897, Herzl organized the first Zionist Congress in Basel,
Switzerland.
The Zionist Congress created the World Zionist Organization
(WZO), which continues to speak for the World Zionist
Movement.
Herzl became the first president of the WZO.
The Congress also issued the Basel Program, which not only
called for the establishment of a “Jewish home” in Palestine,
but specified the tactic to achieve the goal.
The Basel Program stipulated that that goal should be achieved
through diplomacy.
Balfour Declaration 1917
While Herzl and other tried to achieve the support from a variety
of powers (including the Ottoman Empire), the Zionist movement
achieved its first real success in 1917 when the British issued the
Balfour declaration.
The Balfour declaration stated, in part,
“His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will
use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this
object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and
political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
The British government and the Balfour Declaration
Historians disagree as to why the British would give the promise
they gave in the Balfour Declaration (see Gelvin, ch.11, p. 188) :
1. Some assert that the British did so for strategic reasons. Because
the Jewish settlers in Palestine would be far outnumbered by the
Muslim Arabs, they would remain dependent on the British and be more
than willing to help the British preserve the security of the nearby Suez
Canal.
2. Others attribute the Balfour Declaration to a British overestimation
of Jewish power in the U.S. and Russia. Britain wanted to maintain
support in the U.S. for the Entente side. It also wanted to keep Russia,
which had just experienced a revolution, in the war. Thinking that Jews
had a great deal of influence over the American president, Woodrow
Wilson, and within the Bolshevik movement, the British figured that they
had nothing to lose. As we know, the British underestimated the effects
of the Balfour Declaration. Their wartime promise had consequences
far beyond those they anticipated at the time.
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement
Chaim Weizmann’s greatest
achievements, as a president of the
WZO, is the Balfour Declaration
in 1917.
Weizmann also made an agreement
with Amir Faysal in January 3,
1919, who was at that time the
King of Hejaz.
Chaim Weizmann (left) and Amir Faysal I
(Weizmann also wearing Arab outfit as a sign of
friendship)
The agreement committed both parties to conducting all relations between
the groups by the most cordial goodwill and understanding, to work together
to encourage immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale while
protecting the rights of the Arab peasants and tenant farmers, and to
safeguard the free practice of religious observances. The Muslim Holy
Places were to be under Muslim control.
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement
The Zionist movement undertook to assist the Arab
residents of Palestine and the future Arab state to develop
their natural resources and establish a growing economy.
The Kingdom of Hejaz undertook to support the Balfour
Declaration of 1917 calling for a Jewish national home
in Palestine.
Disputes were to be submitted to the British Government
for arbitration.
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement
Faysal conditioned his acceptance on the fulfillment of British wartime
promises to the Arabs, who had hoped for independence in a vast part of
the Ottoman Empire. He appended to the typed document a hand-written
statement:
"Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my
[forthcoming] Memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the
Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the
above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be
made [regarding our demands], I shall not be then bound by a single
word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no
account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way
whatsoever."
Palestinian Arabs &
the Balfour Declaration
The Palestinian Arabs themselves had rejected the Balfour
Declaration outright. According to Arthur Goldschmidt Jr.
(author of A Concise History of the Middle East Westview
Press, 1979), they made up over 90% of Palestine and
refused to accept that a homeland be created for another
people on their territory. Furthermore, they resented not
being consulted by the British about a Declaration that
neglected the political rights of the non-Jewish majority in
Palestine.
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement
The Faysal-Weizmann agreement survived only a few
months. The outcome of the peace conference itself did not
provide the vast Arab state that Faysal desired mainly
because the British and French had struck their own
secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle
East between their own spheres of influence, and soon
Faysal began to express doubts about cooperation with
the Zionist movement. Within a year he was calling on
Britain to grant the Arabs of Palestine their political
rights as part of his Syrian Kingdom.
Behind the Scene
Weizmann called Palestinians "treacherous", "arrogant",
"uneducated", and "greedy" and complained to the British that
the system in Palestine did "not take into account the fact that
there is a fundamental qualitative difference between Jew and
Arab".
Chaim Weizmann to Arthur Balfour, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann (Weisgal, ed.,
1977) Series A, Volume VIII, p. 197-206.
After his meeting with Faysal, Weizmann reported that Faysal
was "contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't
even regard as Arabs".*
Chaim Weizmann to Vera Weizmann, ibid, p. 210.
(* Palestinians considered themselves either Palestinians, Syrians, or Ottomans.)
Racism Behind the Scene
In preparation for Faysal-Weizmann meeting, the British had
written to Faysal that "we know that the Arabs despise,
condemn and hate the Jews", but that the Jewish race is
"universal, all-powerful, and cannot be put down".
In 1917 Weizmann worked with Lord Balfour on the Balfour
Declaration. Although the Balfour Declaration stipulated
that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil
and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine", Weizmann said, “with regard to
the Arab question - the British told us that there are several
hundred thousand Negroes there, but this is a matter of no
consequence.”
Balfour Declaration & Aliyot
As a result of the Balfour Declaration, the British, as mandatories
in Palestine, allowed the immigration of Jews into the country.
However, Jewish immigrations to Palestine started before the
Balfour Declaration.
The first immigration “aliya” (pl. aliyot) started in the time of
Baron de Rotschild’s initiative in 1882 as he tried to create a
settler plantation colony in Palestine, similar to the French settler
plantation colonies in Algeria.
During the second and third “aliyot”, which took place during
1904-1914 and 1918-1923, 65,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine
from Europe.
Moshavot & Kibbutzim
Influenced by socialist and romantic back-to-the-land ideas
that were then popular in Germany, these new immigrants
established agricultural settlements including collective
farms - moshavot (sg. moshav) and communal farms kibbutzim (sg. kibbutz).
the settlers also resurrected the Biblical language of Hebrew
for use as their national language.
the most important for the future of the region was, however,
the new adopted labor policy, which is condensed in two
slogans “conquest of land” and “conquest of labor”.
Balfour Declaration & Aliyot
As a result of the Balfour Declaration, the British, as mandatories
in Palestine, allowed the immigration of Jews into the country.
However, Jewish immigrations to Palestine started before the
Balfour Declaration.
The first immigration “aliya” (pl. aliyot) started in the time of
Baron de Rotschild’s initiative in 1882 as he tried to create a
settler plantation colony in Palestine, similar to the French settler
plantation colonies in Algeria.
During the second and third “aliyot”, which took place during
1904-1914 and 1918-1923, 65,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine
from Europe.
Moshavot & Kibbutzim
Influenced by socialist and romantic back-to-the-land ideas
that were then popular in Germany, these new immigrants
established agricultural settlements including collective
farms - moshavot (sg. moshav) and communal farms kibbutzim (sg. kibbutz).
the settlers also resurrected the Biblical language of Hebrew
for use as their national language.
the most important for the future of the region was, however,
the new adopted labor policy, which is condensed in two
slogans “conquest of land” and “conquest of labor”.
Conquest of land
The slogan “Conquest of land” refers to
the need the Zionists felt to make their
imprint on the land of Palestine by
“taming the wilderness” though settlement
activity.
Conquest of labor
The slogan “Conquest of labor” refers to the need the
Zionist felt to remake the Jewish people by having
Jews fill all jobs in the economy.
While in Europe, these Jews were allowed to
participate only in certain urban occupations (trade,
medicine, pharmacy, clerkship, academics, etc.)
They believed that only by conquering the entire
economy, Jews could become a true nation.
Conquest of labor cont’d.
Although the idea of the “conquest of labor” initially
had its utopian, socialist and romanticist roots, there
were practical reasons for Jewish settlers to shun Arab
labor.
The Zionist slogan “a land without a people for a
people without land” did not make much sense, for
Arabs were there and they were willing to work on
land for much lower wages than the new Jewish
settlers.
The expansion of the labor force to include low-wage
workers would drive wages down and discourage the
immigration of new settlers.
Well, Zionists felt that the success of their
project depended on severing the
economic links connecting the two
communities.
Thus, after the Zionists bought land, often
from absentee Ottoman landlords, they
frequently displaced Palestinian farmers
whose services were not longer required.
Arabs of the Ottoman Syria
Before WWI most educated Palestinians viewed
themselves as Ottomans.
After WWI, when the Ottoman identity was no longer a
viable option, some Palestinians were attached to Arab
nationalism while others viewed themselves as Syrians.
The Palestinian community was hardly as well
organized and as unified as the Zionist community.
Arab community of Palestine was traditionally divided
into Muslim and Christian communities.
Furthermore, the Arabs of Syria, being under the French
mandate used to get their education in France and felt in
ease with the French culture while the Arabs of Palestine
under the British mandate through their education in
Britain came to regard the British institutions (not the
French ones) as a model to be emulated.
In addition to that, the inhabitants of Palestine faced
another problem that no other inhabitants of the former
Ottoman Syria faced - Zionist settlements.
Thus, the Palestinian nationalism developed much later
after Zionism and in a response to Zionism, however, that
does not mean that it is any less legitimate than Zionism.
Escalation of tensions
The escalation of tensions between the Palestinian and
Jewish community happened during the late 1920’s and
1930’s.
The escalation was due to the dramatically intensified
Jewish immigration to Palestine during the rise of Nazism
and Fascism in Europe.
From 1931-1935 the Jewish population of Palestine rose
from 175,000 to 400,000.
In other words it grew from 17% to 31% of the total
population.
By 1931, Zionist land purchases had led to the ejection
of approximately 20,000 Palestinian families from
their land.
Close to 30% Palestinian farmers were landless.
Another 75-80% did not have enough land for
subsistence.
Great Revolt - 1936
In 1936 Palestine exploded in violence.
This revolt Palestinians call the Great Revolt and it is the
most traumatic event in modern Palestinian history after
the 1948 war.
To put down the revolt, the British launched a brutal
counterinsurgency campaign employing tactics all too
familiar to Palestinians today collective punishment of villages,
“targeted killings” (assassinations),
mass arrests, deportations, and
the dynamiting of homes of suspected guerrillas and the
sympathizers.
The revolt and the British reaction to it ravaged the
natural leadership of the Palestinian community and
opened up new cleavages in that community.
Many wealthy Palestinians fled having faced the
extortionate demands of rival Palestinian gangs.
Many wealthy Palestinians were imprisoned by the
British or forced to exile.
The Palestinian society never recovered.
The roots of what Palestinians called the nakba
(calamity) of 1948 can be found in the Great Revolt.
Hajj
Muhammad Amin
al-Husayni
(1895-1974)
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
(1921-1948)
Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni
... a member of the al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem, was a Palestinian and
Arab nationalist and a Muslim leader in Palestine. Al-Husayni was also the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem over the period from 1921 to 1948.
Like many other Arab leaders of his time al-Husayni was known for his
anti-Zionism and fought against the establishment of a National home for
the Jewish people in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine,
particularly during the Great Arab Revolt. He fled Palestine in 1937 and
took refuge in Nazi Germany during World War II and helped recruit
Muslims for the Waffen-SS. In 1941 al-Husayni met Adolf Hitler in Berlin
and asked him to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the
establishment of a Jewish state. During the 1948 Palestine War, his faction
was represented by the Army of the Holy War, which had been founded as a
secret society by Amin’s brother, Jamal al-Husayni, in 1936. He opposed
King Abdullah's ambitions for the Palestinian territory captured by the
Arabs during the war.
After being sidelined successively by the Arab Nationalist Movement and
the Palestine Liberation Organization, he lost most of his remaining
political influence. Al-Husayni died in Beirut, Lebanon in 1974.
Grand mufti al-Husayni before the Guard of Honor
of the 13th Waffen-SS-Division “Handschar”
For further reading, see
Lepre, George (2000). Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945. Schiffer Publishing
The White Paper
In the wake of the Great Revolt, in 1937, the British
proposed dividing Palestine into two separate
territories, one Zionist, one Palestinian.
In 1939, they backed away from partition and issued a
dubious document called the White Paper, which was
not satisfactory to either side.
The White Paper of 1939 advocated putting
restrictions on (but not ending) Jewish immigration,
closer supervision of (but not ending) land sales, and
independence within 10 years.
Both community rejected the document.
The bombing of the King David Hotel was as
shocking to contemporaries in 1946 as the
destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.
British prime minister Clement Attlee declared
in the House of Commons, “On July 22nd,
[1946], one of the most dastardly and
cowardly crimes in recorded history took
place.” The Jewish Agency, the body officially
recognized by the British as representing
Palestine’s 450,000 Jews, expressed its
“feelings of horror at the base and
unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang
of criminals.”
The “gang of criminals” responsible for bombing the King David Hotel was a Jewish
underground group known as “The National Military Organization” or, in Hebrew,
Irgun Zwei Leumi. Its leader was a thirty-three-year-old Polish Jew called Menachem
Begin [future prime minister of Israel], for whose capture the British had posted a
£2,000 reward, dead or alive. Just as Osama bin Laden is a hero for fundamentalists
Islamists today, Begin was seen by many Jews in Palestine and in the Jewish Diaspora
as a fearless freedom fighter combating an alien tyranny. (from Baker, James, “The
Bombing of the King David Hotel,” in History Today, Vol. 56, # 7, 2006)
In the aftermath of WWII
By 1947, at the time when India was about to
achieve independence and the cold war was in
its initial stages, the British had stationed more
soldiers in Palestine than many thought prudent.
Their soldiers and diplomats targeted by the
Zionist splinter groups, their economy in
shambles, the British decided to forward the
Palestinian issue to the hands of newly
established United Nations.
The General Assembly of the UN voted to
terminate the British mandate and partition
Palestine between Zionist and Palestinian
communities.
First Palestine War 1947-49
In the wake of the UN vote to partition Palestine, a
civil war broke out between the two communities.
The civil war was followed by the intervention of
surrounding Arab nations on behalf of the
Palestinians.
The First Palestine war became to be called the War
of Independence by Israelis and Nakba (Calamity) by
Palestinians.
The First Palestine War
Consequences for Israelis
As a result of the war, the state of Israel was created
and its borders corresponded to the ceasefire lines.
Israel quickly received international recognition.
No peace treaty was signed between Israel and its
neighbors only armistice agreements.
No Arab state recognized Israel until Egypt did in
1979.
The First Palestine War
Consequences for Palestinians
About 720,000 Palestinians became refugees.
Modern scholars agree that this refugee population
emerged as a result of:
escape from war zones,
expulsions (particularly in the North), and
frightening them with terror.
In the case of the village of Dayr Yassin alone, upward
of 240 men, women, and children were butchered and
stuffed in the village well.
Acts like this were hardly kept secret, for, as Lenin
said, the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.
Most Palestinian refugees ended up in the West Bank
(of the Jordan river, which was occupied by Jordan
until 1967), the Gaza strip (which was occupied by
Egypt until the same year), and neighboring Arab
countries.
Those Arabs who remained in Israel were subject to
martial law until 1966.
The First Palestine War
Influence on Arab states
The Arab defeat in the First Palestine War came to symbolize a
host of grievances the Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi military officers
fueled against their government.
They accused those governments of engaging the war halfheartedly (which they did) and blamed their defeat on the
incompetence and corruption of their governments.
They also equated their defeat with the inability or unwillingness
of Arab governments to promote the sort of economic and social
development that would have assured success of the battle field as
well.
Taking matters into their own hands, these officers launched coup
d’etat in Syria (1949), Egypt (1952), and Iraq (1958).