The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (23 page)

On 25 July 1908, both the regular army and the civilian masses rose up in various ways against Abdul Hamid II. It took another eight months before the revolution would finally succeed, due to a counterrevolutionary attempt to restore the sultanate. Historian Bernard Lewis put it thus: ‘The long night of Hamidi tyranny was over, the dawn of liberty had arrived.’
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Revised historiography today totally disagrees with this depiction. Nor does Lewis’s comment seem to reflect the way the Husaynis and their peers felt. The Hamidi era was never regarded as especially tyrannical by the urban Arab elite as a whole, and in fact only during the final years of Ottoman rule, towards the onset of the First World War, was Ottoman rule regarded as particularly oppressive – personified by the policies of Jamal Pasha, the military governor of Syria on the eve of the war.

In short order, the Husaynis joined others in developing new hopes for the opportunities created by the change of guard, and this may explain the widely reported spontaneous expression of joy all around Jerusalem when the news of the sultan’s fall arrived in the city.
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There were mass demonstrations in the city streets and squares, described by people who worked in the post office – for example, Izzat Darwazza. There was dancing in the squares, and exuberant cries filled the street when the local poets recited their songs of praise for the new government on every corner.
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Salim al-Husayni managed the official celebrations in the city in honor of the revolution. He called the city notables and the officials to the square in front of the municipality and made a short speech in support of the revolution, while behind him hung a massive framed emblem of the Movement for Unity and Progress, as the revolutionaries called themselves.
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Members of the family who did not attend the rally read about the events in the newspapers, which overflowed with ecstatic articles written by novelists and poets giving lyric voice to the popular hope kindled by the revolution. The leisurely reading of newspapers had become a common custom in the houses of the Jerusalem notables, chiefly the journals published in Egypt and Beirut but also Arabic-language publications from the United States. Unfortunately, they all had limitations: the Beirut papers did not know what was happening in Istanbul, and those published in the capital seemed unaware of the outside world.
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But this was not a time for celebrations, as difficult decisions awaited the family. The political situation was highly volatile and caused a sharp argument among the Husaynis. Shukri – brother of the head of
the family, Ismail, who had attained a very high position at the center of power – led many of his relatives towards unreserved support for the revolution as the sublime expression of a new and better age to come. He did not confine himself to the family. On 5 August 1908 he reported to his brother that he had rallied the senior Arab officials in the Ottoman administration to support the revolutionaries. Together they formed an ‘Arab-Ottoman’ association that was to cooperate with the Young Turks in the Arab provinces.

But while Shukri was confident that he knew whom to support, there was great unease in the house of Ismail, whose loyalty to the Hamidi regime was well-known. Indeed, there was some concern for his personal safety, as rumors began to arrive from Istanbul that the new government was about to launch an offensive against individuals known to have served as Abdul Hamid’s agents and spies. Representatives of the new regime claimed that many of the notables of Palestine had served the
Khafiya
, the sultan’s secret police. However, the suspicion fell on the Nablus families, not those of Jerusalem.
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It is unlikely that Ismail cared much for the new rulers, but evidently he avoided a confrontation with them. The only time he openly challenged them was in 1913, when he led a group of Jerusalem notables to urge the new government in Istanbul not to neglect the religious properties in Jerusalem and to ‘restore them to their original condition in accordance with the terms in which they had been run’ – meaning for the use of the public in Jerusalem.
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As always, Ismail was concerned about the schools, which were deteriorating, and hoped that at least some of the religious properties would be restored and made fit for students.

Shukri was unconcerned. He led the creation of the Arab-Ottoman Fraternal Association, whose platform was simple and succinct: it called for the preservation of the Ottoman constitution, adherence to Ottoman unity, the improvement of the economic and political situation in the Arab regions as well as the other nations of the empire, and the expansion of education in Arabic.
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Arab and Palestinian historians have pointed out that the association was but one of a number of groupings that heralded the rise of Arab nationalism in the region. However, it should be noted that it strove to fit into the new order, not withdraw into a separate Palestinian or even Arab entity. Only in hindsight does it appear as a formative chapter in the rise of Palestinian nationalism. Typically, nationalism appropriates any useful historical event that precedes it, whether related to it or not. But the association was only one of many precursors that heralded the
emergence of a pan-Arabist national imagination and identification, and later a more focused Palestinian nationalism. Other precursors were the secret societies that promoted the teaching of Arabic and the study of Arabic history and culture. These included some Palestinians and the Salafiyya movement in Egypt, which associated Islamic reform with liberation from British occupation. Foreign and particularly Zionist intrusion accelerated the creation of the Palestinian national identity.

The association became a branch of the Unity and Progress Party, and on the orders of Istanbul changed its name to the Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood Party. Shukri had wished to call it simply ‘the Arab Association’, and it has been suggested that he added the adjective ‘Ottoman’ to placate the Young Turk triumvirate (Cemal, Enver and Talat) that had seized power from the sultan. Others maintain that Shukri and his companions were genuinely enthusiastic about the ideas of the Turkish revolution and decided to change the name themselves. All in all, it seemed less crucial to Shukri than national historians later claimed.

Having formed the association, Shukri began to recruit young members from among the enthusiastic Arab students in the capital who created branches throughout the Arab regions of the empire. These students would be the first to rebel against the Young Turks few years later when they were called upon to become Turks themselves. That was the point when the Turkish association became a national Arab one. But this happened around 1913, and the rapid succession of events that turned Palestine into a battlefield in the First World War prevent historians from making a clear judgment on the overall relationship between the Young Turks and the Arab urban elite, including the Husaynis.

The beginnings of that relationship, however, were quite promising. Shukri al-Husayni created the Jerusalem branch, and in August 1908 a meeting was held to decide the family’s policy. Ismail willingly took part but asked to bring in two of his influential friends – the family’s Christian friend Khalil al-Sakakini and Ghalib al-Khalidi.
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Al-Khalidi was one of the most prominent Jerusalem notables, a judge of the district court and a member of the Board of Education chaired by Ismail. So high was his standing that the meeting was held at his residence, out of respect and also perhaps because it was he who had informed the people of Jerusalem about the revolution. Governor Ekrem had been so fearful that for two days he suppressed the news about the revolt
that had taken place in July. Finally Ghalib al-Khalidi hired a town crier to go around the city and proclaim the news.
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After Ghalib was appointed in the 1890s to the Board of Education, relations between the two families had markedly improved. The former rivals resolved to bury the hatchet and turn over a new page. In fact the Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood was very much a bi-clan project. It would be a springboard for a coalition during the mandatory period that the urban elite would try to use to move forward quickly and forge a clear national identity in the face of Zionist aspirations and British occupation. But in the beginning of the twentieth century and later, both families were unable to expand the base, not only into other social classes but even amongst the other families of the urban elite. Even before the national era, in the new regime imposed by the Young Turks, the particular position of the Husaynis as ‘first among equals’ became more precarious, and their lineage and religious standing proved to be insufficient resources for maintaining what would be become national leadership.

There was a moment in the winter of 1908 when it looked as if Shukri would lead the family to cooperation and success in the new world created by the Young Turks. He urged the family to continue to participate in the parliamentary life of the new regime. About a month after the publication of the new constitution, Istanbul issued directives about the parliamentary elections. There was to be a representative from every district with 50,000 inhabitants – thus two representatives from Jerusalem and one each from Nablus and Jaffa. Every male over twenty-five could vote, provided he had no criminal record; the voters would choose ‘electors’ who would chose the parliamentary representative. Ruhi al-Khalidi and Said al-Husayni were elected and thereby cemented their new political partnership even further.
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In November 1908, at Shukri’s initiative, the city of Jerusalem held a formal reception for Said al-Husayni and Ruhi al-Khalidi upon their return from Istanbul.
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Muslim youths filled the market alleys, flourishing toy swords and firing invisible rifles. On this occasion they were joined by the Christians and Sephardic Jews, and together they went to the railway station. After a five-hour journey from Jaffa, the train arrived at the usual time in the afternoon, by which point the station was packed with people. When Shukri and his friend Khalil al-Sakakini arrived, the poets and speechmakers began to declaim the praises of the returnees. Then the company proceeded to the Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood club for a lavish dinner.

Alhough Shukri would be remembered in Arab historiography as one of the trailblazers of Arab nationalism, in the winter of 1908 he was very far from it. Like many of the Jerusalem notables, he was concerned about the predicament of the empire. His chief public activity in the following months was organizing the townspeople in the futile struggle to stop the shrinking of the Ottoman Empire. People in his social circle were furious about Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly after the publication of the constitution and called on the people of Jerusalem to protest against this unilateral Austrian move. At Shukri’s urging, many people wrote angry letters to the Austrian consul and boycotted Austrian-made tarbushes. But such symbolic gestures could not stop the historical process – the empire went on losing territories and prestige. The forces of the Greek general Venizelos conquered Crete, and the new Ottoman activists were further frustrated when Montenegro declared its independence from the empire. In the literary clubs an anti-Austrian poem by the Lebanese poet Shibli al-Mallat was recited along with another poet’s anti-Greek poem and one by Khalil Mutran mourning the loss of Montenegro.
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This period lasted until 1913. The first years of the Young Turks were a continued effort to centralize the empire, which was welcomed by the old guard of the Husaynis. The younger family members were more supportive of those who called for a more decentralized empire.

On the eve of the First World War, there were the first signs of change: a more nationalist policy was adopted by Istanbul and was intensified during the war. In this new atmosphere it was more difficult to form an Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood. On 23 August 1909 the government passed a law banning political organizations based on ethnic or national groupings, or bearing their names, but this was not directed toward the kind of cultural revival that took place in localities such as Jerusalem. But in 1913 it was. And as a result it was more difficult to advocate an Ottoman-Arab identity. Faced with this sharply reduced choice, it is no wonder that educated persons throughout the Arab world chose Arabism, as Turkishness had nothing to do with their past, their heritage or their hopes for the future. New conditions drove them to form secret societies, and it was in these that the idea of Arab nationalism was nurtured.

TENDER SHOOTS OF NATIONALISM

Individually and as a family, the Husaynis were faced with the same choice, and the outcome was a clear generational division. Shukri al-Husayni represented the older generation, while his son Jamil represented the younger. Unlike most of his friends in the Arab-Ottoman Association who were dismayed by the Young Turks’ demand to diminish the vestiges of Arabism in local politics, Shukri remained firm in his decision not to break away from Istanbul and Turkey.
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He was pleased to have the support of his brother Arif (Shukri, Arif and Ismail were, as noted, the sons of Musa al-Husayni), who during his stay in Istanbul had associated with the Unity and Progress Party.
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Unlike the associations in Damascus, Mecca and Medina, the association supported by the middle generation of the Jerusalem notables was cultural rather than political. Its aim was not to sever the connection with the empire but to preserve the Arab character of their city and country within the Ottoman world. In the eyes of the notables, the danger to that world did not come from Istanbul, it came directly from the growing European and Zionist presence in Palestine. If the empire could help resist these intrusions, so much the better.