The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (36 page)

Kamil listened to the news attentively. He expressed his disappointment but also the hope that it did not mean discrimination against the Muslims. According to Whittingham, the conversation took an Anglophile turn. The
mufti
spoke of his great admiration for the British Empire and its culture. He also made a point of assuring his guest that he was neither anti-Jewish nor anti-Christian. ‘Are you anti-Zionist?’ asked Whittingham. ‘Yes,’ the
mufti
replied, ‘emotionally … The Zionists are preventing us from developing the country,’ he complained. ‘Without them, we could have made this a prosperous country in fifteen years.’ Then he surprised his guest by adding, ‘A banking system, that is the key to success. Tell your government, “Let them open banks, and they will finance their own state.” If after fifteen years we fail, let others try instead of us.’
¹⁸
They talked for about an hour, and on parting the
mufti
was as sanguine as ever. He smiled broadly and said, ‘After God, I trust England, which has always stood by the weak and will not let the Palestinians be ruled by a tyranny.’

‘Surely such a moderate man could not have provoked the rampage,’ Whittingham said to Storrs. He also reported Musa Kazim’s version of events, having visited him at his office in the American Colony. It was not the Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews. It all began with a scuffle between two boys, a Muslim and a Jew. Then the Muslim boy was beaten by a ‘Jewish legion’ armed with rifles who began to attack the Hebronites as they arrived. Whittingham told Musa Kazim
that the same number were killed on either side, but the number of Jewish wounded was far greater. ‘That is because we defend ourselves fiercely,’ Musa Kazim replied.

That day the American consul sent the following report to Washington: ‘Yesterday, while a religious Muslim procession passed through the city, a fight broke out between Muslims and Jews. Both sides suffered casualties, and a state of emergency has been declared.’ Zionist public relations strove to contradict the consul’s neutral report, which convinced the Husaynis and all Palestinians that he was a trustworthy friend.
¹⁹
Indeed it seemed that the Americans present at the time in Palestine related to the events as part of a legitimate and understandable local outrage, although they did not endorse its violent form. The British representatives on the ground, though not necessarily those stationed in London, stuck to the Orientalist theory of a Muslim mass, that can easily be incited one way or another. In any case, the official investigation revealed that seven Jews and five Arabs had been killed on that ill-fated Easter/Passover. No one had been killed in the fight that took place at the same time near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where most of the British force had been concentrated.

Storrs also heard about Jabotinsky’s armed group and their role in stirring up trouble from Ms Frances Newton, who as an English missionary close to the Palestinians normally resided in Haifa. But despite his friendship with the Husaynis, Storrs rejected her version of events just as he rejected the American version. His men told him that Kamil had addressed the crowd on the Temple Mount, repeating a sermon he had delivered the previous week inciting them against the Jews. Storrs also believed that the
mufti
had encouraged al-Hajj Amin and Arif al-Arif to stir up a clamor, and that only when it got out of control had Kamil unsuccessfully tried to stem the riot.

Raghib al-Nashashibi, who had also been present, described a joint action by the three Husaynis: the
mufti
, who incited the crowd with verses from the Qur’an; his brother al-Hajj Amin, who held up a picture of King Faysal, shouting, ‘Faysal is our king! Faysal is our king!’, which the crowd echoed; and Mayor Musa Kazim, who provided the Hebronites and others with political arguments. Following this report, Musa Kazim was deposed from the mayoralty, and Raghib al-Nashashibi was appointed in his place.
²⁰
The Nashashibis were related to the Husaynis by marriage, but during the British Mandate this connection was forgotten. Their bitter social and political rivalry divided the Palestinians and prevented them from standing united at a crucial historical crossroads when they needed solidarity above all. When Storrs informed Musa Kazim of his intention to dismiss him, the mayor said that none of the city’s notables would presume to replace him. Raghib’s willingness to do so hurt him and his family deeply. When Raghib tried to prevent al-Hajj Amin’s appointment to the Supreme Muslim Council in December 1921, it further inflamed the enmity between the two clans.

Palestine under the British Mandate, 1923–1948

It is worth noting that not even Chaim Weizmann and the other Jewish leaders suspected Kamil of provoking the outbreak.
Nevertheless, Storrs convened a court martial, which decided that al-Hajj Amin and Arif al-Arif had instigated the riots. They were sentenced
in absentia
to ten years’ imprisonment with hard labor, but they had escaped and could not be found. Al-Hajj Amin found refuge in Dira, the grazing lands of a Bedouin tribe that lived permanently in Ayn al-Hawari, a desert region between the Jordan River and Amman. A company of soldiers searched the
mufti
’s house and fired warning shots at his son, mistaking him for al-Hajj Amin. The furious and agitated
mufti
complained to the occupying authorities about the humiliating conduct of the soldiers, and demonstratively returned the medal and decoration he had received from King George V. The following day, Storrs was incensed to learn that Allenby had written the
mufti
a letter of apology. ‘The main casualty’, he said to his aide Said, ‘is the empire.’
²¹

But the conflicting versions of the incidents called for resolution, and London appointed a court of inquiry. (Mandatory Palestine would find that this was a favorite British device.) The Palin Commission, as it was known, reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots. Everyone knew this, of course; nevertheless the conclusions were kept secret. The commission also expressed the hope that the flames of inter-communal hatred that had erupted in 1920 would draw the world’s attention to the underlying volcano. But the world, or at any rate London, was not upset by the events – after all, in the empire on which the sun did not set such occurrences were not uncommon in 1920. Shi‘i tribes were rebelling in southern Iraq, Egyptian nationalists were defying the British authorities, Hindus were showing signs of resistance in India and Ireland was beginning to tear itself apart.
²²

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, too, was found guilty of incitement and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment with hard labor. (He was also convicted of carrying an unlicensed firearm.) But the sentence was immediately reduced to two years, and he was freed before the term was up. The veteran teacher Khalil Baydas was also arrested that night and taken away in pajamas; he was sentenced to fifteen years in the Acre prison.

Mayor Musa Kazim was likewise sent to the Acre prison. Though promptly released, he was, as mentioned, dismissed from his post. In prison he met Baydas, who would write
Hadith al-Sajun
(The Story of the Prisoners), a bitter denunciation of British prisons. Several sources argue that it was Baydas who persuaded Musa Kazim to refuse to cooperate any longer with the British authorities.
²³

As if the imprisonment of some of its leading figures and the flight of others was not enough, the San Remo Conference deepened the despair of the Palestinian public. In the little Italian resort, the ten allies of the Paris Peace Conference confirmed that Palestine would come under a British Mandate that incorporated the Balfour Declaration (which could be understood to apply to Transjordan as well). The British also received the mandate over Iraq, and the French over Syria and Lebanon.

The Husaynis had succeeded in rallying a significant number of Christians to take part in the Nabi Musa procession, which could be seen as an impressive demonstration of Muslim-Christian power. Christian Palestinians were beginning to regard the festival as a national event. But this was a meager comfort, and there was little for Palestinians to rejoice about in the summer of 1920.
²⁴

The second Palestinian Congress took place amid this gloom. Its main purpose was to lift people’s spirits, or at least to encourage those who were politically active and anxious about recent developments. It was also necessary to decide how to respond to those developments. As in the days of Abdul Hamid II, the participants had to work in secret, because the military authorities banned all Arab political gatherings. The British authorities were especially wary of any support for Faysal since it seemed impossible to forestall a clash between him and the French in Syria, which the British government had promised (explicitly or by implication) to both camps.
²⁵

On 31 May 1920, in the absence of Arif al-Arif and al-Hajj Amin, their followers and friends decided to carry out an old idea the two had advanced: they created the organization that would become the first Palestinian political party in history – the Palestine Arab League. The two exiles were chosen as its leaders, together with Rafiq al-Tamimi, Izzat Darwaza and others. The choice of al-Hajj Amin as the secretary of the league illustrated the high regard in which many held him even though he was only in his early twenties. The conference published a demand to bring back the deportees as well as a strong protest against the decision of the San Remo Conference to include the Balfour Declaration in the text of the mandate.

Not all the Husaynis directly confronted the British authorities. During May and June, Kamil and Storrs revived their former friendship. The
mufti
’s medals were formally returned to him, and he, for his part – possibly in gratitude – gave a sermon at al-Aqsa in June 1920 calling for moderation, calm and the preservation of public order. He
even expressed confidence that the British government would fulfill its promises to the Muslim community in Jerusalem.
²⁶

But the situation was volatile and uncertain, and the Husaynis did not take a clear-cut position. Even after the events in April, some of them were unsure about what was happening in Palestine. Their public activities and speeches appeared to be plainly anti-Zionist, but in June 1920 even al-Hajj Amin was still examining various ways of opposing Zionism (as he continued to do until 1948). He took part in the political activities of the Syrian Congress, which included contact with Zionist leaders, notably Chaim Weizmann. In June 1920, al-Hajj Amin and two other members of the Palestine committee of the Syrian Congress met with a Zionist delegation at the Victoria Hotel in Damascus. They discussed the Weizmann-Faysal agreement, signed in January 1919, which secured Zionist support for Greater Syria in exchange for an all-Syrian acceptance of some implementation of the Balfour Declaration. Al-Hajj Amin would later claim that he had attended the meeting in order to get to know the enemy better, but it is possible that he went because he was ambivalent about the Zionists.
²⁷

UNDER THE HIGH COMMISSIONER HERBERT SAMUEL

On 20 June 1920, a boat brought Sir Herbert Samuel from the SS
Senator
to the quay at the Port of Jaffa. Eight young Muslim men dressed, despite the heat, in jumpers bearing the text ‘OETA Property’ (that is, property of the occupation administration) helped him ashore. Samuel had been appointed High Commissioner of Palestine following the San Remo confirmation of the British Mandate of Palestine. Then in his fifties, the Englishman had previously been Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His Jewish origin immediately aroused Palestinian suspicions, and perhaps they also held his assistance to the Zionist delegation at the Paris Peace Conference against him, though it is not certain that the Palestinians were aware of it. Yet for some time there were no indications that he was in any way hostile to the Palestinians.
²⁸

The new High Commissioner was received with a seventeen-gun salute, after which he was rushed away in a car to Jerusalem, for fear that some local person would make an attempt on his life. Two days after the High Commissioner’s arrival in Jerusalem, General Bowles threw a formal reception in his honor at a government house on
Mount Scopus, marking the end of his role as military governor and the start of Sir Herbert’s civilian rule.

Bowles may have felt that he had not done enough or wished to erase the bitter memory of the recent events. At any rate he made an effort to reconcile the Jewish and Muslim leaders, if only superficially. Menahem Ussishkin, head of the Zionist Commission, and Grand Mufti Kamil al-Husayni were the two leading local figures, and Bowles seized their arms, one on each side. A man of eloquent gestures, Kamil was willing to shake Ussishkin’s hand, but the latter declined.