The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (39 page)

The British government was now under pressure. On the one hand, there were the results of the preliminary vote for the
mufti
, while on the other, there was clear popular support for al-Hajj Amin’s candidacy. The High Commissioner was faced with a dilemma: al-Hajj Amin was inexperienced and had taken part in anti-British activities, but there was no denying his family’s prominent position in local politics. Sir Herbert Samuel had little sympathy for al-Hajj Amin. This was due not only to Samuel’s pro-Zionist inclination but also to the influence of al-Hajj Amin’s chief opponent in the British administration, Sir Wyndham Deedes.

Al-Hajj Amin won this contest of wills: the vote was canceled, and he was appointed
mufti
by the mandatory government. The day after he became
mufti
, Deedes resigned his post. Samuel met with al-Hajj Amin the day before the preliminary vote and was favorably impressed, believing that the young man would use his own and his family’s influence to bring calm to Jerusalem and the entire country.
¹²
Later that month they met again, and according to Norman Bentwich, a future public prosecutor in the mandatory government, al-Hajj Amin promised to cooperate with the government and even expressed regret over his part in organizing the events of April 1920.
¹³
He also maintained that the violent demonstrations that occurred at the time had been spontaneous and unplanned. Bentwich, who would come to regard al-Hajj Amin as a very dangerous man, believed that he was sincere in his promises to appease the country, as shown by the fact that it was quiet between 1922 and 1929. The public never knew the details of these talks, but many suspected that Samuel’s support had been won by al-Hajj Amin’s moderation – an assumption that would become a central argument of the Palestinian opposition in years to come. Both
his Palestinian opponents and the Zionists described him as an opportunist because he cooperated with the British to secure his position. At any rate, he obtained the government’s support. Just before leaving the High Commissioner, al-Hajj Amin asked him directly, ‘Which do you prefer – an avowed opponent or an unsound friend?’ ‘An avowed opponent,’ Sir Herbert replied.
¹⁴
Perhaps this final exchange convinced the High Commissioner that he had chosen well.

The government vacillated throughout April, which ended with the Nabi Musa celebrations. The festival was peaceful and orderly that year. Al-Hajj Amin conspicuously worked hard to keep them quiet, and his impressive conduct as a man of religion, rather than of politics, impressed the British authorities. Astutely, he took the
mufti
’s place at the head of the procession to Nabi Musa, where he made a conciliatory speech, and everything passed off calmly. To reinforce the impression that a peaceful new era had begun, he invited Sir Herbert to a kosher dinner at his house, which marked a real rapprochement between him and the British authorities.
¹⁵
The High Commissioner felt that al-Hajj Amin had matured and meant to follow his late brother’s cooperative ways.

Ernest Richmond, a political adviser to the city governor, was instrumental in persuading the High Commissioner to cancel the final vote and appoint al-Hajj Amin. Richmond was an architect who had served in the Public Works Department in Egypt before the Great War. His close friend Storrs had rescued him from a gloomy job at the Imperial Internment Department in Cairo and brought him to Jerusalem. There Storrs made Richmond supervisor of the restoration of the Dome of the Rock on the Haram al-Sharif, a position that brought him into close contact with the Husaynis and their world. As
mufti
, al-Hajj Amin devoted himself to the restoration of the two shrines, enlisting the help of his adored teacher Rashid al-Rida and Prince Muhammad Ali, the uncle of King Fuad of Egypt. As a consequence of his work on the shrines, Richmond became an informal adviser to Storrs, in whose house he stayed (as he had done in Egypt before the war), and in 1918 he was made an official adviser. His unreserved support for the Palestinians, notably the Husaynis, won him a place of honor in the family history. However, his career in Jerusalem came to an end in 1924 when a pro-Zionist British administration drove him out of the city.
¹⁶

Richmond was very active on al-Hajj Amin’s behalf. He translated petitions from Arabic into English for Storrs and enlisted him in the
campaign, and so a pro-al-Hajj Amin lobby came into being.
¹⁷
Storrs considered himself an expert on native affairs, and in this capacity advised the High Commissioner that petitions were a clear indication of a man’s popularity. Storrs was even persuaded to cancel the vote and accepted Richmond’s advice to consider raising al-Hajj Amin’s salary when he became
mufti
and to let him keep the title of Grand Mufti, which the government had granted to Kamil. Perhaps he hoped to restore the balance between the Husaynis and the Nashashibis, which had been disturbed by the dismissal of Musa Kazim from the mayoralty.

However, the High Commissioner ultimately rejected proposals to make al-Hajj Amin the Grand Mufti, to give him an official letter of accreditation and even to announce his appointment in the
Palestine Gazette
. But he did concede on the most important demand – to cancel the vote and appoint al-Hajj Amin as
mufti
. And so, although he had not completed his academic studies and had not been elected, and despite the possible availability of better candidates in his family, al-Hajj Amin became the
mufti
of Palestine at the age of twenty-six. There can be no doubt that the main reason for his success was the family’s campaign on his behalf.
¹⁸

Now it was up to Storrs to resolve the legal problem of the disregarded vote. He persuaded Raghib al-Nashashibi to withdraw his candidacy, at the cost of a fierce argument with his family.
¹⁹
Raghib even agreed to help Storrs get Husam Jarallah and Ali Jarallah (the other Nashashibi candidates) to withdraw their names. The problem was solved.

Samuel had reconciled the families, but he failed to reconcile Palestinian society, which by and large continued to regard him as the emissary of the Zionists. Wherever young urban and country men were frustrated in their search for employment and housing, political bitterness came to the fore. In Nablus and Jaffa groups of young men vented their desperation and their violent opposition to the Jews and the British.

On 1 May 1921, a few days after the Nabi Musa celebrations, clashes broke out between Jews and Palestinians in Jaffa. Oddly, the trouble began among the Jewish settlers when communist activists calling for a Soviet Palestine clashed with members of Poale Zion, a party that wanted a Zionist Palestine. The Zionist May Day procession entered a Muslim neighborhood, where a violent scuffle broke out. Young Palestinians gathered from all around to demonstrate, some
confronting the army while others battled with young Jews. This pattern of escalation was repeated in several places, the worst being in the area of Tulkarem. As in 1920, the number of fatalities was almost equal on both sides – forty-eight Arabs, forty-seven Jews.
²⁰
The experienced British authorities appointed a court of inquiry known as the Hycraft Commission, which concluded that the riots had not been organized but had erupted spontaneously.

An outside observer would have noticed that in 1921 al-Hajj Amin was not yet the head of the family or of the national leadership. Musa Kazim and Jamal al-Husayni were regarded not only as the heads of the Husayni clan but also as the foremost representatives of the Palestinian community. Moreover, they had become its pro-British indicators. Fulfilling the promises he had made to the High Commissioner when they met immediately after the clashes, Jamal called on the inhabitants of Jaffa and Jerusalem not to be drawn into confrontations with the Jews and the authorities. The Hycraft Commission was particularly impressed by Musa Kazim, who had addressed the Palestinian community in the same spirit even before the skirmishes in Jaffa. He had publicly appealed to the Palestinians to place their trust in the British government,

‘which is famous for its justice, its concern for the welfare of the inhabitants, its protection of their rights and its response to their just demands. It will not fail the people’s hopes, because the voice of the mass is like God’s voice.’
²¹

Others condemned the outbursts of rage, including the journal
Al- Karmil
, which was associated with the Palestinian executive.

Al-Hajj Amin’s temporary disappearance from center stage may have been due to his uncertain political position. It is difficult to pinpoint where he stood at that time with regard to current events. There is some evidence that the outbreak of violence in Jaffa was linked to the group known as the Black Hand, later called the
al-Fida’iyya
. As mentioned before, in 1919 al-Hajj Amin had created this group, which sprouted offshoots all over Palestine, and its members, who were his contemporaries, remained loyal to him throughout his life.
²²
A good number of the Tahiri Husaynis thought al-Hajj Amin was endangering the family – notably his nephew Tahir III, who accused him of incitement and of having organized the ‘riots’. The rest of the family referred to those events as an uprising or revolt; only people who adopted the
Zionist or government terminology called them riots.
²³
Tahir’s animosity was not surprising. He had hoped to succeed his father as
mufti
and regarded his uncle al-Hajj Amin as a usurper. Yet at that time, the British authorities described al-Hajj Amin as a trustworthy and moderating leader.

Al-Hajj Amin returned to center stage, not to replace Musa Kazim or Jamal but to join them. The three became the family leaders – al-Hajj Amin at its head, flanked by the aged Musa Kazim, who sometimes acted as his firm supporter but who gradually began to undermine his leadership, and Jamal, who would remain loyal to al-Hajj Amin until the end of the British Mandate. All three belonged to the Tahiri branch of the family, but as we have pointed out, the different branches no longer had any significance in local politics. Nevertheless, the Husayni women say that marriages were kept within each branch.
²⁴
The reason for this was entirely material: Muslim laws of inheritance stipulated that in most cases the family’s estate did not pass to the eldest son or to a chosen heir but rather was divided among the men of the family branch. Clearly, it would have been imprudent not to enlarge the branch by adding new members.

Politically, the Husaynis in the 1920s were a unified clan, and everything the Palestinians did was associated with it. Thus during the sitting of the Hycraft Commission, it seemed as if the British government would again charge al-Hajj Amin, and implicitly his family, with being responsible for the outbreaks. A wave of arrests and speedy trials of suspected participants followed the events, but surprisingly the Husaynis were cleared of all suspicion. Sir Herbert expressed sympathy for al-Hajj Amin and his family, and the mandatory government announced that it would halt Jewish immigration as a gesture of goodwill towards the Palestinians. This decision was made public together with the announcement of al-Hajj Amin’s appointment as
mufti
– perhaps the first British attempt to conciliate the Palestinians. Al-Hajj Amin had obtained his position thanks to his family’s history, the weakness of other Husayni candidates and his having won the support of the new government. It is not correct to say that the British enthroned al-Hajj Amin, as certain history books maintain. Rather, they decided to accept the social and religious hierarchy that had existed in Muslim Jerusalem in the Ottoman period and to apply it to the country as a whole.

In the following months, the authorities made a few more moves to please the Palestinian population. However, these were very small
compared with their basic policy, which remained principally to support the Jewish claim to a ‘national home’ in Palestine. In the name of this claim, they reopened the gates to Jewish immigration and enabled the immigrants to purchase land and establish independent institutions. Before long this led to outbursts of rage and protests by irate young Palestinians, and the sympathies of certain pro-Arab officials could not sweeten the pill. The policy as a whole was perceived as anti-Palestinian.

The Palestinians’ hopes for change were soon dispelled. On 29 May 1921, the fourth Palestinian Congress met in Jerusalem and resolved to send a delegation to London to demand an independent Arab Palestine. This was a necessary move: many Palestinians had supported the idea of a Greater Syria until the bitter end, and now it was time to demand independence. The idea of sending such a delegation was encouraged by certain pro-Palestinian British figures, such as Lord Sydenham and Lord Leamington, the owners of the daily
Morning Post
. The delegates were chosen by a vote – another opportunity for the family to test its standing amid the dramatic upheavals in the country. Musa Kazim received the most votes but was the only Husayni in the delegation. The opposition had not relented, and the journal
Al-Karmil
maintained that the composition of the delegation was unsatisfactory, despite its being widely supported.
²⁵
The High Commissioner tried to dissuade them from going to London but acquiesced when they assured him that they would not conduct negotiations but only present their views.