The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (43 page)

Among historians, the Palestinian Philip Mattar and the Israeli Zvi Al-Peleg have questioned the thesis upheld by a good many Palestinian scholars and adopted by the Israeli Yehoshua Porath – namely, that the
mufti
consciously turned a minor incident into a violent clash. Mattar states that al-Hajj Amin said nothing for six days after the incident at the Wall and that even his publication
Al-Jamaa’ al-Arabiyya
did not print any hateful or inciting material because the mufti did not wish to do anything that might affect the mandatory government’s growing sympathy for the Palestinian position.
⁵⁹
But when a week passed and the government had done nothing, he decided to act.

Throughout that week the Jewish reactions were fierce, and the atmosphere grew heated. Bialik, the Hebrew newspapers and Zionists spokesmen overseas all communicated a clear message: the Western Wall was in danger and needed to be protected. The Hebrew daily
Doar Ha-Yom
described those who threatened the Wall as ‘hooligans, like the Russian pogromists’.
⁶⁰

On 30 September, the Supreme Muslim Council rallied thousands of Muslims from Jerusalem and its environs to the al-Aqsa mosque, where three of al-Hajj Amin’s loyalists, Sheikh Abd al-Ghani Kamla, Izzat Darwaza and Sheikh Abu al-Saud, made speeches denouncing the Jewish aspiration to take over the Western Wall.

Now the Jewish National Executive realized the danger and tried to defuse the situation. On 10 October, it published an open letter stating categorically that there was no Jewish intention to seize the Temple Mount. But at the same time various Jewish leaders, led by Chaim Weizmann, continued to address the Jewish public, at home and abroad, about the need to resist Muslim intentions. Such statements could not be kept hidden from the public in Palestine.
⁶¹

All through September 1928, al-Hajj Amin resisted the idea of acting in opposition to the laws of the mandatory government. When he was approached that month by the Syrian nationalist Shakib Wahab with a proposal to organize guerrilla groups to fight the government, al-Hajj Amin rejected it outright. A month later, however, he decided to take stronger measures. His role as head of the council and guardian of the Muslim religious properties, his ambition to lead the Palestinian people, the opposition’s carping about his feeble reactions and the inflammatory Zionist propaganda all impelled him to take action. He launched the campaign of
al-Buraq
, which is still considered the
finest passage in his career and one of the few to become part of the Palestinian mythos.

As he saw it, he was faced with a triple alliance – the British government, the local Jewish leadership and the Jews of the United States – against which he hoped to rally the Muslim and Arab world. On 1 November, he conducted a conference on Arab solidarity with Palestine that included 700 delegates from several Arab countries. The conference appointed a ‘committee for the defense of the holy Muslim places in Jerusalem’ and sent a delegation to the Chief Government Secretary Sir Harry Charles Lock (the deputy for High Commissioner Chancellor, then on home leave). Among other things, the delegation demanded the dismissal of the pro-Zionist Jewish prosecutor Norman Bentwich, whose position enabled him to influence decisions concerning the Western Wall.
⁶²

Al-Hajj Amin also wrote Lock a personal letter arguing that the reactions of the Jews proved not only that they sought to deprive the Muslims of the religious property of Abu Maidian but also that they were plotting to take over the entire Haram al-Sharif. Early in October, al-Hajj Amin’s paper
Al-Jamaa’ al-Arabiyya
published articles about the Muslim right to the Abu Maidian. Though in October and November 1928 the Jewish leadership in Palestine tried to respond moderately and defuse the tension, as usual its overseas representatives took a more radical stance and suggested that the British government force the sale of the Western Wall to the Jews.
⁶³

In the winter of 1928, the British authorities in Palestine decided to intervene, and as a first step they published a White Paper. Considering the mounting confrontation as part of the conflict surrounding the future of the country as a whole, the White Paper linked the issue of the Wall with that of the legislative assembly. The Colonial Office backed the
mufti
’s positions both on the legislative assembly (he held that its membership should reflect the demographic ratio in the land) and on the ownership of the Wall. On the ground, however, the Jewish presence at the Western Wall continued to increase, and practical talks about creating a parliament in Palestine were not renewed.
⁶⁴

Al-Hajj Amin felt frustrated by the government’s attitude and launched what he called a holy war for the Haram. At first the war was vocal: he stationed a
muezzin
above the Wall who called on the Muslims to come and defend the Wall five times a day, disturbing the Jewish prayers below. To the same end, the Muslims also revived the loud
zikr
rites commonly practiced by Sufi sects. Gathering near the
little garden close to the Wall, they filled the air with a deafening noise. ‘We promised our Mughrabi brothers, who are attached to the Sufi tradition, to reinstate these rites as in past times,’ the
mufti
explained to the Shaw Commission, which was appointed to investigate the violent outbreaks.
⁶⁵
He also ordered an additional wing to be added to the Shari‘a court building, and the stonemasons’ hammering and shouting made things harder still for the Jewish worshippers.

In the 1950s, the
mufti
would argue that the struggle had been directed against the British too, but this does not seem to have been the case. Though many Palestinian historians have accepted this argument, others such as Philip Mattar have not. After all, during that time al-Hajj Amin was trying to cooperate with the British authorities and urge them to adopt a pro-Palestinian position. He was suspicious about the British government in London but tended to trust many persons among the mandatory authorities.
⁶⁶

The year 1928 passed without a violent outbreak, but the war of words intensified and tensions kept mounting. In April 1929, High Commissioner John Chancellor suggested the
mufti
sell the religious property and allow the Jews to build a courtyard in front of the Western Wall. The
mufti
responded mildly, saying he could understand that the Jews needed to pray but such a concession would endanger Muslim standing throughout the Haram al-Sharif. Palestinian historiography, including recent work that draws on newly revealed materials, suggests that the
mufti
’s concern was not baseless and that there really was a Jewish plan to seize the entire Haram.
⁶⁷
But this does not correspond to the pragmatic Zionism of the time, which would have been satisfied with the Western Wall and would have regarded its possession as a major step forward for Zionism.

The 1929 outbreak was caused not only by the events in Jerusalem but also by larger circumstances. Some 90,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine between 1921 and 1929. Though the influx ebbed from 1926 to 1928, the presence of so many new immigrants in the labor market and the efforts of the Zionist organizations to purchase land for them made Zionism into a tangible factor in the lives of many ordinary Palestinians. While in 1920 Jews bought a total of 262 acres, in 1925 they bought 44,000 acres. During those ‘quiet years’, the Jews purchased a third of all the land they would acquire throughout the British Mandate, though never at such a fast rate as in 1925. By the end of 1928, there were about 100 Jewish settlements in the country, the leading commercial concessions were in Jewish hands and the
percentage of Jews in trade and industry kept growing. At the same time, rural Palestine was experiencing an economic decline, giving rise to internal migration to the growing cities, a process that would accelerate in the 1930s. Shanties began to surround the growing towns and cities, providing cheap labor for the urban population, both Jewish and Arab, and their misery could be used to achieve political objectives. Long working hours in inhuman conditions intensified the bitterness and produced pockets of wretchedness that in 1929 could explode into violent action. It was easy to persuade the populace that their misery was caused by Zionism, since the internal migration, the loss of land and employment, were connected to the growth of the Jewish community. This volatile situation was made worse by the activities of the Zionist rightwing movement Beitar, which launched a series of provocations that made the outbreak of violence unavoidable.

Yet the first half of 1929 passed relatively peacefully. Despite the tension in the city, al-Hajj Amin had the leisure to cooperate with an urban project that had been close to his heart for some time: the construction of a hotel to accommodate the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world. Appropriately enough, he named it ‘The Palace Hotel’. This not only advanced the development of Jerusalem, it also answered the demands of the Palestinian tourist industry, which watched anxiously as Jews became the principal hoteliers in the city. To pay for the construction of the new hotel, al-Hajj Amin used funds from the Muslim religious properties. The site chosen was in the heart of the Mamilla neighborhood. This fact provoked a response that is only too familiar in our time: Muslim religious scholars protested that it would be built on top of Muslim graves (as though there were any site in Jerusalem that does not contain tombs!).

At long last, the objections were dropped and the building rose up. Designed by an imaginative and experienced Turkish architect, it elegantly blended Arab and Western elements. The contractors were Jewish. Engineer Baruch Katinka and his colleague Tuviah Dunya, a well-known figure in the Jewish community, owned a construction company that operated in Haifa and Jerusalem during the 1920s.

Early in 1927, Katinka heard from a Palestinian acquaintance that the Supreme Muslim Council had published a tender for the construction of a hotel, which the acquaintance thought would be a suitable project for Katinka and Dunya. Moreover, he suggested that they add his name – Oud – to the bid, so that it could appear to be a Jewish-Arab enterprise. To their surprise, the contractors won the tender. As
Katinka recalled, they continued to be surprised during their meeting with al-Hajj Amin and Hilmi Pasha: ‘They received us courteously, and got down directly to drafting the contract.’ Other preconceived ideas were dispelled in the course of the negotiations. Al-Hajj Amin demanded that the contractors meet the stiff timetable he had set for the project.

An elaborate Arabic inscription was painstakingly carved and placed high on the hotel’s façade. The entire building was designed in arabesque style, expressing the taste of the Turkish architect Nihas Bey. Al-Hajj Amin demanded that the contractors give priority to Arab workers, which they did. As often happens in Jerusalem, on the second day of the project Katinka came across ancient burials. The worried
mufti
asked him to keep it secret, fearing that the work would be stopped. He knew only too well that Raghib al-Nashashibi would not hesitate to turn the ‘desecration’ to his own political ends. ‘And so I became the Mufti’s confidant,’ wrote Katinka in his memoirs. He found al-Hajj Amin ‘a fairly easy person, intelligent, sharp and polite’. This was probably the last favorable comment made by a Zionist about al-Hajj Amin.

Al-Hajj Amin came to the site every day to observe the progress and often expressed his satisfaction with the work of the Jewish contractors. He was so pleased with them that he hired them to build his new house in Sheikh Jarrah. ‘It was 1929,’ Katinka recalled, ‘and the tension between Jews and Arabs was mounting day by day. But my association with the Mufti had reached the stage of warm personal conversations.’ Al-Hajj Amin revealed to Katinka that his financial situation did not allow him to finish his house: ‘The foundations have been laid, but the rest is stuck.’ After studying the plans, Katinka offered to build the house cheaply and complete it in two years.

Al-Hajj Amin’s house rose up, as did the hotel – both built by the Jewish contractors. This was not a trivial matter. Dunya was Chaim Weizmann’s brother-in-law and friend, and al-Hajj Amin knew it. Dunya recalled that al-Hajj Amin tried to send political messages through him, but he politely declined. One message, however, that al-Hajj Amin communicated to Dunya (though not to Weizmann) was that his opposition to the partition of the country was not personal but political, because it would not be accepted by the majority of the Palestinians. ‘When I stand before the Arab people and announce that I have come to an agreement with the Jews, based on concessions I made them, the entire Arab people would ostracize me and denounce me as a traitor who sold his homeland.’

At the hotel’s opening ceremony, al-Hajj Amin publicly praised Katinka and Dunya, and thereafter always invited them to the Nabi Musa celebrations. He also sent them platters with warm dishes at the end of Passover, so they could enjoy fresh risen bread as soon as possible. Dunya and Katinka ‘repaid’ him by using the hotel to hide two arms caches for the Hagana.
⁶⁸

But this kind of local and personal cooperation did not extend to the political arena. Tensions rose from day to day leading up to the eruption of 1929. (The Palace Hotel, incidentally, lasted for five years, then closed when the new King David Hotel eclipsed it as Jerusalem’s most palatial hostelry.)

The
mufti
continued to cooperate with the British authorities through the spring and summer of 1929 in the hope of stopping the escalation, and he was bitterly disappointed when it turned out to have been in vain. In the summer of 1929, a new government came to power in London – a Labour government led by the vacillating Ramsay MacDonald. Colonial Secretary Sidney Webb had yet to acquaint himself with the issues. Between them they suspended all British action and initiatives in Palestine, and in the absence of clear directives, the mandatory government dealt only with the symptoms.