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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
THE GRAND MUFTI OF JERUSALEM, HAJ AMIN
EL-HUSSEINI, WAS APPOINTED BY THE BRITISH, MUCH AS FEISAL HUSSEINI PLAYS A SIMILAR ROLE IN
JERUSALEM TODAY ON BEHALF OF THE ISRAELIS AND THE AMERICANS.
MER - Washington - April 13:
One always has to be abit suspect with commentary coming from the
Israelis these days. The Labor Party/ Peace Now crowd are pretty crafty. And the Likud has
picked up alot of the P.R. and journalistic tricks as well.
Even so, there are sometimes very interesting columns and editorials
in the Israeli press; and as long as one puts them in perspective and remains alert
for often subtle biases and slants they can be of considerable interest.
No doubt this recent article by Joel Bainerman has exceptionally
appologetic Zionist overtones, more overt than subtle in fact. But even so, there's
considerable history here that has been forgotten or "misplaced"; and
which should be revisted and repondered today by those seriously involved.
For whatever ones views of the end-result of these past 50 years,
and of the "peace process" underway today, there are strong threads of
continuity in history and remembering this is of considerable importance to the present.
WERE JEWS AND ARABS
DESTINED TO HATE EACH OTHER?
By: Joel Bainerman
Zichron Yaacov, Israel -- Probably one of the most important books
for both Jews and Arabs to read is called "The Rape of Palestine"
first published in 1938 by William Ziff by Argus Books in the US.
The cover says nothing about who William Ziff is.
The book documents the difference between the overall pro-Jewish
sentiments of the British political elite who saw a strong Jewish
presence in Palestine as being good for the British empire, and
the group of high level anti-Jewish British officials who believed
that the Jews would become so powerful (if Britain let them) that they would no longer
have to accede to British demands.
The latter group was entirely right. A strong Jewish presence in Palestine meant Jewish
national independence which wouldn't serve the British masters the way the Arab puppets
did. Arab tribal
leaders were corruptible and this was the only way those running
Britain's colonial policies could control them. They realized
that controlling the Jews was not going to be so as easy. So they
placed obstacle after obstacle before any attempts to settle large
numbers of Jews in Palestine. The official reason for restricting
Jewish immigration was that the "economic capacity of the land" could not
support more than a million people. This was a lie, but few
challenged the British when they proclaimed it in their various
"government commissions."
The book also documents how one-sided the British were in doling
out public funds. As the Jews in Palestine increased in number the
economy boomed and in l935, the Yishuv, even though only comprising one-third of the
residents, were paying 75% of the taxes to the British occupiers. Yet little of that money
found its way back into roads or schools serving Jewish towns. Ziff must have gone through
nearly every British government archive to document his claims that had the British left
Palestine in the late 20's or early 30's, the Jews would have had a state before l948 and
which would possibly have been established around (and thriving) before Hitler came to
power thus saving the bulk of European Jewry. While no historian has ever blamed the
British for the destruction of European Jewry, Ziff's book documents that claim.
Ziff's book (which was published first in l938 but probably took
three or four years of research to write) documents how the British
"created" the opposition to Zionism and that up until these so-called
"radical Arab leaders" came into the picture, most Arab residents of
Palestine wanted nothing more than to live in peace and prosperity with the Jews which
they believed was their good fortune.
"The Moslem religious leaders, the Mufti, was openly friendly.
Throughout Arabia, the chiefs were for the most part distinctly
pro-Zionist: and in Palestine the peasantry were delighted at every
prospect of Jewish settlement near their villages. Commercial
intercourse between Arab and Jew was constant and steady." pp.13
"The Arab National Movement was hated by the huge Levantine
population who continued to regard themselves simply as Ottoman
subjects, looked to the strong, influential Zionist Organization
for sympathy and assistance."
"Hussein of the Hejaz looked to the Zionists for the financial
and scientific experience of which the projected Arab state would
standly badly in need. In May 1918, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Hussein of the Hejaz met in
Cairo where the latter spoke of mutual cooperation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. In
early l9l9 a Treaty of Friendship was signed to provide for "the closest possible
collaboration in the development of the Arab state and the coming
Jewish Commonwealth of Palestine. On March 3, l9l9, another Arab
leader, Feisal, son of Sherif, wrote: "We wish the Jews a most hearty welcome
home."
If Ziff's words are accurate, there was no Arab opposition to Jewish immigration to
Palestine at least as far back as l919.
Ziff writes:
"With conscious design the Administration fostered hostility
between Arab and Jews. It directly advised the amazed Arabs of
Palestine and Egypt to abstain from any concessions to the Jews.
It formed the Moslem-Christian Association and used it as a weapon against the Zionists.
It instructed astonished Arab young-bloods to the technique and tents (sic) of modern
nationalism, in order to resist Jewish 'pretenses.'
And in London it contacted reliable anti-Jewish elements to form a liason which has
endured to this day. The Arabs were not only instigated and advised, but supplied with
funds, and their arguments ghost-written by Englishmen in high places. They proved a good
investment."
"Matters came to a head in l920 when Feisal staged a revolt against the French in
Damascus, with money and ammunition supplied by the British General Headquarters. He had
been proclaimed King by a 'Syrian Congress' which included Palestinians, and which
asserted the principle that Palestine was a part of Syria and couldn't be cut off from it.
Almost simultaneously, in order to show how impossible it was to implement the Balfour
Declaration in the face of native hostility, the Generals arranged a pogrom in
Jerusalem."
Ziff believed that the stage was set charging that "the riots of April l920 was
perfectly timed." He reveals how Arab agitators ran through the Moslem crowds
gathered for the Nebi Moussa festival in
Jerusalem, urging 'death to the Jews' and that 'the government is with us.'
Ziff discovered that all Jewish policemen had been relieved from duty in the Old City.
He says that such planned riots occured again in April l921 in
Jerusalem. Ziff charges that the British Commandant of Police was
"conveniently out of the country. The few Jews on the police
force had been mysteriously taken off duty for the day. The Arab mob shouted:
"Bolshevki! Bolseviki! The Zionists are flooding the country with Bolsheviki!" pp.
20
While many students of the Arab-Israeli conflict have heard the
name "the Mufti of Jerusalem" most don't know how the Mufti became "the
Mufti." Ziff writes:
"Implicated in the disturbances was a political adventurer named
Haj Amin al Husseini. Haj Amin, was sentenced by a British court to
fifteen years hard labor. Coveniently allowed to escape by the police, he was a fugitive
in Syria. Shortly after, the British then allowed him to return to Palestine where,
despite the opposition of the Moslem High Council who regarded him as a hoodlum, Haj Amin
was appointed by the British High Commissioner as Grand Mufi of Jerusalem for life." pp.
22
Regarding the Arab pogroms of l929, Alif Beh, an Arab newspaper
in Damascus, wrote: "the uprising was the result of British intrigue...the English
were looking for an excuse to reject the demands of the Jewish Agency to participate in
the administration of the country, and encouraged the Arabs to teach the Jews a
lesson."
Regarding Arab views towards Jewish immigration, Ziff quotes
Count Carlos Sforza in his books, 'Europe and Europeans': "Syrians of all classes,
who had been watching Palestine's development with envious yes, were anxious to have
something of the same phenomena duplicated in their country."
This desire is written in the clamorous petition sent to the
French in l935 by the inhabitants of Lebanon, begging them to encourage Jewish immigration
as that would bring prosperity. Said the Damascus newspaper, "Iissan Alkhar":
"We ought to demand Jewish immigration, for through it our situation will be
saved."
Sensing that some crude agenda was being played out with their
collective destiny, in May l930, the Jerusalem-based Arab newspaper 'Al Iqdam' in wrote:
"We are led by a group of men who
bargain us away, buying and selling us like cattle. The Arab people
have not yet said their last word on the Arab-Jewish question. When
this word has been said, it will not be one of hatred, but one of
peace and brotherhood, as is suitable for two people who live in one country."
During a seminar of leading Moslems and Christians of Nazareth in
March l934, as statement given to the press read: "On behalf of the
majority of the property-owners and consumers, we declare that we
would welcome Jewish immigration and trust that the enlightened Jews with their financial
commercial associations bring."
Ziff is suggesting that the opposition to Jewish immigration to
Palestine by Arabs was not nearly as widespread as conventional
wisdom and standard history books on the subject has led us to believe. By the time the
Peel Commission was in full swing in l937, Arab desires for rapprochment began appearing,
there had begun appearing in the press Arab desires for rapprochment with the Jews. From
the New York Times of August 5th, l937, we read: "For the first time in the twenty
years since the Balfour Declaration, the Arabs openly censured the Palestine Government
for never having attempted to bring the two peoples together."
The Arab newspaper 'Falastin,' claimed in an editorial that, "despite British
allegations of an unbreachable enmity between Jews and
Arabs, we cannot recall a single instance since the British occupation here when they made
the slightest effort to bring the Arabs and Jews together. Pre-war Jewish residents lived
here peacefully with Arabs for hundreds of years. To this day these Jews, in addition to
the Arabs, maintain that if it were not for British policy of divide and rule the Arabs
and Jews would again live in Palestine in peace and harmony."
On November 15th, l937 the Arab daily 'Ad-Difaa' asserted that
the British Government had categorically rejected all proposals for a
round-table discussion between Jews, Arabs and British, through
the Jews and Arabs alike were anxious for such a meeting. After
talking toall sections of the Arab population, the Near East
correspondent for the New York Times reported on November 21st, that their unnaminous cry
was "we've suffered enough and we don't wish to have any more trouble. May Allah
curse them and cut off the lives of these intruders from the outside who are disturbing
our existence."
Pamphlets were distributed in Arab villages throughout Palestine
violently attacking Great Britain as being "the cause of their
ruin. (pp.104)"
Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez, former President of Cuba's Chamber of
Deputies, stated after his visit to the Holy Land in late l936, that
he saw "no evidence of friction or disagreement between the Arab and Jewish people in
Palestine," and that "if Arabs and Jews were let to their own councils they
could settle the Palestine problem wisely and permanently."
Contrary to what history books tell us, there was Arab opposition
to British rule - and a genuine desire to live in peace with the Jews - even as late as
l937.
Describing the Arab predictment, which has not changed in the six
decades since he wrote his book, in the epilogue Ziff states: "The Arabs are
compelled to free themselves from the present despotic and feudal regimes under which all
the Arab peoples suffer. In Arab countries, despite the paper constitutions, which exist
in several of them, there is little in the way of liberty. Poverty and ignorance are
endemic."
What is important about Ziff's book is that it was written close to when the events were
taking place. It is a version of history that few of us who believe ourselves to be
students of the "Arab-Israeli conflict" have ever come across. It is the first
revisionist historical account of the role the British played in the modern Middle East in
general, and in the Arab-Israeli conflict in specific. Its main premise, that the
Arab-Israeli conflict was created and stoked by the British, and isn't the result of
ethnic hatred of the participants, is in a sense a revolutionary new perspective in
Zionist history.
If nothing more, Ziff's book should encourage the Israeli government to establish a body
that aims to change all of the street names in the country that are named after
British Mandate personalities. The British government was the reason why it took
Israel until l948 to reach independence. Considering the state of the Yishuv's
economy in l937, independence then was possible. Had the British not ruled
Palestine, by l930 unrestricted Jewish immigration and the hard work and creativity of the
new Jewish immigrants would have created an economy twice as large as it was at the time.
in 1930. The Arabs themselves acknowledge that they would have participated fully in this
unprecedented economic boom.
Instead, the British government created phony Arab "radicals" like
Haj Amin, to stoke the conflict. The British government was also to
blame for corrupting Arab leaders and conspiring to keep all Arabs poor and their economy
undeveloped.
Just as French collaborators and Nazis are still brought before tribunals and charged with
"crimes against humanity" so too should members of the British colonial office
who directed the overall policy in Mandated Palestine to pit the Jews and the Arabs
against each other. As this policy kept the Jews from being able to help their brothers
fleeing from Nazi Germany, the crime is also of Genocide.
*Joel Bainerman writes on Israeli political
and economic affairs and if often published by right-wing Israeli media.
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