ARTICLE # 10: THE EMERGENCE OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN JEWS AND ARABS IN PALESTINE 1880-1917
ARAB NATIONALISM 1880-1914, MUSLEM REACTION TO THE ZIONIST PROJECT; WW1-THE BRITISH PROMISES AND A SECRET TREATY
NOTE: Paragraphs 1-4 are a bit of a reprise of part of Article #5. Also, I variously spell the name of the son of Sharif Hussein Faysal or Faisal. What is important to The Conflict here is the continuing developement of a sense of Arab nationalism and frustration with Ottoman rule and its inability to control Jewish immigration to Palestine. In addition, the Arab leaders in Palestine were making it clear that they opposed the Zionist Project and saw the Jewish immigrants as setting themselves apart. They were courted by the British who promised one of the Arab leaders in a seires of letters post war independence over a large area; but at the same time the British negotiated with France a secret agreement governing their respective areas of control in part of the Middle East (including Israel/Palestine) after the war. Meanwhile conflicts often violent were breaking out between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. And Arabs in Palestine were protesting to the Ottomans the sales of land to Jews and the extent of Jewish immigration.
GROWTH OF ARAB NATIONALISM
1 By the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a large part of the Muslim world had begun to lose much of its cultural and political sovereignty to Christian occupiers from Europe. This came as a result of European trade missions during earlier centuries that had propagated Western technology and modernization. There was a large shift of power due to the declining Ottoman Empire, which led to an essential subordination of Muslims because of Western technology and modernization. This subjugation by Christian empires led Muslims of the Middle East to question their own beliefs as well as their aspirations, making many wonder whether the success of Western occupation was due to the inferiority of their own Islamic ideals. Out of these self-criticisms came an assortment of responses, including adaptation of Western ideals, advocating for separation of religion and politics, complete rejection, and calls for armed struggle against Western powers. However, one of the major responses to western modernization and occupation of the Muslim world was Islamic modernism.1
2 Islamic modernism was an attempt to reach a medium between adaptation and rejection. Two influential proponents discussed in Article #5 of this idea were Islamic reformers Jamal al-Din and his pupil Muhammad Abduh. They blamed the decline of Muslim societies and their occupation by the West on taqlid, a “blind and unquestioned clinging to the past.”2 According to some scholars, Muslims could not accept the idea that man is the “measure of all things,” which was an idea brought to the Middle East by various Westerners who went to the Middle East to preach, to teach, to help the Ottoman empire modernize.
3 However there was the sense that Muslims were failing their religion with Western thought and practices corrupting it or even persuading Muslems to abandon true Islam. Al-Afghani blamed European influence for the division between Muslims, ie between reformers and traditionalist. He thus advocated for pan-Muslim unity as a project to revitalize Islam as a cohesive force against the Western hold, and argued that new interpretations of Islam were needed to confront questions posed by modernity. Their followers would create their own magazines and political parties to develop these ideas.
4 Abduh influenced modern Arab nationalism in particular, because the revival of true Islam's ancestors (who were Arabs) would also become the revival of Arab culture and the restoration of the Arab position as the leaders of the Islamic world. One of Abduh's followers, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, openly declared that the Ottoman Empire should be both Turkish and Arab, with the latter exercising religious and cultural leadership.
5 In 1911, Arab intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), a small Arab nationalist club, in Paris. Its stated aim was "raising the level of the Arab nation to the level of modern nations." In the first few years of its existence, al-Fatat called for greater autonomy within a unified Ottoman state rather than Arab independence from the empire. Al-Fatat hosted the Arab Congress of 1913 in Paris, the purpose of which was to discuss desired reforms with other dissenting individuals from the Arab world. They also requested that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army not be required to serve in non-Arab regions except in time of war. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.
6 Nationalist individuals became more prominent during the waning years of Ottoman authority, but the idea of Arab nationalism had virtually no impact on the majority of Arabs as they considered themselves loyal subjects of the Ottoman Empire and for the most part were uneducated and living in small villages and towns farming and shepherding.
WORLD WAR 1 (DAMASCUS PROTOCAL; MCMAHON-HUSSEIN LETTERS; SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT)
7 When in 1914 the Turks decided to join the Axis powers, Britain’s approach towards the Arabs became one of seeking their support to overthrow the Turks in the Middle East. While there was some military value in the Arab manpower and local knowledge alongside the British Army, the primary reason for the arrangement was to counteract the Ottoman declaration of jihad ("holy war") against the Allies, and to maintain the support of the 70 million Muslims in British India (particularly those in the Indian Army that had been deployed in all major theatres of the wider war
8 WWI, with the Ottoman Empire siding with Germany had significant ramifications for the Jews and Arabs living in Palestine, which was still under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans threw out many Jewish Nationals of other nations and Jews and others were given the choice to become Ottoman citizens, which would require them to enlist in its army if of military age, or leave, which most did, and mostly to Egypt. Arabs who were usually Ottoman citizens were required to enlist. However, many of the upper caste were being pushed to support the British and evaded enlistment in various ways.
9 The Arab leadership had to decide how to deal with this issue. At a meeting in Damascus in May, 1915 Emir Faisal was presented on May 23rd by the leaders of two Arab secret societies, Al-Fatat and Al-Ahd with the document that became known as the Damascus Protocol. The document contained the demands the Arab leaders wanted Hussein to present to the British in return for the Arabs revolting against the Ottoman Empire. The demands included: British recognition of Arab independence over an area running from the 37th parallel near the Taurus Mountains on the southern border of Turkey, to be bounded in the east by Persia and the Persian Gulf, in the west by the Mediterranean Sea and in the south by the Arabian Sea. ( being most of today's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and the Israel/Palestine); the abolition of the capitulation regime, granting exceptional rights to foreigners; a defensive alliance between the British and the Arab state; and the "granting of economic preference" to the British.
10 Following those deliberations and the issuance of the Damascus Protocol, meetings ensued between Hussein and his sons in June 1915, during which Faisal counselled caution, Ali, one of Hussen’s sons, argued against rebellion and Abdullah, another of Hussein’s sons, advocated action and encouraged his father to enter into correspondence with Sir Henry McMahon (1862–1949), which he did.
11 The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence is a series of 10 letters that were exchanged that were exchanged from July 1915 to March 1916 between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner to Egypt during World War I. The Government of the United Kingdom agreed to recognize Arab independence in a large region after the war in exchange for the Sharif of Mecca launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The correspondence had a significant influence on Middle Eastern history during and after the war;
12 The area of Arab independence was defined to be "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca" with the exception of "portions of Syria" lying to the west of "the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo"; conflicting interpretations of this description were to cause great controversy in subsequent years. One particular dispute, which continues to the present is the extent of the coastal exclusion.
13 McMahon was in contact with British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey throughout; Grey was to authorise and be ultimately responsible for the correspondence.
14 However, while these letters were being exchanged, unbeknownst to the Arab leadership a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, had been negotiated to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control after an eventual partition or destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
15 The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente (The Russian Empire, Great Britain and France) would achieve success in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I, thus contemplating its partition. The primary negotiations leading to the agreement took place between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes (1879-1919) and François Georges-Picot (1870-1951), initialled an agreed memorandum The agreement was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916.
16 The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. The British- and French-controlled countries were divided by the Sykes–Picot line.The agreement allocated to the UK control of what is today Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean. France was to control southeastern Turkey, the Kurdistan Region, Syria and Lebanon.
17 Historians have used an excerpt from a private letter sent on 4 December 1915 by McMahon halfway through the eight-month period of the correspondence as evidence of possible British duplicity:
[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State ... too seriously ... the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing ... I do not for one moment go to the length of imagining that the present negotiations will go far to shape the future form of Arabia or to either establish our rights or to bind our hands in that country. The situation and its elements are much too nebulous for that. What we have to arrive at now is to tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them from the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words, and to succeed we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions—whether about Baghdad or elsewhere.
18 The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. It reneged upon the UK's promises to Arabs regarding a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria in exchange for supporting the British against the Ottoman Empire (Hussein-McMahon letters). The Sykes-Picot agreement was made public by the Bolsheviks in Moscow on 23 November 1917 and repeated in The Manchester Guardian on 26 November 1917, such that "the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted”.
ARAB REACTION TO ZIONISM IN PALESTINE1880-1917
19 In 1900 there were approximately 500,000 Jews scattered through the Ottoman Empire of which about 23,000 were in Palestine.
20 In 1881 some Arab notables sent a petition to Constantinople urging the prohibition of Jewish immigration and land purchases. The Ottomans imposed in 1882 official measures to prevent Jews from entering Palestine through the ports of Jaffa, Haifa & Beirut.
21 In 1899 an ancestor of the author Rashid Khalidi, Yusuf Dia Pasha al-Khalidi (1842–1906), who at the time was the Mayor of Jerusalem wrote to the Grand Rabbi of France, but sent to Theodore Herzl expressing his understanding of why the Jews needed a place to escape Christian persecution, and that he understood why Palestine would be that place, but he urged Hertzl to look elsewhere and concluded with a heartfelt plea, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” He had expressed his view that Zionism would put unnecessary tensions between Muslems, Jews and Christians already living there. He perhaps was the first Arab to identify the problems the Zionist project would might cause for the people living in Palestine (mostly Arabs).
22 Herzl responded by stating that the Arab population would benefit from the money and skills Jews would bring in, and by an appreciation in land values that would inevitably occur. He stated that there was no wish to push the Arabs out, although he had confided that he thought that moving the poor Arab population into other areas might be necessary
23 In 1905 one Najib Azoury (1870-1916) wrote a book “The Awakening of the Arab Nation” in which he called for separation from the Ottoman Empire. The book had clear anti semitic and anti zionist undertones. He noted the two important phenomena were developing: the awakening of Arab nationalism and the attempt of the Jews to reestablish on a large scale the Kingdom of Israel. He predicted that there would be a clash between these two nationalisms that would continue until one conquered the other.
24 By 1908, there were 26 agricultural settlements and the 2 main Arab cities of Jaffa and Haifa had seen the settlement of Jews there. (Over 80% of Jewish immigrants wished to settle in towns, not agricultural areas). Where these settlements were established on land on which Arab peasants who occupied the lands as tenant farmers or shephers of the previous Arab owners, the Jews began evicting them from their homes as often the political and social philosophy was one of fierce independence, hiring no one to do the work required to make the land productive. Many of these displaced peasants, called fellahins (not to be mistaken with fedayeen, or warriors), gravitated to the urban centres where they became a restless and embittered group, particularly against the Zionist project because of the fate they had directly suffered at its hands. This problem only grew worse as Jewish land purchases increased over the ensuing years.
25 In March 1908 the first significant outbreak of violence between the two groups, occured in Jaffa where Jews had their centre of operations. Two “raiding parties” occured in which fighting ensued, some people were stabbed, some injured seriously.
26 By 1910 a burgeoning Arab press had taken note of the Zionist arrival and its implications for the Arab population. Some writers warned that Zionism was not just about immigration, but had as its goal, the takeover of Palestine. Some noted .how Jewish establishments more and more refrained from hiring or interacting with Arabs and started to keep to themselves.
27 By 1911 violence became endemic and had spread all over the country. Jews were being murdered.
28 From 1908 - 1914 intense pressure was being put by Palestinian representative on the Turkish (Ottoman ) government to forbid land sales to Jews. The rise of Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) seemed to energize the Arab leadership as it became more vocal in urging the government to stop the Zionist movement. The government did forbid any further land sales but the regulations were often evaded and Ottoman citizens stood in for the real Jewish owners. Ironicially almost all the land sales were made by Arabs, often absentee landlords, many of them among the Notable (eminent) families of Palestine.
29 During this same period antizionist newpapers were published in Haifa, Beirut, Jaffa and Damascs which included protests against Jewish land purchases.
30 From 1886 to 1914 Arab bands attacked Gadera, Rehovot, Ben Shemen, Hadera, Ssejera,Merhaviya, Kinneret and Degania.
31 Aside from the acts of violence as the Jews and Arabs became more and more hostile to each other, the Arab leaders, usuallly called the Notables, made it clear throughout this period that the Zionist Project was not approved of and would be contested wherever and whenever possible. However, unlike the Zionist leadership which was proceding with state building through developing the appropriate insitutions and organizations to form a state, the Arab Notables were divided and unable to act cohesively or to do what the Zionists were doing so as to combat or compete or challenge the Zionists on the ground in Palestine.
32 In 1914 a leader of an Arab political party wrote that “we see Jews excluding themselves completely from Arabs in language, school, commerce, customs, in their entire economic life.” He went on to complain that the Jewish settlers considered the indigenous government to be of “a foreign race”. He stated “This is the reason for the grievance of the Arabs of Syria and Palestine against Jewish immigration”.
33 Thus had begun in earnest the growing conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and things were only to get worse.
NEXT POSTING Oct 28th: ARTICLE # 11 EARLY ZIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES